How can you develop a growth mindset in your team?

To create the right environment for experimentation people need to feel that they are able to make mistakes. This means managers should not be afraid of bad news - it's about really drawing out the learning and helping people grow from that. It's about: - Creating space - space for people to experiment and learn, even if that takes longer - be patient. - Creating a safe space - an environment where the emphasis is on the learning that takes place, not on assigning blame or focusing on mistakes. - Cultivating curiosity - encouraging people to challenge their own perspectives, question constructively and be open to feedback.

Challenges are a great way to build your team up! But as the saying goes, "Don't bite off more than you can chew." As a leader, you have to understand your people first. What are their strengths, what are their growth areas, and what are they working to upskill themselves? These are all questions you need to have available when you want to challenge your team. Picking the right challenge will ensure you bite off just enough for it to be a challenge without it causing a detriment to the team.

Creating and promoting a culture of learning and quality improvement is the best practice for nurturing growth mindset. It's crucial that leadership model more curiosity than ego AND ensure an inclusive and safe environment in which people are actively encouraged to share ideas. When everyone is empowered to contribute equitably, feedback turns into change, and the organization actively supports growth opportunities, growth mindset can flourish.

The importance of this is highlighted in the core concept of “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle. The author elucidates the need to build safety and share vulnerability as key to creating highly successful groups.

The first step is to acknowledge that Challenges are part of work. Organizations are laden with multiple layers of challenges and pains. Being aware of these challenges and passing/sharing them with the team forms the fundamental activity of a leader. Failure is not a singular component; there are layers and levels of failures that occur simultaneously across the organizations. Managing and mitigating them with the accepted approaches would move the team/tasks/initiatives from one stage to another. This is where the Teams learn to embrace the collective effectiveness and motives.

In the words of Kim Scott (Radical Candor), it is crucial that leaders and managers care personally, and then challenge directly. This will drive home the full value of constructive feedback, combined with specificity on the impact of the person’s actions on the broader team and company.

As much as possible, I try to have the individual think through and add to the feedback versus elaborating on it myself or try to solution it. For example I might say something like, "I noticed you seem to be struggling with X. Have you thought about any ways to remedy that? How might I support you in that?"

Here is an out-of-the-box approach to this. Have your team create a daily, recurring, calendar invite that reminds them to take note of a strength they had foe the day, a growth area for the day, and an observation they had of you (good or bad). (This will be a running tally of items.) Every 2 months, set aside 1-on-1 time with your team to go over their items. This will be the basis for an actionable plan you can develop with your team members. What they do good: You uncover their strengths and what they like yo work on. Growth areas: What can they upskill on to make them better. Observations of you: You get to collect hard data on what you look like to tour team. (I.g. What are you doing well, and what growth areas do you have.)

Collaboration fosters a growth mindset by exposing teams to diverse perspectives, ideas, and skills. Encourage knowledge sharing, feedback, and a supportive environment for learning from one another. Recognize and reward collective achievements, not just individual ones.

In my experience, we have three groups of people which require different situational guidance on “how to” collaborate. 1. Extroverted. This group tends to naturally collaborate with different teams / roles; any guidance needed here should be ideally to help them focus on which topics / priorities to collaborate on. 2. Introverted, yet acutely aware of the need to collaborate. This group ideally set up systems to ensure “alignment” at the right points of intersection. Minimal oversight needed. 3. Introverted, and unwilling to collaborate. This is the toughest group and requires a compelling articulation of the need to collaborate. Plus, consistent repetition at important junctures of a project / process.

A strategy I have used with my teams, both large and small, is a bi-weekly "Lunch and Learn" event. During these events, I leave it up to my team to come up with a 30-minute talking point about something associated with the business. No set talking points, no forced schedule with names in it, no power points allowed, just an open forum to discuss something they want to talk about. Since the topics revolve around the business, each person gets a taste of something new each time. As my trams have been a good mix of software developers, project managers, engineers, administration, etc. we get a wide swath of topics covered, and everyone benefits from the knowledge shared.

Leading by example to “model a growth mindset” requires three simple steps: 1. Align with your team on the definition of growth mindset. And, what that tactically means as expectations for you individually, and your team 2. Consistently demonstrate behaviour / actions in compliance to that definition 3. Hold your team accountable to the same bar

Here is a controversial stance on this. Yes, you directly have an effect on your team, and you will influence how your team grows. But, this also works in reverse. If you have a team that is always underperforming, YOU have to adapt. It is not all doom and gloom, though. Start small by setting well defined, and achievable goals. Look at past performance and set the next month's bar just above that mark, not a "team of the month" mark. Doing these small incremental changes will gradually increase the teams performance while also affecting change.

Role modelling is demonstrated with the big and the small actions you take or ways in which you respond to your team members. Here some questions you might find useful: - How do I respond when team members challenge me in a meeting? - Do I always prioritise task delivery over time for learning and experimenting? - Do I create space for people to ask "what if" questions? - Do I actively seek feedback from my team members? - Do I share my own learnings and reflections with the team? - Can I talk about mistakes I've made and what I've learnt from them openly? - Do I take time to share new insights, learnings or information with the team, even if it's not mission critical?

Give the example if you lead a team by picking up a new skill yourself and sharing the process with your team. Consider discussing how you went about selecting this new skill, the level of difficulty or effort it took to acquire competence and the ways you are leveraging it in your day-to-day. Demonstrating that it is possible to make the time to grow, is the best form of encouragement.

Think about the 70-20-10 framework when trying to identify different ways for your team to learn: - 70% of what we learn is on the job - where are opportunities within the current set of projects or tasks for people to learn, practice or experiment, try a new skill or put theory into practice? - 20% of what we learn comes from others - how can you ensure your team members know who the experts or role models are who they can observe and learn from, and who can provide feedback, coaching or mentoring? - 10% is formal learning - this is where courses, books, podcasts, and resources come in that give people the theory and basis for what they learn. Consider all three elements as learning opportunities.

This comment will play off my previous suggestion. (See my thoughts above for this strategy.) When your team members see their own growth areas at the end of the 2 month period, this will be the basis for their own growth and learning plan. The next part is easy... ... give them the time they need to grow and learn. Yes, it is easy to say this, and in reality, it should be. However, the real world does not work this way. Normal work still has to happen, and their is no budget for learning. This is where you need your teams help. Have your team band together yo take on some of the load to free up time for one of your team members to do their learning. Then, simply rotate until everyone has the same opportunity.

This ties in with my previous strategy of having your team members take down their growth area each day. (See above for my full comment on this.) By identifying their own growth areas, they will effectively build their own learning plan. The hard part is getting them the opportunity to learn those additional skills while still balancing the work load. This can be done but the entire team will need to be onboard with taking on some additional items to open space. This works as your team will knkw that they will get their turn in the future.

Encouraging team members to maintain an optimistic outlook, even in the face of setbacks, can foster resilience and a belief in their ability to improve. Emphasizing the power of positive thinking helps shift focus from fixed limitations to the possibilities of growth and learning. Providing constructive feedback and recognizing effort rather than solely focusing on outcomes can reinforce the importance of the learning process. Celebrating successes, no matter how small, creates a culture of positivity and motivation, inspiring team members to embrace challenges with enthusiasm and see failures as stepping stones towards improvement, leading to a more dynamic and productive work environment.

Your mood will affect your team, and the same goes for tour team members' effect on everyone else. Now, we can pretend that we are all going to be upbeat every day, but like my contribution above, we don't live in fantasy land. You will have oof days, and so will your team. This is where your ability to show compassion, poise, and grace will shine!

A growth mindset is not only a leader driven item. It is a team driven item. I have been part of teams where my lead was SUPER ready to go, but the team was not ready for that amount of change all at once. Remember that humans in general do not like change, so you must be methodical and deliberate about what you want to change and how to execute your plan. Also, remember that your team gets a vote. If they don't like it, don't force it. Get one or two of your team to adopt the change first, then bring it to the entire team.

Growth mindset is required at all times and has to be practiced every day. Talking about in team meetings help. Company culture should reward employees who exhibit and work with those who don't. It's also required when As a leader, mindset decide which employee runs a marathon or a sprint. Mindset is a continuous practice, there are individual internal resistances which are challenged, beliefs which get shattered. A team leader, at all times should be emotionally mature to manage different scenarios. Leader need to know the reason why a particular team member is coming or not coming up the curve. It's beautiful journey of growth knowing each other's strengths and areas of improvements and approach from non judgment.