Understand the Importance of Your Employees’ Mindset
What does the word mindset mean to you?
Mindset is a broad term. It describes a way of thinking and feeling, as well as certain patterns of behavior. It’s your attitude towards certain topics and is very much shaped by your experiences.
Our mindset has a huge impact on how we engage with peers, tackle new challenges, and respond to failure or success.
When you have a positive attitude, you’re likely to make decisions that are in the best interest of you and your company. A negative attitude leads to decisions that are not in their best interest.
The American psychologist, Carol Dweck, has proven this through long-term studies. In her book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” she describes two different mindsets on a continuum: growth mindset and fixed mindset.
“Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.”
What result did you get? It’s very unlikely that you have a 100% fixed or 100% growth mindset. Most people will find that they're somewhere in between, which means there is room for learning and improvement.
It’s great if you tend more towards a growth mindset already! You typically approach change more openly and positively, learn from your mistakes, create opportunities, maintain better relationships, and cope better with stress.
If you find yourself leaning more towards a fixed mindset, I recommend revisiting the topic to explore ways to embrace a growth mindset. Ask yourself: Do I believe that anyone can improve with practice? If not, why not? Dive deeper into this reflection, and you’ll see how small steps can lead you to a growth mentality. It’s not something that changes overnight.
Have you observed different mindsets in your company?
Analyze Your Employees’ Attitudes Towards Change
While mindset is an important individual characteristic, the overall company or organizational culture is key for successful change.
Organizational culture is also made up of cognitive (thinking), behavioral (doing) and emotional (feeling) aspects.
In order to analyze the attitudes of your employees, it’s particularly important to look at the emotional culture or the underlying emotions, moods, and feelings that affect people.
Why is it important to know how most of our employees feel?
The emotional culture can have a major impact on what it’s like to work in a particular organization and can be a big driver in productivity and engagement.
Expecting employees to suppress their emotions in the workplace can bring about negative consequences, leading them to fear speaking openly or expressing themselves.
Feelings and mindsets can slow down or speed up your readiness to change. That said, only knowing how a small group of people are feeling will not reflect the change willingness of the whole organization.
How can I assess how everyone feels, without explicitly asking?
Good point. There are a couple of techniques. A great way of getting insight into the current state of mind of your employees is a company-wide change readiness survey.
No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.
— Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric
Another way of taking the temperature of your organization is to listen to employees’ voices and explore their feelings through personal conversations.
Feelings that slow down change | Feelings that help change |
I really don’t know what this means to me and my job, I’m going to keep a low profile and hope they don’t spot me. | It’s not going to go away. I’d rather join in, otherwise I can look for a new job right away. |
Great, yet another change initiative, let’s see how long this one lasts this time. | It was to be expected that things wouldn’t go on like this for much longer. |
I don’t know the tech they are talking about. | I’ll do it, but only if I get the training I’ve always wanted. |
They talked about “innovation,” “creativity,” “agility”—that definitely isn’t me. | Maybe this is an opportunity for the next step in my career. |
So, does that mean that people with negative attitudes don’t participate in change?
Not necessarily. Proper activities can guide your employees to a more positive connection, and we will address that in the next chapters.
Let’s Recap!
“Mindset” describes a way of thinking and feeling, and can explain some patterns of behavior.
A growth mindset that is constantly evolving is a change mindset.
Everyone reacts differently—and at their own speed—to change.
Employees’ existing emotions need to be identified and understood properly.
Congratulations on reaching the end of the first part of the course! Before moving on to the next, in which you’ll discover change management frameworks, I encourage you to strengthen your new knowledge by taking a quiz.
