TPC Leadership Middle East are delving into the topic of workforce engagement. Over this blog series, we interview a number of TPC Leadership’s leading voices to explore their take on what more organisations can be doing to support their workforce and fundamentally improve performance in the Middle East.
In this third blog of the series, we talk to Regional Partner of the Abu Dhabi Office, Niamh Briody-Jordan, to understand how best to develop a growth mindset and what it can provide for the future success of your workforce.
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A growth mindset, Carol Dweck asserts, empowers people to believe they can develop their abilities — brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and resilience essential for accomplishment in almost any sphere. In today’s VUCA world, therefore it is imperative that organisations and individuals embrace the behaviours, actions, and language of a growth mindset. It’s a paradigm in order to inspire the individual, the team and the organisation to embed self development and prioritise learning journeys so that the workforce can thrive, inspire and innovate.
Why is this topic important?
With the pace of development, digital transformation, new products, and innovation, anticipating what the world needs in the next two to three years…five years…10 years, is paramount.
Leaders are responsible for creating a dynamic learning culture and opportunities for informal and formal learning, for individuals to share their strengths, knowledge, and skills. More importantly, an active learning culture nurtures attitudes that harness, affirm and celebrate individual strength within the organisation.
The alternative to this is a fixed mindset where intelligence is viewed as static. A fixed minded person within an organisation usually avoids challenges in life, gives up easily and becomes intimidated or threatened by the success of others. It can quickly lead to negative thinking, limiting beliefs, and people becoming stuck.
Leaders therefore need to empower their people to step up and uncover their full potential, through continuous growth and learning and development; all of which are aspects of a growth mindset.
Why do organisations find it so challenging?
“I believe it is down to time. How much time do leaders allocate or give to their employees to dedicate towards learning? In some organisations the mindset is driven by ROIs and business results and therefore learning is more of a nice to have. Actually, stimulating learning and a growth mindset is critical to have in order to keep up with the industry, with best practices and your competitors.
The transient nature of companies with high rates of employee turnover means that investing in the workforce is sometimes short lived. Organisations need to invest time, energy, and money in developing their people. Mostly though, organisations don’t focus or develop this learning to the business needs of the organisation.”
“What does the company need to get the business results and become a credible force within the market?
Companies are in desperate need of bespoke programmes that offer relevant, meaningful value and impact the individual, the team and the organisation but most importantly the end user of the organisation. Having that mentality of growth mindset and matching it to the business need is part of the paradigm shift that needs to happen.”
What is TPC Leadership’s approach to this business issue?
“It is about finding out what is going on for the company. By conducting a rigorous learning needs analysis, organisations can unravel what is limiting them and what is stopping them from being more successful. These factors should be aligned with relevant learning interventions that will achieve tangible results in terms of leadership, engagement, execution, and in terms of strategic vision.
One piece of work that comes to mind is that of Dweck. She provides some simple steps to follow to switch to a new way of thinking.
Step one: Listen to yourself
The voice of a fixed mindset will stop you from following the path to success. You need to increase your self reflection and question yourself. For example, is there a simpler way of doing this? What could I be doing differently? Who in the team could help me?
Step two: Empower yourself to believe you have a choice
If we have a fixed mindset, we can sometimes lean on challenges and obstacles as limiting beliefs. Ask yourself, what the opportunity is and set yourself a plan.
Step three: Challenge your fixed mindset
When we are faced with a challenge, and we hear ourselves thinking, “I better not” or “Not this time”, listen to the language that you use with yourself and alter it. “I’m going to give it a go and know I have tried my best.”
Step four: Take action
We have to dive into things and know whatever happens we will learn something about ourselves. Try once, try again and check in with yourself: how can I make it better? What did I learn from that experience?
Step five: The reflection
Look back, check in with the process – where has the journey taken you and what have you learnt? What was your key success?
The learning needs analysis is a critical approach for organisations to invest time and energy into to ensure they are listening, persevering and asking the right questions. The focus also needs to be on listening to what organisations are not saying, to challenge and open mindsets to be aligned with strategic growth.
Why TPC Leadership?
TPC Leadership invests heavily in the initial discussions and encourages ownership; we advise, we support, we mentor, we coach, we challenge, and we hold organisations accountable for developing a growth mindset. We take a seat at your table to listen and question how to achieve the results that you so desire, become a leading organisation within your industry and successfully add value to the bottom line of the organisation.
So what is the main takeaway?
To make an impact in today’s world, organisations need to be operating from a growth mindset perspective. Working with us you’ll experience professionalism, passion, and a practical approach to delivering results for your business. Most importantly, operating with a growth mindset you will be able to motivate and inspire the people in your organisation to think and believe that they can succeed at a higher level than perhaps they are.
If you’d like to hear more about how TPC Leadership can support your organisation to successfully and sustainably engage their workforce, please get in touch.