Growth mindset (GM) and emotional intelligence (EQ) are on the rise in the workplace as leaders understand how both, specifically when combined, create a ripple effect throughout their entire company leading to higher performance, engagement, and profitability.
Companies looking to develop their leadership and people into master communicators and collaborators, being highly agile and adaptive no matter how or when the marketplace or your workplace shifts, get to get very cozy with GM and EQ.
Let’s start by clearly defining both.
Growth mindset is a term we use from Carol Dwek’s work. She describes GM as people believing their most basic abilities can be developed and improved through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. In a growth mindset, there’s a love of learning and resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.
This is opposed to a fixed mindset, which Dwek describes as people believing their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply innate, fixed traits – nothing changes.
What’s possible for your company when all of your people are operating with a growth mindset?
Now, you may refer to people and relationship skills as soft skills, however, we at EVOLVE have retired that term because it doesn’t have the power and clarity of what these invaluable and vital skills bring to the table in and out of the workplace.
Our mission is to create the biggest impact with our work and that is why we call them what they are – people and relationship skills. Digital transformation is constantly shifting how we work, hard skills (aka talent, capability, intelligence) are not what support most people in adapting and being agile during these shifts.
No matter how digitized your workplace becomes, technology and artificial intelligence will never (at least we hope) be able to master critical thinking, emotional intelligence, agility, leadership, and listening skills ‒ so it’s vitally important your company develops and scales people and relationship skills.
Most companies still need the human touch, and will for the foreseeable future.
We believe emotional intelligence is the foundation of people and relationships skills. When you start with EQ, people have a better understanding of the entire people & relationship skill set and can navigate through their blind spots more effectively.
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of your emotions (a natural instinctive state of mind generated from your circumstances, mood, or relationships with others), the emotions of others, and in the moment, how to use that information to manage yourself and your relationships.
Are you starting to see what’s possible when all of your people are emotionally intelligent and operating with a growth mindset?
Imagine how much more your company could accomplish and how much more your culture could thrive with these 2.
Pairing them both together is key in the workplace.
When GM and EQ are paired together they have the power to unlock the full potential of your people, connecting them with their purpose and passion for their work, along with connecting them to your company’s vision and desired results.
Why does this matter?
When people are connected (different from engaged) with their purpose there is an alignment that ignites their passion, and joy, not just with their work, but in all aspects of their lives.
This matters because it is part of our human design.
All of us have a dire and resounding need for purpose. When our purpose gets ignored or suppressed, we begin to lose energy, focus, direction, flexibility, agility, creativity, our desire to go the extra mile, and our ability to excel and rise to challenges and we begin to settle and accept mediocrity.
When people are connected to their purpose they are unstoppable, motivated, compassionate, open-minded, curious, joyful, adventurous, and innovative.
Now, this doesn’t mean when people are connected to their purpose they are perfect and will not make mistakes. What this means is that when they make mistakes, they recover quickly and learn something from their mistakes to course correct.
A person’s purpose can only be activated with a growth mindset and is fueled by emotional intelligence.
How does this happen?
The first step is to access and activate your people’s growth mindset through training, coaching, and experiential workshops, or labs, where your people get to practice the work, ask questions, and receive powerful feedback to transform their blind spots and become emotionally intelligent.
Emotionally intelligent is the action or behavior that reflects if a person is operating with a growth mindset.
Think of it this way – every circumstance in your workplace (and out), has content and context.
The context is influenced by the mindset (fixed or growth, whichever one is leading the results of the circumstance).
The content is influenced by emotional intelligence – how each person is responding to the context of circumstance. Again, EQ is the action or behavior choice in each moment of every circumstance.
When your people are operating with a growth mindset, they can easily activate their emotional intelligence, even when the circumstance is incredibly challenging – and this goes for any people and relationship skill – GM mindset supports people shifting into leadership, collaboration, agility, problem-solving, critical thinking, listening and more.
So how do you invite these possibilities into your workplace?
You start by inviting both in at the same time.
Too many leaders are researching, collecting information, or waiting for something perfect to land into their laps, rather than acting on what they already know is worth exploring.
Waiting and doing nothing are perfect examples of a fixed mindset.
Begin with YOU stepping into your growth mindset by taking committed action. Otherwise, you are leading your company with a fixed mindset, also referred to as your comfort zone – remember the fixed mindset doesn’t believe there’s room for growth, and nothing changes. The fixed mindset enjoys and needs to feel comfortable.
Here’s the thing…as a leader in your company, you are not there to be comfortable. You are there to take creative risks and to evoke your people to take on, complete, and excel with challenging tasks and projects. You are there to solve problems and expand the development and growth of your company – all of this requires a growth mindset.
You get to invite GM & EQ into your company via training AND coaching (we’ll talk about the big AND in a moment).
First, if you have an in-house coach, in-house trainer, or dedicated leaders who are ready to commit and invest in these possibilities for your people, the journey is seamless.
If you do not have this type of leadership in play, begin exploring who is aligned with your company’s vision and can both train AND coach your people in these 2 areas.
Going back to the big AND.
This is something we firmly believe in at EVOLVE, training AND coaching your people in the same experience to amplify the results.
Most companies only train their people, leaving out the part that seals the deal – the coaching. Anyone can learn about almost anything. Whether or not we can embody it and bring it to life is something else.
Higher education done well requires a lab component. Students learn the material in an educational, intellectual environment, and then are required to apply the lessons in real circumstances (lab setting) to become the lesson, rather than solely relying on a test or exam to evaluate the work.
Think of it this way, people can go to business school, get their MBA, take management courses, and get 100% on management tests and exams, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they automatically will make a great manager or leader – some will, most won’t.
It is through internships, mentors, coaches, case studies, and then moving into entry- to mid-level work experience (the lab), that the person truly gets to embody their education and become management and leadership material.
Interestingly enough, leaders at the top of their game either currently work with or have worked with a coach in the past to break through to get where they are today.
Our talent, capabilities, and intelligence will only get us so far. The rest of our possibilities get to come to life with focused work to explore, uncover and shift into the next versions of who we get to be, and we believe an accelerated and highly effective way of accomplishing this is through coaching – both group and 1:1 coaching.
So by adding in the coaching, you maximize the training by giving your people the opportunity to be in the real lab (your workplace, and dedicated coaching sessions), to practice these skills and what they are continually learning about themselves to receive feedback to shift and transform.
How amazing is that?!
So the big AND gives you the most value and the best results by investing in your biggest asset.
In our experience, we have seen so much more unlocked as a result of the coaching, more than the training. For a good amount of people, the training is intuitive. Most people are conscious and aware enough to know their blind spots and know what needs to be improved or acquired.
Yet, we invite you to train all of your people on the growth mindset and emotional intelligence because they are both rooted deep internally. Training can support people to feel comfortable, feeling safe, and even inspire them to open up all of their possibilities adding a significant boost of energy and effort.
Training also gives the facilitator insight into how your people are responding to the material so they can adjust and tailor it to your unique people and desired outcome.
This is what differentiates us at EVOLVE – we are COACHES who TRAIN and can co-create implementation STRATEGIES with your company to get the most value out of your people and the experience.
Most companies focus heavily on training and leave you to integrate and embody the work on your own, or they have your people fill out surveys and assessments and leave you with the results to implement and create a plan on your own.
Most coaches may not include full-service training in their offerings.
It is our full-service approach at EVOLVE where you get the trainers, who know the results and are also the coaches curating the environment for your people to integrate and embody the desired results through growth mindset coaching 1:1, with teams and company-wide, while co-creating strategies with your leadership to develop and sustain the work.
It’s our distinct work that opens people up to their greatness and unlocks their full potential, leading to higher engagement, and purpose, where they can’t help but go the extra mile consistently leading to a thriving culture.
This is a WIN-WIN approach for you and your company because not only will you experience higher retention, attract ideal talent, increase your profitability, and more, your people will feel a deep sense of connection and engagement with their work, leading to a thriving culture.
Your people are your biggest asset, and how you invest in them is how your company soars or sinks.
A growth mindset and emotional intelligence in the workplace have such a dynamic ripple effect, where you will experience your people coaching each other and creating stronger relationships with your clients and with everyone in their lives.
When you think about the people you want to surround yourself with every day and the people you want to work for your company – aren’t they kind of the same people?
Imagine if everyone in your company had…
- highly developed and activated people and relationship skills
- purpose
- the ability to excel in their performance
- the ability to innovate, solve problems, create, be agile
- the ability to be fully aware of their blind spots and shift out of them
- the ability to navigate through challenging conversations and circumstances with ease
- a sense of joy, fun, and passion
What would your company results look like and what would your company feel like if this was all happening now?
It’s time to take committed action and lead your company into a powerful people experience.
Stop waiting for the perfect solution to land in your lap. You can’t afford to lose any more time, people, or revenue.
We know it can be overwhelming when it comes to figuring out where to start, who to work with, how to get buy-in from your peers in senior leadership, or what will be the ROI.
If you feel this way, this is a moment where a creative risk is needed to see what’s possible – this creative risk that exists in your growth mindset.
Every question throughout this post speaks directly to your growth mindset. How have you answered each so far?
This is an exciting time in the workplace. Shifts in the marketplace and your workplace will continue to happen – nothing truly ever stays the same. When you are ready to invest in yourself and your people accessing their growth mindset and becoming emotionally intelligent, you will start to experience the ripple effect that is waiting to be unleashed in your company.
(If you live or will be in the DMV area, EVOLVE is hosting a complimentary workshop on this topic on Tuesday, April 30, 2019, for leaders who head up talent, culture, people, strategy, and sales/biz dev teams in your company. To receive a ticket and more details, head to the event page.)
What’s possible for your people and your company?
If you’d like to explore our work at EVOLVE, book a conversation with us.
