It is the growth culture, not the performance culture that delivers performance

The ideal situation

• Employees are passionate about their work
• Employees are loyal towards the organization
• Employee engagement is very high and employee turnover is very less
• Employees enthusiastically bring forward new and innovative products, services and processes

Reality

• Productivity growth is going down
• Incomes are rising faster than productivity
• Employee satisfaction is abysmal
• Employee turnover itself is creating more cost for organizations
• Absence of innovation except from those departments that are tasked to do that

Solution to bridge the gap

Incidentally, a growth culture leads to performance and gives better results in every area mentioned above.

When Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft, one of his initial priorities was to revamp the culture of Microsoft to prepare the ever increasing changes and challenges in the technology world. He realised that he needed to create a culture that would help every individual to grow and in turn help the organization to grow too. After he initiated those changes, he attributed the positive culture changes to the adoption of growth mindset into the corporate culture. In an interview to Bloomberg he said, 

“If you take two people, one of them is a learn-it-all and the other one is a know-it-all, the learn-it-all will always trump the know-it-all in the long run, even if they start with less innate capability.”

Nadella was impressed with the growth mindset movement and decided to implement a growth culture in the organization. As Microsoft tripled its earnings after Satya took over, it would be meaningful to look at how we can cultivate a growth culture in every organization.

What is growth culture?

An organization with a growth culture believes that people are inherently resourceful to grow their abilities and talents in an environment that nurtures growth mindset. And, it provides the environment to grow. Building a growth culture in an organization consists of focusing on a few areas. Here are some of those core areas:

1. Creating a Learning culture: This learning could be on the core area of work or in soft skills that support it. But the most important thing is learning from every task that the employees perform. Learning becomes an integral parameter to assess the contribution of a person too.
2. Creating a Mentoring culture: The difference between a review focused environment and mentoring focused environment is, periodic review is so late in time and so focused on finding the black and whites. However, a continuous mentoring culture focuses on catching the good and the bad almost immediately, having discussions around it and providing actionable steps to improve further. This in turn reflects in the overall quality of work performed in the entire organization.
3. A Process recognising culture: All initiatives in an organization might not turn out to be a success. At the same time, all efforts that went into a failed project might not be failures. Having an eye to look for the processes that went right, finding what can be repeated and what can be improved results in improved confidence. Isn't that a wonderful opportunity to keep discovering and adopting best practices?
4. A trust infused culture: A person feels better valued when his/her manager believes in their potential to grow and expand their wings. Neuroplasticity, the inherent ability of our brain to increase our talents and intelligence, is strengthened by the trust we find in the environment.
5. A non-judgmental culture: Being able to share ideas without getting penalized is important in boosting the innovative potential of a person. An environment that promotes communication without prejudice is much important here.
6. A feedback rich culture: Giving feedback the right way is an art. Taking the feedback, deciphering and reframing it for personal growth is another art. However, an effective feedback should include adequate components so that it feeds the internal compass of the people involved to turn towards growth.
7. A culture where Mistakes are Celebrated: Committing a mistake is less serious than not learning anything from that mistake. A mistake most often brings valuable lessons that a success doesn’t. Instead of firing a person immediately after coming across a mistake, what we need is a culture that reflects on that mistake or failure, comprehends the valuable lessons from it and gives a chance to that person to excel from that lesson. 
8. A Collaborative culture: A culture built on great collaboration thrives on creativity and innovation. The down side of  a performance obsessed culture is competitiveness, where every person is focused on their own performance. Whereas in a growth focused culture, people will be more willing to share their knowledge, which paves way to overall growth of the organization as well.
9. A Risk-taking culture: A risk taking culture is a prerequisite for innovation. People are inherently curious. However, what drives them away from exercising their curiosity is the perceived repercussions that result from taking steps in quenching their curiosity. In a culture where mistakes are looked down upon, people would play safe. But, in a culture where mistakes and failures are tolerated and understood, people will be more open to take up challenging tasks and work on it. This results in people coming out of their comfort zones and being less worried about job safety and more committed and engaged to their work. 

Advantages of adopting the growth culture

From the above, you can see that there are clearly some benefit to the organization and the employees if they follow a growth culture:

• You can mobilize the engagement that a performance culture is incapable of
• Less stressful work environment
• More loyalty from employees
• An innovative mindset
• Improved job satisfaction
• Improved employee morale
• Attract growth oriented people towards the company, which in turn will help to build a great team that has the potential to take the organization to greater heights.

For an organization to build Building growth culture, it should focus on implementing the various areas I mentioned in the above sections the right way. It involves creating processes and tools around all areas of the organization. It needs to look into areas that traditionally organizations do not delve into. However, the most important take away should be that it can be built in phases. 

Would you like to know more about how you can implement a growth culture in your personal and professional life? Find it in my new book Unlock Your Hidden Potential. No matter what difficulty you are facing, you will find practical and easy to follow Secret Codes to unlock your success, outlined by the Three Gates framework in this book. You can find a copy of the book at https://amzn.asia/d/iUfvP9o.

After reading this article, could you please do the two simple steps below?

1. Share this article with your friends and colleagues, so that they too are aware of this amidst their busy schedules. 
2. Do you have any insights or tips that you use? Would you like to share that? Please use the comments section below and let me know!

Sindu Sreebhavan is a Growth Mindset coach and consultant, a Design Thinking and management consultant, and the CEO of As Many Minds. She speaks, writes and consults on growth mindset, growth culture, innovative mindset and innovation. She is passionate about innovation in education and youth development. Sindu is the founder of International Youth Leadership and Innovation Forum (IYLIF). She is also the founding editor of The Kidz Parade magazine - a publication that helps children develop growth mindset and showcase their creativity. She is the author of Unlock Your Hidden Potential, Infinite Possibilities, 77 Thoughts to Kickstart Your Day, 30-Day Gratitude System and Great Growth Mindset Challenges, and the lead author of Breakthrough. She was awarded 'Exceptional Woman of Excellence' by Women Economic Forum. She speaks at major conferences about Innovation, Creativity, Innovative Mindset, Growth Mindset and Youth Development. If you would like to invite her to one of your events to speak, connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ssreebhavan.

#GrowthMindset #GrowthCulture #CorporateCulture #SatyaNadella #Microsoft #Mindset #EmployeeEngagement #EmployeeLoyalty #Productivity #Leadership #performance #EmployeeSatisfaction #unlockyourpotential #leadership #mindfulleadership #innovation #selfdevelopment #selfleadership #motivation #organisationalculture #organisationalbehaviour