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It is easy to follow the first 150 pages of the book in which the writer who is an accentuated Stanford professor presents the outcome of her research accompanied by tangible instances in various fields. I enjoy her honest confession of her flawed grammar through the very first pages. It makes her like one of those problem-solver types who yield to anyone who is obsessed with correcting others.
While talking about her big experience with examining kids�� reactions to failure, it reminded me of my 2-year-old niece who strives for her independence and doing anything on her own. I assume that kids are one of the best sources to learn and approach anything in a novel way.
Dweck categorizes people into having two kinds of mindsets, albeit it is feasible that one would have a mixture of both mindsets.
1. The growth mindset, which promises one to learn and improve in any desired field.
2. The fixed mindset, which leads to frustration and anxiety.
The growth mindset insists that humans are capable of improving their intelligence and abilities. People having this mindset have high self-esteem and believe in themselves since they know that if they try hard enough and spend ample time they will improve. The striving and improvement are what matter the most to people bearing this mindset, thus they enjoy the journey of challenge and progress not the moment of achievement. On the other hand, people holding a fixed mindset define themselves with what they achieve and if they do not succeed, it demeans them to nothing. Their self-esteem is highly tied to the result of their actions. However, growth mindset people value their effort, creativity and strategies rather than the outcome. They make opportunities out of their failures and challenge themselves each day to carve a better version of themselves. Unfortunately, fixed mindset people who are mostly perfectionists would go for doing repetitive tasks just in case to escape facing the risk of failure. Challenges and trying new things for them equals the probability of failure and being judged. They presume that if you are born with a gift there is no need for putting effort into work!
It is possible for the growth mindset people to get frustrated after failure or even feel depressed, though they would still be functional. Therefore, talent is by no means something to be proud of, instead, the effort and courage to take risks are of high value. Yet they are realistic enough to be aware of that trying hard does not guarantee success, the novel strategies that you use creatively to improve matter the most. They know that there are many other factors, which may influence achieving a goal or not achieving it, i.e financial status, network, education level, and different available resources, which significantly affect how much effort one should put into work.
Regardless of what mindset one has been holding up to now, it is recommended to consciously take the road to a growth mindset. This mindset makes it easy to enjoy spending time on what one loves and one may accordingly prosper in something never planned for.
Fixed mindset types owe their success to their talent and innate abilities, no matter how hard they try, it is always a matter of innate gift, you have it or not, you were born with it or not.
There are numerous examples provided through the book in almost every field, introducing world-class gurus, describing their mindset and their approaches in order to clarify how the growth and fixed mindset work. The upshot of studies investigating three types of corporates and their mindsets is very informative:
1. The average corporates upgraded to high-level ones, which sustain their status
2. The average corporates improved to a high-level but degraded to their previous status
3. The corporates, which had no improvement at all through the time of probing
Bear in mind that the resources available to these corporates were almost similar and the only distinguishing difference between them was their mindset.
I found the examples provided in chapter 5 so tangible and applicable, especially for managers and leaders. They are constructive and illuminate the role of a leader, who is supposed to guide the system and simultaneously learn and educate him/herself with the staff and produce a feeling of belonging among the staff. This so reminded me of Jordan Belford in wolf of wall street movie and how strongly his staff felt belonged. In hard times, this feeling won’t let them even think about quitting, instead it motivates them to improve the circumstances and be more committed and feel more responsible to solve the problems. The feeling of belonging leads to a feeling of being supported regardless of the result. Systems holding a growth mindset act more humanely because they don’t consider one to act like a machine and do exactly what he is told to achieve the desired goal. However, in a fixed mind system chances are that people act unethically to prove themselves (since they are only measured by the outcome) and remain safe and secure from being judged. In these systems, one may easily be belittled, insulted or even omitted due to failure, however in a system holding a growth mindset people are allowed to take risks and creatively take new approaches to handle the situation. This may still turn into failure but they value the improvement and effort.
Discussing the relationships in chapter 6, Dweck puts the emphasis on the art of communication and suggests that one should cease the expectancy of others to be mind readers. She believes lack of actual communication skills is the origin of misunderstandings and advises that one should put time and effort into a relationship to make it work.
In order to figure out our mindset, it is better to check the features of each mindset in our behaviours and approaches. If we are defensive, inflexible to change and always looking for excuses and someone to blame and consider ourselves as victims of the circumstances, we hold a fixed mindset which can only provide us with the abovementioned alibies to escape the responsibility and imprison us in our comfort zone. On the other hand, if we strive for improvement and learning and are embrace new challenges just for the sake of growth we have a growth mindset.
The last chapter which seems to be added recently claims to provide one with approaches to alter the fixed mindset. After all, I found the book somehow too long and repetitive yet informative!