MINDSET
Part 3
So, what does growth-mindset look like? Well, it looks
like Henry Ford, Michael Jordan, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Thomas
Edison, Jack Welch, and Winston Churchill. Let me explain. According to Dr.
Dweck in
Mindset, a growth-mindset is
more concerned about learning than grades. Thus, growth-mindsets find new ways
to create learning. Henry Ford showed this love for learning over his paycheck
by constantly taking a new position at the bottom of a new job every time that
he just mastered his old one. People thought he was crazy not to stay in the
job that he had mastered. And they thought that he was even crazier to take a
pay-cut to go back to the bottom of a new job. He did it because along with his
vision, the learning was more important than the paycheck and praise.
According to Dr. Dweck, a growth-mindset never rest on
their laurels as the best, but keeps making an effort to learn and to become
even better. This is exactly what Michael Jordan did. He was always willing to
work harder than anyone else, even at the height of his career. Former Bulls
assistant coach John Bach called him, “A genius who constantly wants to upgrade
his genius.”
In addition, Dr. Dweck shares that a growth-mindset
teacher or coach doesn’t judge, but in contrast, gives equal treatment to each
youth. This is exactly what Coach John Wooden did at UCLA as he equally
expected each and every player to get a little bit better every day while equal
concern, compassion, and consideration for each and every one of his players
were always priorities of the highest order for him. Concern for his players
were even more important than winning. And as you probably already know, Coach
John Wooden won a lot!
A growth-mindset doesn’t make excuses, even when they
have good excuses. One of Coach John Wooden’s star basketball players, Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar, could have made lots of excuses when basketball outlawed his
signature shot, the dunk. Instead, he went right to work on his other shots;
perfecting them. His skyhook shot became unstoppable and carried him, his
teammates, and future teams/organizations to many, many victories over the
years. His growth-mindset coach did a great job teaching him a growth-mindset
and countless people benefitted from it.
Similar to Coach Wooden, Thomas Edison was a
growth-mindset type of person who also helped others become growth-mindset. Not
only did he model and live a growth-mindset, but he also mentored the
previously mentioned Henry Ford and laid the way at General Electric for future
CEO, Jack Welch.
Thomas
Edison was once asked by a reporter what it felt like to have failed 10,000
times to create a light bulb. A fixed-mindset would have seen each one of these
attempts as horrible failures and would never have been able to persevere long
enough to create a better light bulb. Thomas Edison, however, didn’t look at
life like this. His growth-mindset framed that constant internal conversation
going on in his head of: What is happening? What does it mean? What should I do
about it? Edison knew exactly what to do. He smiled at that reporter and said,
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison knew
that with each way that wouldn’t work, he was one step closer to finding the
way that would work.
Jack Welch was the most widely admired, studied, and
imitated CEO of his time. And one of the things that made him great was that he
surrounded himself with great people that he had selected through mindset
rather than pedigree.
Welch was growth-mindset all the way through. He was
constantly learning. And when he needed to know more he went directly to his
front-line employees to figure out what was going on. He respected these
people, and learned from them. It was always “we” not “I” with Jack Welch while
he ran General Electric.
General Electric was always about growth, not
self-importance under Welch. He shut down elitism. Got rid of brutal bosses.
Always asked his people at all levels what they liked and didn’t like about the
company. His approved way to being more productive was through mentoring, not
through terror. Leaders were encouraged to share credit for their ideas and
successes with their teams. In the end, Welch as well as thousands of others,
benefited immensely from his growth-mindset.
Finally, there is Winston Churchill. Being a leader is
stressful, especially during wartime. And as mentioned earlier, fixed-mindsets
tend to eliminate their competition and silence the critics so they get only
good news from their subordinates and thus continue look good, whether it’s
true or not. This type of silence that only allows one voice, and sometimes
even only one way of thinking comes from a dangerous phenomenon called
groupthink according to Dr. Dweck. Fortunately for England, Churchill was a
growth-mindset type of person that combatted groupthink by setting up a special
department. The job of this department was to give Churchill all the worse
news. This helped keep Churchill out of a false sense of security and forced
him and his team to keep learning and searching for better ways to beat Hitler.
Next month’s article will explain how to be a
growth-mindset type of person…
Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!
www.GranddaddysSecrets.com
