The day I discovered that mindsets are not purely fixed or growth - Part Two

So, in Part One, I recounted how we discovered that only 13.7% of the respondents in our dataset could definitively be identified as having either the growth or fixed mindset, and the other 86.3% of them had what I would call the "Transitional" Mindset. Yet, this was not our biggest discovery!

Diving into the data, we could see that even though a respondent scored an average of, say, 3.9, the dispersion of scores told us a different thing. Some behaviours had very high scores and some had very low scores, averaging them out to a mid-score. This meant that respondents may be growth in certain situations and fixed in others (and that is consistent with our definition of the Transitional Mindset), but by using the average score to achieve a single mindset value, we would miss these opportunities.

This begged the question, “Are the behaviours in their growth scores linked? Is there also a correlation among their fixed scores?” As mentioned, at that time, we used a set of 30 behavioural statements that were ranked independently along the ipsative scale of “Least Like Me” to “Most Like Me.”  With the operating assumption that people were either fixed or growth minded, we had expected that there be relatively low, or no, spread among the scores. In other words, if you had a growth mindset, then practically all the behaviours in the assessment should be in the growth region, and vice versa. The fact that there WAS spread, and that there were some growth and some fixed behaviours within each set of responses, led us to consider if indeed there was some form of clustering among certain behaviours.

We had to find that out.

To do this, we did a separate thought exercise. Starting from first principles, and applying force field analysis and systems thinking, we created a whole system map of the growth mindset. Without going into too much boring details, we essentially brainstormed ALL the drivers of the “Mindset” system and then linked them up by lines. So “Experience” is one such driver, as are “Education”, “Social economic status”, “Risk”, “Rewards”, “Trials”.  These are all examples of drivers of “Mindset”.  I spent a better part of 3 days just brainstorming the different drivers on my whiteboard. (Those were the days of using the whiteboard, markers and Post-It notes!). I believe I came up with close to 80 different drivers.

Following that, I created a system map of linkages between drivers. With 80 drivers, you get a huge spaghetti diagram that looks something like this:

Don’t worry; this is NOT the growth mindset diagram. This is the US Policy for Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. If this looks complex, well, it is. But it is not complicated. Anyway, all such systems diagrams enable us to narrow down into what I call the Centres of Gravity (CGs) (in the diagram above, these include Popular Support, Infrastructure, Services & Economy, and Government Capacity, etc). In our case, we identified five CGs for our Mindset system: Learning, Bounce Back, Risk Taking, Forward and Pride. These were the five drivers that had the greatest number of linkages with the other drivers in the system. In other words, these key drivers impacted the whole “Mindset” system. These ultimately became the 5 Dimensions of the Growth Mindset.

Next, we mapped the 30 behaviour statements back onto each Dimension, ensuring that each statement belonged to just one primary Dimension. The results changed the way we looked at the behaviour statements. We saw a good degree of correlation with behaviours within each Dimension; meaning, when there was a higher score in one behaviour in a Dimension, there were also relatively higher scores for other behaviour statements within that Dimension. Of course not ALL behaviours would have higher scores, but when we took the average of these scores, they did return the higher average for that Dimension compared with the total average score.

And this was a SIGNIFICANT discovery!

Because with this, we could understand how a person could be growth in one area and fixed in another AT THE SAME TIME! This totally flew in the face of the dominant logic, which currently still posits that you only held one mindset at one time! This explained our data about the participant who was “proudly fixed” yet had an overall growth score. He was probably proud of being fixed in one of the Dimensions, while ignoring other Dimensions! Such phenomena could not be explained by a binary, singular dimensioned model!

Mindset, therefore, was no longer a binary system of “fixed” or “growth”, but is best depicted in a profile quite like this:

This discovery also provided for us a more realistic focus for development. No longer did we have to deal with nebulous ideas like “You should embrace the growth mindset more”.  Instead, we could concentrate on the specific behaviours that offer Dimensional advancement. So, instead of saying, “Accept ambiguity in your life,” we could now pinpoint the exact behaviours for development, like, “Build your TEFCAS response,” to prop up one’s Bounce Back tendencies. (The “TEFCAS Response” is a well-known resilience development program invented by the late Tony Buzan, creator of the Mind Map and other cognitive development programs. This author was close to him when he was alive.)

Finally, we could now also say with certainty that the fixed mindset was not necessarily bad, and the growth mindset was not necessarily good. The dominant logic, while it did not specifically articulate the good-bad nature of the growth and fixed mindset, implied that through the very words “growth” and “fixed”, and the behaviours that described them. If you read their literature, you would come to that same conclusion yourself. While we use the same “growth” and “fixed” terminologies, we do so in recognition of the origins of our journey and respecting the prior work provided by the dominant logic. However, we decry the notion that fixed is necessarily bad and growth is always good. They are simply two ends of a continuum of behaviours within a certain Dimension. Having fixed tendencies only means that you would prefer to approach a certain situation in a way that growth minded people may not. It may even be the better way! For example, as a lifeguard, my tendencies towards Risk Taking should well be more fixed; but as an investor, I could adopt a more growth stance (provided that I had the appropriate Bounce Back tendencies!). As such, we are very much context-driven when it comes to having the “right” mindset for a situation; and the “right” mindset for one situation could well be the “wrong” one for another. This has led us to create “Optimal” profiles based on different job scopes; and from those optimals, we could obtain gap analyses to specifically pinpoint the development of the person’s mindset for success in that role!

Ours is therefore not a one-size-fits-all concept that the dominant logic seems to suggest.

Let’s look at a practical example of this. Say you are the Commercial Director of a construction company seeking to win a government tender. You are now responding to the RFP. The critical dimensions are Forward, Risk Taking and Pride. Learning and Bounce Back take a lesser role here, although not unimportant.

You have to be fixed (or, at most, lower transition) for your Forward Dimension simply because you need to get all your ducks in a row, get all your certifications cleared, and your financial supports locked in before you set out to create the tender. This is very fixed behaviour for Forward.

You should also be Fixed, or near-Fixed, in Risk Taking, because you cannot be trying “new ways” of construction or project reporting. And because your Risk-Taking is low, your Bounce Back does not have to be too high, so it is not a truly growth requirement.

The truly growth area is in Pride because, while you know your work very well, you have to be open to hearing the ideas and inputs from all other experts and government officials. Coming away with “He thinks he knows so much, but he is actually not listening,” will kill your chances of getting the award. Hence, it is growth for Pride.

Finally, for Learning, while it is important for the engineering department, it might not be so crucial for the Commercial Director, who already has the necessary skills to put in the right proposal for the tender. Hence, it does not need to be a growth Dimension.

This example shows how all 5 Dimensions work together in a combination of fixed and growth mindsets to deliver success for the role. What I have articulated is how we will create the Optimal profile (but also verified with practical assessments before we launch them.) It is a very clear demonstration that we can, and do, operate with various degrees of fixed and growth behaviours at any single point in time. It also shows that fixed is not necessarily bad and growth is not necessarily needed. It all boils down to the role we work in.

Conclusion

Lately, there seems to have been a resurgence in growth mindset development, perhaps due to the rapidly evolving geopolitical situation around the world and the explosion of AI in the workplace. Indeed, this pushes us to be “more growth” in our perspectives. Our Learning Dimension will need to be a strong growth position and Our Bounce Back should at least be in the High Transition position, as should our Risk Taking. Forward also needs to be growth because the planned approach will probably not work in such an environment. In fact, the Singapore government themselves have admitted that they don’t have all the answers but will walk the paths and form the responses from there. That is EXACTLY the growth behaviour in the Forward dimension. And lastly our Pride dimension should also at least be High Transition because of the evolving nature of the environment.

So, where is your mindset in right now? Do you know what you are growth in and what you are fixed in? Is your mindset prepped and ready for change?  Perhaps you might like to take the assessment for yourself. Just try the Basic Report that does not have the gap analysis. You can find it at www.5dgm.net. (PS: Email me at info@growthconsultingasia.com and I will give you a 30% discount coupon on the assessment!)

This is the alternative logic to the growth mindset; talking about it through 5 dimensions, instead of one. We believe that this is the most appropriate model for the growth mindset for working adults simply because our research data told us so. But we are not here to “demolish” the dominant logic; it has, and continues to have, its own supporters. I used to be one of them, so I know how it is. What we have done is to present an alternative logic to mindset and let you be the judge, understanding that our research data came from working adults while the dominant logic research was based primarily on early childhood school children.

Perhaps therein lies the difference.