In many settings, leaders are taught to seek out those with growth mindsets and pursue them. We are taught to find opportunities for high performers who have these growth mindsets and manage out those who have a fixed mindset.
All of that is fine if you want to continue hiring and firing forever. It’s great if you want to embark on an endless search for the next magic bullet.
If I had to guess, there isn’t anyone who enjoys picking off folks with fixed mindsets and only promoting growth mindset folks. It isn’t very fun, and it doesn’t make us feel great. It’s more compassionate—and certainly less expensive—to seek to understand, connect, and evolve.
We need to understand why people don’t want to change. Mindset is not a static state! It’s incredibly malleable and variable. But how do we start?
This is where we take a page out of the 5Y problem solving method and get to the heart of the matter by asking open-ended questions until you get to the genesis of the mindset.
This is an excellent framework for a leader or coach to connect with a team member as they try to catalyze change. People with a fixed mindset might say that they are giving up. They might even say they are incapable of change, or that “it’s my way or the highway.”
Your job as a coach is to ask why.
Why do you think you aren’t capable of change?
What would happen if you changed?
What would happen if you failed?
How would you feel?
You need to drill down to find what is behind the fixed mindset to find out how to change it. No one is born with a fixed mindset. It is learned and the genesis of that is typically fear or shame. No one likes to appear vulnerable, yet all of us are. All of us are fallible.
If you ask the right questions in a non-threatening, supportive setting, chances are your direct report with the fixed mindset who is digging in their heels and saying they can’t or won’t change is afraid.
They are afraid of looking stupid, being wrong, getting fired, or failing.
Usually, the root of this has to do with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It doesn’t have to do with ego. It has everything to do with the safety needs that are close to the base of the pyramid. The safety needs are security, employment, and resources. At the end of the day, folks with a fixed mindset are often afraid they will lose their jobs—especially sellers, who have variable compensation. The root of the fear is feeling unsafe. That might be a physical or emotional fear, but it is valid.
Companies can be heartless. All too often they fire people who fail or who don’t change without showing them that it is safe to change.
Change is hard! It’s scary! It is even more scary when we are learning something new and might stumble once or twice. If we add that to a fear of losing our employment if we fail, it’s no wonder some folks develop a fixed mindset.
How do we get back on track?
The manager or coach needs to first look at what is happening. Practice your proactive listening skills. Pay attention to your body language, facial expression, and tone. Make a commitment to checking your judgment at the door. This is hard for many people in a corporate environment.
We are taught to wear armor and pretend like we are allergic to emotion, yet we all feel it. There is a need within all of us to belong. No one wants to build a business relationship with a robot, so why do we pretend to be that way?
Make a concerted effort to create a safe environment and listen without judgment. Again, this isn’t corrective listening. We aren’t listening to respond; we are listening to understand. It is important to see the full picture that our team members can provide for us. Equally important is understanding how they feel, what their motivations are, and how external forces impact them.
We can turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset.
There, I said it. Our brains are highly plastic. We are capable of rewiring our brains to create new neural pathways, habits, and thought processes. It becomes easier with practice, as many things do. Criticism of the fixed and growth mindset theories might suggest that we over-index on how much a person can change, but I would suggest it is the opposite. It is my belief that organizations over-index on their employees’ current state and far underestimate their capacity to change.
As we continue on this change management journey, what becomes important is the distress tolerance element of the equation. Our teams will inevitably say or do something that we don’t like. How we respond, even in our expression, is important. We need to show that we care.
It is perfectly alright to say, “I’m surprised to hear that. Tell me a little bit more so I can make sure I fully understand.” What you don’t want to do is have a big reaction and lose the trust of someone who is working for you. Alternatively, you don’t want to disengage and turn out the lights on your interaction. Showing somebody that you don’t care about their reality, whether that is with your words, actions, and focus, is a one-way ticket to reinforcing a fixed mindset.
We’re all human. Leaders like to pretend they don’t have a soft underbelly. We all like to pretend we don’t have triggers or fears. When leaders and managers can lead by example and embrace feelings of distress and disappointment, it becomes easier to tolerate in others. It becomes less of a failure and more of a data point.
It sounds counter intuitive, right? Totally. But if we can lean into negative feelings and embrace them, it diminishes their power. It is like declawing a cat. It is still a cat, but it is much less likely to ruin your couch.
If we pull it back up to mindset, when leaders and managers can embrace negative feelings in the workplace, it helps the folks with a fixed mindset become more malleable. They become more flexible, they may be willing to take some risks, or even just talk about their experiences.
