How to Build a “Growth Mindset” Through Experimentation
Are you ready to embrace a growth mindset in your leadership role? Offices that were beginning to shift to hybrid or fully in-person work are now delaying their return plans. As frustrating as this setback may be (trust me! I feel you), I still think this time can serve as an incredible opportunity to reimagine our work lives. Whether you’re a new manager facing hybrid work challenges, or a veteran hybrid work leader, you’ll benefit from Leadology’s leadership coaching principles.
Growth Mindset as a Leader
While it can be tempting to wait for a “magical” reentry event of returning to in-person work, I think we can actually invest our time and energy exploring totally new ways of working.
This applies to hybrid formats and beyond– particularly when thinking about our products, processes, ways of convening and collaborating, approaches to managing and leading, and executing on important goals.
Here’s an inspiring excerpt from a recent Forbes article: "All of the recent industry disruptors experimented in new ways to meet old needs.” This is an excellent time to experiment, collect data, and use that data to see what improvements might be available to upgrade work life in the future.
For instance, some examples of “old needs” you could experiment with might include…
Your onboarding processes
The quality of one-on-one meetings
Junior team members learning by observing their seniors
Collaborating to complete projects
Staying connected in between meetings
Managerial and professional development
Using Experimentation as a Tool for Leadership
Harvard Business Reviews covers this topic thoroughly in the article “Building a Culture of Experimentation.” I love the focus it places on experimentation even while balancing tight budgets and uncertain timelines. In it, author Stefan Thomke also emphasizes a consistent focus on maintaining the skill of curiosity while juggling all of these different pieces.
Amy Edmonson also discusses experimentation as a key element for fostering psychological safety, specifically in the context of virtual meetings. She says, “In advance, team leaders should experiment with meeting tools to understand their uses and risks and plan how they may want to sequence a discussion,” which may include utilizing a meeting facilitator, anonymous polling features, or even one-on-one interviews.
Overall, experimentation in uncertain circumstances has been found to have a profound positive impact on team members’ collective…
Learning
Innovation
Continuous improvement
Psychological safety
Problem-solving
The bottom line? As counterintuitive as it may seem, NOW is the time to cultivate a work culture where team members feel free to experiment without judgment or backlash.
GREATNESS TAKES GUIDANCE
One of the core components of successful experimentation is embracing a growth mindset. Inside our group coaching program Activate, we have an entire module dedicated to teaching new managers how to develop and lead with a growth mindset.
Personally, launching Activate was a total experiment in scaling from one-off training classes to actually investing in ongoing, repeatable, and customizable training that wholly honors the needs of every single person who enrolls. In essence, Activate is Leadership Coaching 101.
The greatest part? Having experimented and found that this approach actually WORKS! And as a result, hybrid leaders from all over have gained access to transformative resources to better themselves as professionals and individuals.
I’ve seen first-hand how growth mindset and experimentation has expanded my own business and creativity, and I’m excited to help you apply these concepts to your own career journey.
Want to learn more about Activate? Schedule a call with us to learn more about how you can leverage a growth mindset and the power of experimentation to better achieve your own development goals - and empower your team this year.
In your corner,
Carrie + The Leadology Team
