Learning how to learn: the growth mindset

Originally published here, in Portuguese.

The world as we know it is going through an unprecedented transformation: tech disruptions and an accelerated fusion between biological, physical, and virtual universes pose us new challenges to keep ourselves up to date and competitive. How can we assimilate this scenario in order to face those challenges? Problem or opportunity is all a matter of mindset.

The concept of mindset came out of a series of experiments from the ’70s. But it was only in the last decade that it gained focus, figuring in almost every list dedicated to the so-called “future of work.” Carol Dweck, author of a homonymous book and lead researcher of the experiment found that our posture to changes, life, and work challenges, as well as failure, is an important indicator of our growth potential. She even identified two cognitive responses — the mindsets — that can be activated in our brain during hard times, and their effects over the course of life.

The first one, named “fixed mindset,” is the belief that some characteristics, such as intelligence and sports skills, for example, are immutable: either you are born with those talents or you simply do not stand a chance of developing them to become a great student or athlete.

Have you ever heard things like “I’m not good at mathematics,” “I have no affinity with numbers,” “I wasn’t born to speak in public,” “This is not for me,” “I don’t have a talent for those things?”

Watch out!

Those beliefs are powerful enough to inhibit important discoveries and block our development. Moreover, they are an indirect suggestion that training and practice are useless: if people are already born with a certain set of skills, what is the point of trying to learn something new?

Dweck noted that children with this mindset presented very specific behaviors when faced with difficulties: they were impatient, felt under pressure, unable and unskilled to solve the problem. Therefore, they explored fewer alternatives, had a hard time proposing unorthodox approaches, and lost interest in the activity. By placing their focus solely on the outcome, they looked for shortcuts that could make things easier, and not on what could be learned from the experience.

On the other hand, children who showed curiosity and persistence when dealing with challenges (growth mindset) revealed themselves to an exciting journey, which led them further and to higher levels — culturally, socially, and in terms of self-development, as Dweck would observe in the evolution of her study. The important thing was not the solution of the problem itself, but the path taken, and the knowledge and experience acquired in the process.

During a TED Talk (2014), she mentioned an interesting idea from a school in Chicago to foster the growth mindset in its students: instead of using a red ink pen to indicate below-average grades, teachers began writing “Not yet.”

The beauty of this strategy lies in moving away from the “traditional” mode of evaluating students to a kind of subtle incentive. When kids score low grades and those are emphasized, students can interpret them as a reprimand or indication that, regardless of how much they have dedicated to the exam, they are not going anywhere — reinforcing those stereotyped sentences we saw earlier. “Not yet,” for the contrary, evidences a learning curve that is in progress, signaling stages of evolution. It is an invitation to keep on trying.

Although people are not fully aware of their own mindset, it is possible to identify it from their behavior, particularly in situations where there have been mistakes or failures: those with a preponderant fixed mindset face any mishap negatively, putting their skills in doubt; under the growth mindset, however, there is no reason to fear failures, as they are seen as an opportunity for learning. And this distinction is fundamental, because it causes the latter to continue improving, and seeking alternatives, despite any difficulties that may appear.

In the fixed mindset, children looked for their comfort zone. They were afraid of making mistakes and being judged by the external gaze, thus preferring to repeat what they already mastered and they were sure they would do well on. In the growth mindset, though, making mistakes was not a problem — quite the contrary: from those errors, new perspectives and experiences could be developed.

Parents and educators have a great responsibility towards the mindset they foster in children. Attitudes such as praising the result of action instead of the process itself, convey the information that the most important thing for them is succeeding, when in fact the path that led to success should be celebrated once it enables learning.

Similarly, some labels that in a first glance may look positive can also be harmful and establish the fixed mindset, triggering anxiety about performance and a tendency to give things up quickly. In her book, Dweck states that the greatest legacy parents can leave to their children is a passion for challenges, curiosity for discovery, and a posture of dedication and effort. There, she shares an experience from her own childhood, when she declined competitions and contests that would put her skills to test:

In sixth grade, I was the best speller in my school. The principal wanted me to go to a citywide competition, but I refused. In ninth grade, I excelled in French, and my teacher wanted me to enter a citywide competition. Again, I refused. Why would I risk turning from a success into a failure? From a winner into a loser?

The episode demonstrates a critical aspect about people who have a fixed mindset: they act as if their knowledge, skills, and experience are always being validated and compared to others’. Competition may not even exist, but this mindset creates a belief of constant dispute so that people end up holding on to their comfort zone and avoiding any situation that can put their domain areas in check. As Dweck states,

“(…) lurking behind that self-esteem of the fixed mindset is a simple question: If you’re somebody when you’re successful, what are you when you’re unsuccessful?”

Technology, innovation, and human skills

There was a time when adaptation to technological changes could extend for years — many decades, if we consider the impacts from the First Industrial Revolution, for instance. Nonetheless, as Industry 4.0 approaches, all its dynamic evolutions, advancements in artificial intelligence, and widespread interconnections among humans and devices, we have anything but time. Thus, professionals with a growth mindset are in an advantageous position to jump in and endure the transformation.

Learning begins and ends in the individual. Companies can stimulate, offer subside, or even allow their employees to allocate part of their paid time in research/study of topics different from those used in their work routine. However, it is up to each one of us to make efforts, develop experiences and improve our knowledge and skills beyond our current level of competence, observing results and making the necessary adjustments.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” (attributed to Henry Ford).

Developing a growth mindset, however, has nothing to do with becoming the world’s highest authority on a given topic — this competition does not exist. The posture of growth represents a constant and permanent movement to create a better version of yourself each passing day. And in this sense, the brain favors us: scientific studies (Moser et al., 2011) using electroencephalography (EEG) equipment have identified that the growth mindset is associated with a neurological component that focuses our attention on the errors we make in order to correct them. In the experiment, individuals with the growth mindset demonstrated more accuracy after errors, compared to those with a fixed mindset.

Traditionally, people followed specialized careers in a single discipline, complementing it over time with extension courses or on-demand training — the famous “T-shaped professional”, where the vertical bar represented their specialization domain, and the horizontal meant a wider range of subjects on which more generalist knowledge and practice was held. Today, considering the ever-changing demands and even the expanded range of study and performance options, the market requires a new professional profile based on the letter “M”: imagine a horizontal bar representing multiple interests, but in which the person has more generalist knowledge — such as in the T format –with three vertical bars instead of one, indicating multidisciplinary depth. Not infrequently — and I can tell this from my own experience, studying History for a year in graduation, then moving to Information Technology (B. Tech), Corporate Finances (specialization), Business Management (MBA), Digital Marketing (specialization), and Behavioral Economics (MBA) — people are building non-linear careers, going through various areas of knowledge, often “strange” to each other.

A McKinsey report (Brassey et al., 2019) addressed essential elements for continuous learning: when we try something new or start working for a new company, for example, we create an “S-curve learning.” At first, the progress and its impact on the business are limited. After a certain period, an inflection point arises from which understanding, competence and trust rapidly accelerate and start to promote relevant outcomes. This trajectory goes on for some time until it reaches the top and flattens. At this point, the excitement and enthusiasm for the activity shrink, learning and development stagnate, outputs decline and, finally, the activity becomes part of an automatic and tedious routine. People engaged in the process of creating an improved version of themselves do not suffer from this problem, as they will always find opportunities to develop and start a new S-curve.

It is not only about effort

Carol Dweck’s popularity, however, went through misunderstandings: publications, schools, and companies synthesized her study in a simplistic way, summarizing the growth mindset as a mere effort towards an activity. This approach is quite incorrect: fomenting the growth mindset in children, for example, means much more than encouraging them to strive; it involves — and this is perhaps the most relevant aspect — identifying areas of development and providing them the necessary direction to discover and explore new paths for themselves.

All along her research, Dweck held sessions with students in the pre-adolescence stage, offering them activities whose complexity was slightly above their age group. Faced with this, many simply lost interest in the work and gave up after a few attempts, while others seemed to be motivated precisely because they felt challenged. Understanding the reasons for this difference was crucial: the first group lost interest in the school as a whole, cheating on exams (Blackwell, Trzesniewski & Dweck, 2007) and seeking colleagues who obtained an even lower performance for comparison in order to mitigate their frustration — according to Nussbaum & Dweck (2008), this group responded to negative feedbacks and low scores with a defensive system to recover self-esteem. The second group developed a resilience that transcended the school environment and drove them farther in many areas (Dweck, 1999).

We are not born with a specific mindset and no one is either 100% fixed or 100% growth. Each of us brings a combination of these two responses, manifested in different forms and intensities, according to the context and the situations we experience. We must then reflect on what occasions the fixed approach predominates, why it is fired, and how we can act to mitigate it, thus positioning ourselves more and more within the growth mindset.

Some tips to help your journey

• mindset does not mean self-esteem or positive thinking. We believe — and run experiments to support this hypothesis — that more important than having a positive view of yourself is to work on your self-awareness, identifying what efforts can actually lead you to a journey of growth and learning. The growth mindset is a major source of stimuli, but it leans on a clear development strategy
• a preponderant growth mindset does not make our journey easier. However, it ensures that efforts will increase your repertoire, tools, and ideas to seek creative, and multidisciplinary solutions — precisely the greatest skills desired by innovative companies, part of the so-called “professional of the future” profile
• our mindsets can change. Contextual factors often condition us to a particular approach, but this can be reversed, especially when we stop and think about ourselves, becoming aware of the reasons and situations in which we act from the perspective of the fixed mindset
• inspiring leaders adopt the growth mindset for their teams. How? They listen carefully to any feedback received, instruct, and value the experience of each team member, both individually and as a group, and are open to experimentation. They understand error is an important part of the learning process

Finally, take a few minutes to think:

What attitudes can I take to develop a growth mindset?

References and additional content:

Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, January/February, Volume 78, №1, pp 246–263.

Brassey, J., Coates, K., van Dam, N. (2019). Seven essential elements to a lifelong learning mind-set. McKinsey report.

Dweck, C. (2015). Talks at Google, “The growth mindset.”

Dweck, C. (2014). TED Talk, “The power of believing that you can improve.”

Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. NY: Random House.

Krakovsky, M. (2019). When Success sours — public acclaim can distort research applications. Article published for Stanford Magazine and available.

Krakovsky, M. (2019). Why mindset matters. Article published for Stanford Magazine.

Nussbaum, D., Dweck, C. S. (2008). Defensiveness versus remediation: self-theories and modes of self-esteem maintenance.