Spen’s Fixed Mindset Epiphany
Learning isn’t always fun. Especially, when you find something out about yourself that isn’t as positive as you thought it might be.
Just ask my good friend Spencer Ayres.
Last week, we sat down to record Episode 3 of our new podcast The Spen and Nick Show and I semi-unintentionally made him feel quite uncomfortable.
We’re both fans of Carol Dweck’s book Mindset and this week I wanted to discuss it in relation to leadership.
Spencer has tonnes of experience successfully leading teams and he’s also a massive advocate of the growth mindset so he was the perfect person to talk to about the topic.
During the recording, I quite spontaneously decided to ask Spencer:
“So how have you encouraged your teams to develop more of a growth mindset?”
And that’s the moment things got a little bit awkward.
The moment of realisation
It seemed as though it was something he hadn’t necessarily reflected on that much and as such there was a reticence to talk about it. He definitely started getting a bit hot under the collar.
I know Spencer has done a lot of work on the growth mindset and it’s a topic he’s really familiar with.
But I suppose the added pressure of the conversation being recorded meant that he was worried about looking bad and/or feared what people might think of him for not having a good answer.
I reminded him that trying to avoid failure/making mistakes or looking bad in front of others are facets of the fixed mindset.
To his credit, he admitted, that we had identified a bit of a fixed mindset here.
“That’s a very astute and very frustrating to hear from me. But I think it’s probably fair.” — Spencer Ayres
Developing self-awareness isn’t always fun
When you realise you have a fixed mindset in any area of your life you hadn’t consciously been aware of before, it can be quite painful at first to come to terms with.
I know when I’ve made this kind of discovery, I can feel a pang in my chest. But it’s these kinds of learnings and experiences that lead us to grow.
Growth is painful, that’s why babies cry so much.
Not just one or the other
The way I see it is the fixed and growth mindsets sit on a scale. So you have fixed on one side and growth on the other.
It’s not that you’re all fixed or all growth, all of the time. Instead, you have areas of your life which are more fixed and others which are more growth.
You might be focussed on your work and putting in loads of effort there for a period of time. Meanwhile, you might not be as focussed on your health for example — eating the right things or making the effort to do exercise; which is absolutely ok.
I believe it’s so important to discuss these things to help you acknowledge where you have a fixed mindset so you can make a conscious decision to work on it or not.
I also think it’s ok to have a fixed mindset in certain areas of your life as long as you’re aware of it and ok with it.
Do you have a fake growth mindset?
A common mistake people make is they mislead themselves into believing they have a growth mindset when they don’t necessarily have it.
“Oh, growth mindset is the good one. Well I’m good, so that must mean that I have that one then. And I must be that the whole time.”
But actually we’re not like that. Yeah, we can be growth mindset in a lot of areas but more than likely, we’ve got a fixed mindset in lots of other areas too.
Making the decision to change (or not)
What I think we were lucky to witness in this conversation, was Spencer going through the process of identifying an area of his life where he had a fixed mindset.
He now has the choice of whether he wants to shift to more of a growth mindset or not in this area.
I think the implications of this conversation for leadership are massive because what we’ve showed is, by reflecting on our leadership styles and approaches and how we’ve done it in the past in relation to the growth and fixed mindsets, we can find areas where we can improve.
One of the keys to developing growth mindset in others is to encourage them to pursue difficult tasks and praise their effort.
Of course, it’s so much easier to be the person that asks the questions than the one answering them. So I want to thank Spencer for his courage and effort in that conversation.
