Many businesses promote a fixed mindset amongst their employees without really knowing they do so. This usually leads to a reluctance to change, a need for direction, rather than finding solutions independently, focusing on the negatives when something doesn’t work out as planned which impacts innovation. This way of thinking can be detrimental to not only your employees, but your marketing efforts as well.
In a recession, it’s critical your teams work with a growth mindset where employees continuously look for ways to improve, become critical thinkers, problem solvers with an eagerness to learn, adapt and continually question processes and ways of working to generate the best results.
How do you make the shift?
A fixed mindset is intrinsically linked with the company culture. The way to encourage the shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset lies within promoting accountability with your employees through self-reflection and open constructive feedback, encouraging acknowledgement of areas for improvement.
This also means encouraging employees to step out of their comfort zone and embrace challenges and the possibility of failure. That means from a resource perspective giving employees time and budget to test and experiment and adapt their activity. Individuals and leaders need to place value on the process and journey, not just the destination.
Empowering your employees through a new way of thinking is not only extremely valuable to your business, but to your clients as well. Helping your business to overcome obstacles, improve marketing effectiveness and generate better customer experiences through a better understanding of your customers resulting in a closer alignment of activity to business objectives, improved results and brand perception.
Teams that have a growth mindset push boundaries, are more creative and are willing to try new things – failing forward. This puts them immediately ahead of their competitors.” Zoe Merchant, Managing Director, Bright