Language, Learning and Change: Part Two

In Part One, I wrote about the connections between language, learning and mindsets. Below I have shared some thoughts on how mindsets shape the world around us, and why they are so crucial to social change.

Demystifying “mindsets”… what are we talking about?

By mindset, I mean a set of assumptions that influence the way we interpret the world and make decisions. We are rarely conscious of our own mindset, just as we struggle to hear own own accent.

There are a number of mindsets I tend to group together as closed. These are the mindsets that see the current reality as fixed or unchanging. They often divide the world according to strict either/or thinking (more on that here.)

Seeing the world with this clarity can be enormously helpful, but it also risks making us lose sight of context, perspective, and the possibility of change.

That short-sightedness can contribute to scarcity mindsets, the assumption that there will always be a limited amount of a good thing. That can contribute to zero-sum game thinking: the assumption that this this “good thing” needs to be split like a cake, creating clear winners and losers. In this world, there is little incentive to work together, and “we” are obliged to compete and win against “them” in order to survive.

We will come onto some examples in a second. First, some good news… there is an alternative!

More open approaches are associated with the growth mindset, which acknowledges the constant nature of change and the capacity for growth and improvement. This is associated with the abundance mindset, which says that we have “enough” — time, money, talent, energy etc — to reach our goals, provided that we prioritise it in the right way.

I am not a beahvioural psychologist nor a philosopher, so my intention with this blog is not to argue that one way of thinking is universally bad, and that another is universally good. That itself would be an example of either/or thinking.

My hope is to argue that in the UK (and I suspect, many other countries in the West), we deploy both mindsets at different times. We more readily take a growth or abundance mindset when it comes to issues that we associate with economics, finance, or for-profit work, but are more likely to take a fixed or scarcity mindset on issues we associate with social change, social justice, or non-profit work.

I apologise for such a long and verbose sentence. I am being careful to use the term “associations” here, because there is of course a whole world of work that happens between the “for-profit / business” and “non-profit / charity” silos. That is for another piece.

For now, let us just say that most people continue to think of “making money” and “doing good” as separate worlds, and the rules that apply in each world are very different. That, at times, can lead to cognitive dissonance, and more importantly, it can hold us back on the big questions that will define our generation.

Are we ambitious, bold and creative … or aren’t we?

Let’s bring back that statement for a second: we more readily take a growth or abundance mindset when it comes to issues that we associate with economics, finance, or for-profit work, but are more likely to take a fixed or scarcity mindset on issues we associate with social change, social justice, or non-profit work.

The examples of this in my own country, the UK, are not hard to find. During the campaigning for the EU referendum, Brexit advocates would talk passionately about how the UK is the 6th largest economy in the world and would flourish and prosper outside the EU. In the same breath, they would argue that we have to prevent refugees coming into the country because we are at breaking point and can barely help our own citizens.

In the midst of a global pandemic the UK injected billions into the economy to stimulate growth, while cutting aid because there “wasn’t enough” money to support it.

Advocates for social justice are constantly challenged with what-aboutism. Anti-racists are asked, what about the white working class? Feminists are asked, what about the challenges men face? Supporters of refugees are asked, what about the homeless in our country? We often see social justice as a fight for scraps, compared to economic growth as a sign of universal “progress”.

Why do these different mindsets exist, and does it have any reasonable justification? Is there a good reason to see wealth as a pie that grows, and wellbeing as something that is fixed and needs to be shared?

It might be argued that the economy can grow without limit, whereas there will always be inequality and suffering. But there are very real limits to how much we can produce, consume and dump without destroying the planet. On the other hand, there is plenty of material “resource” across the world for everyone to have enough to feel safe, healthy and happy.

Some would say that the economy generates resources, whereas social initiatives expend resources. But this distinction collapses under minimum scrutiny — both economic growth and social wellbeing require investment (financial and non-financial) and both can pay dividends (again, financial and non-financial) if the investment is done well. The two are mutually dependent — a sick society is rarely a wealthy society, and a poor society is rarely a healthy society.

Another obvious response might be that people are just selfish. We see how a bigger pie means we get a bigger slice, and don’t like the idea of sharing it with others. But that is simply restating the difference in mindsets, rather than explaining why they exist. Every year we get reminders of how connected we are on both national and international levels, the pandemic being the most obvious in recent times.

None of these arguments provide satisfactory explanations as to why we think so differently about economic growth and social wellbeing. To get to the root, we need to dig a little deeper.

Words matter: the power of language

The dissonance in approaches might be more subconscious than we realise.

The way we think about social issues is deeply regressive and focused on loss and suffering. Partly due to damaging fundraising campaigns, our brains make strong associations between terms like “charity” and images of starving children, people sleeping in the street or sick babies in hospitals.

Those mental associations lead to the assumption that social issues should be quick, cheap and easy to solve, and that anyone with some spare cash can pay to be the saviour. How difficult can it be to provide food, shelter or a mosquito net?

From this over-simplified perspective, “investing” in long-term social change seems less relevant than “giving” to charity to “buy” a solution. And yet, the challenges of eradicating hunger, homelessness or malaria depend on an immensely complex web of political, economic, social and cultural factors, influenced by government, business, civil society and local communities. Investment and patience — a growth mindset — is exactly what is needed.

Our language encodes and replicates these associations. The words we use when we speak about “charity” prime us to think about loss and harm: homeless, hungry, at-risk, low-income, refugees, victims etc. Those images might make us feel sympathy but also trigger our survival instincts and remind us of our own vulnerability as human beings. In some cases this might evoke a sense of solidarity, but since we are wired to be loss-averse, it could also trigger an instinct to “look after our own.”

We are thinking about us and them. Our primal survival mechanisms prevent us from seeing the more complex but more real bigger picture of interconnectedness and mutual interest.

Language influences even those who reject division and remain committed to social wellbeing for all. When we see the people we want to help, we often think primarily about their losses or past traumas. Yet if we list the qualities most important to our own identity, we will speak not about our losses, but what we are proud of, or our aspirations for the future. So — we establish a different kind of us-and-them, positioning ourselves as saviours. That division leads to unsustainable solutions, dependency, and even offence and distrust.

For anyone who struggles to understand why, I invite you to think about something valuable you have lost, or an obstacle that holds you back. Take a moment and write it down before continuing, if you wish.

How it would feel knowing that when people look at you, that loss is the first thing they see? How would it feel to be labelled as “vulnerable” or “desperate”? For most of us, it would lead to embarrassment or resentment, and not an instinct to cooperate. That is a poor foundation for genuine social change.

So — the language we use around social wellbeing and charity is often framed around loss, and associated with a fixed or scarcity mindset. By contrast, the language of economics is often forward-looking — growth, investment, innovation, etc. It primes us to think about what we have to gain rather than what we have to lose, which makes us less risk-averse and more imaginative.

What came first — the negative language or the negative mindset — is a chicken and egg question. In a sense, it is one for the academics, or even the philosophers. The more important point is that these assumptions are deeply ingrained and regularly replicated in everyday conversation, without us even realising.

Investing vs Donating: What’s in it for us?

The way we talk about money is another example of how these mindsets come to the surface. The very concept of “investment” is used far more when we talk about for-profit endeavours, compared to social change. The concept of for-profit investment comes with a number of associated “golden rules” — markets are difficult to predict, so it is important to commit for the long-term, trust in the possibility of growth, and don’t be spooked by the inevitable downturn.

We rarely apply the same logic to social impact. Instead of investing, we “donate”. On the surface that may appear more altruistic — we give without expecting anything back. But in reality, there are always strings attached — we want to know our money is “making a difference” and that we are getting good “value for money” for our contribution. We are not particularly patient when it comes to evidence of impact, just as we wouldn’t wait too long to receive a product we have “bought.” We often want our contributions to go directly to beneficiaries and “solve the problem,” as if these things were one and the same.

All of this leads to differences when it comes to trust. Most people choosing to invest will not assume they know better than a fund manager or CEO, and will trust in these experts’ knowledge to use the money responsibly. How exactly a company spends its money doesn’t particularly matter, provided it makes a profit — I am yet to hear of any investor in Apple, for example, who has complained that too much is spent on staff salaries or research and development, and not enough on the nuts and bolts that go into the iPhone.

On the other hand, our failure to acknowledge how difficult it is to “make a difference” leads us to disregard the expertise of non-profit leaders or even question their integrity, assuming that if the problem hasn’t been solved, it must be due to corruption or incompetence. On countless occasions I’ve heard people say that they don’t donate because they distrust charities who pay staff too much and don’t send enough money directly to the beneficiaries. This criticism often comes from the same people who argue that charities need to act more like businesses — an irony that often escapes notice.

OK so we have more closed mindsets when it comes to social change… so what?

There are more profitable products than solutions to homelessness in the world — not because the people working on homelessness are more corrupt or less competent — but because they are dealing with a more complex issue. And they are working within a system that makes investing in social change incredibly difficult.

The language and mindsets we bring to these questions have real-world consequences. We weaken civil society — charities are punished for investing in their own capacity, having reserve funds in case of a crisis, or generally doing anything other than directly supporting beneficiaries, because these investments are seen as “inefficient” or “ineffective” use of resources.

That creates incentives to go after the measurable service delivery that addresses the symptoms of social problems (eg food for homeless people), but doesn’t target root causes and sustainable change (eg ending homelessness). It dissuades research and development, staff wellbeing and long-term planning, all of which undermine long-term impact. And when a crisis like Covid comes along, thousands of charities collapse, right at the time they are most needed.

This is compounded by the fact that the government, relying on voters for power, applies the same dissonance in mindsets when it comes to spending. As mentioned earlier, social welfare programmes are the first to be cut when the government wants to make savings — which is typically when the need for support is greatest.

We have got ourselves stuck in a vicious cycle of distrusting and underfunding social change leaders, building a brittle system that punishes those who invest in resilience and growth, and then watching progress get swept away each time a crisis hits. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that is painful to watch from the inside, and frustrating difficult to challenge on the outside.

So — when it comes to social change we have abandoned the growth mindsets that served us so well as children. And yet — to wallow in defeatism would be to fall into the same trap — to succumb to the fixed mindset.

The way forward is simple in principle — we need to start taking more open, trust-based, growth mindsets when it comes to social change. To do that, we can still build an understanding that this work is complex — that just as it took generations to build systems that benefit and protect the powerful, it will take generations to transform them into something more just and more sustainable.

We can rethink the language we use for social change — focusing not on “victims” who lack something — but on human beings with talents and aspirations who are limited only by the systems that hold them back.

We can build awareness of our own mindsets and biases, and seek to embrace new mental models for social change. We can invest in social wellbeing and justice with as much as trust, urgency and commitment as we invest in making a profit.

All the threats we face — climate change, systemic racism, global pandemics — demand it of us. There is so much that can be said of the opportunities that come with that mindset shift — that a single blog would never be able to cover.

The challenge is unprecedented, but the world seen from a growth mindset — a world of possibility, solidarity, and humanity — is a beautiful one. And like a child who is learning, growing and exploring a new world — we might even enjoy the journey.

These ideas have been influenced so much by different writers and thinkers that it seems wrong not to name some of the most significant for me personally— Carol Dweck, Adam Grant, Daniel Kahneman, adrienne maree brown, Trabian Shorters, Matthew Syed, and perhaps most importantly, friends, family and colleagues who humour me with these rambling conversations!