The goal of any training program is to help people learn and develop new skills and behaviors. However, research by Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, indicates that some people are not open to learning or change. According to Dweck, they have “fixed mindsets” leading them to believe that skills and abilities are inherent, you are either born with them or you’re out of luck. Others have more of a “growth mindset,” believing that success comes from learning, persistence and effort. As L&D professionals, you’ve probably experienced training participants who fall at various points on this continuum. While it’s easy to shrug our shoulders and accept that some people simply won’t be willing to learn or practice new skills, there are some strategies you can use that can help people to move from a fixed to a growth mindset.
One of the hallmarks of people with a fixed mindset is that they want to appear competent and smart, and this leads them to disregard feedback that could help them at work. Ironically, by avoiding or ignoring feedback, they handicap their ability to become more competent. They don’t want to know how they can improve, instead choosing to put on a façade of confidence and expertise. This characteristic becomes very apparent during training programs that involve some sort of feedback from others, such as a 360-degree feedback profile on emotional intelligence or other aspects of personal ability. When people with a fixed mindset are given such feedback, they are likely to disregard any information that is at odds with their beliefs about themselves; effectively they shut down and at this point the training becomes ineffective for these individuals since they will resist any new learning.
As trainers you can help these people shift their mindsets before and after they receive performance feedback. This process involves altering their thinking about the feedback and what it means. The first strategy is to prepare people before they receive their feedback. This is done through the “what if” exercise. Before sharing feedback reports, have participants write down their answers to the following questions, “What if my feedback is worse than I expect? What specific steps will I take?” It’s important that participants take the time to write their responses, rather than simply thinking about them, since the act of writing helps people to enter an active problem-solving state of mind. This simple exercise prepares people for feedback that might be hard to digest, but most importantly it shifts their mindset into a more positive state where they can accept feedback and productively move forward with that information, rather than making a disaster out of it. Before you provide the reports, you should also remind participants that it is the job of their feedback providers to give their honest input, and that their intent is to help. Although it can feel like they are being judged, sometimes harshly, it is the job of participants to use that feedback to improve their abilities.
While this is a good first step, your work is not done. A second strategy involves an opportunity to practice new skills and behaviors through role-playing or some other hands-on format. This is a tried-and-true technique that’s been used for decades, but it’s especially critical for continuing to help people with fixed mindsets change to growth mindsets. This is because they are forced to practice new skills, whereas when left on their own they might never do this. By practicing and receiving productive feedback in a safe environment, individuals can begin to recognize that they can enhance their performance through practice. As trainers you play an important role in reinforcing this mindset. One of the most important things you can do, in addition to giving feedback during role-play sessions, is to prepare participants for the realities of practicing new behaviors back at work. Tell participants that they will be trying new things, new behaviors, and that this can feel risky – remember, people with fixed mindsets do not like to take risks when it comes to their performance and personas. Let them know that there might be times when it feels like they are having setbacks, or even failing. With practice, the new behaviors will help them succeed even more than they already have.
The final strategy will help people post-training to continue to evolve their beliefs about learning and development. Whenever possible, set up an ongoing feedback mechanism that provides people with information about their efforts to improve, and not only on the performance itself. For example, if a person’s main challenge is maintaining self-control, take the opportunity to tell her that you noticed in a meeting, when someone said something that upset her, she maintained her calm demeanor, whereas before training she may have lost her temper and lashed out at the other person. You can tell her that this shows she’s practicing the strategy she learned in training and it seems like it helped in that situation. This type of feedback rewards the effort directly, even if the outcome is not perfect. For people with fixed mindsets, this is likely to help them continue their improvement efforts. While it’s often not possible to provide this feedback yourself, you can ask training participants to commit to providing one another feedback after training. Clearly explain to them the difference between giving feedback on effort versus outcomes, and why this is important, especially when the effort involves practicing behaviors learned through feedback and training.
When Dweck was beginning in her career, she realized she had a fixed mindset, and she strove to change her belief system. Her ongoing research and training programs have shown that people’s mindsets are not set in stone, they can be altered. Simple adjustments to training delivery can fundamentally help these individuals develop growth mindsets.
Casey Mulqueen, Ph.D. is the director of research and product development atTRACOM Group. Natalie Wolfson, Ph.D is an organizational research consultant at TRACOM Group.
