With the Growth Mindset

‘Rising from The Ashes’ with the Growth Mindset

Currently world is going through a very difficult phase due to the prevailing COVID19 pandemic situation. The number of COVID19 positive cases are increasing day by day and it is badly affecting various industries, nations and overall global economy. On the other hand, scientists and pharma companies are working towards developing some medicine or vaccine for the same, doctors are trying their best to treat the affected patients with the limited resources available and have been successful in the recovery of lakhs of patients. Additionally, Govt. authorities are executing relevant measures to control the spread of this pandemic and we all are very much hopeful that with all these efforts, we will be able to come out of this situation soon. However, the post COVID19 world will have some unpredictable challenges and difficulties for several sectors, economy and overall global business environment. In such uncertain circumstances, Growth Mindset will be the key to progress ahead and achieve the success. Let us first go through few stories, where few individuals had to go through some difficult phase in their life, but with the Growth Mindset they emerged out as stars in their respective fields, and then understand this concept.

• Story 1: In 1978, a young & adventurous lady Marilyn Hamilton met with an accident while doing hang gliding, which resulted in serious spinal cord & leg injuries, because of which she couldn’t walk on her legs. At that time, there used to be very bulky wheelchairs and Marilyn experienced difficulties in moving such heavy wheelchair on her own. Further she observed that other handicapped people using such “stainless steel dinosaurs” (the term she referred for such wheelchair) were also facing the similar problem of mobility and were mostly dependent on their family and friends to move anywhere. However, unlike those other handicaps she took the challenge to make a lightweight wheelchair which should be easy to move and feel as a part of her body. She shared her idea of using hang gliding materials to make the lightweight wheelchair with two of her friends having some engineering background and thus she co- founded ‘Quickie Wheelchair’ company. Subsequently, with the increasing popularity of such lightweight and user-friendly wheelchairs Quickie turn out to become a global leader in the wheelchair industry. However, she didn’t stop there, and in 1980s started working on her next goal of making ultra-lightweight sport chairs, to enable the disabled to play the sports and thus transformed the world of adapted sports. In addition, she herself participated in such sports events and also won some titles, including ‘Silver Medal’ in the 1982 ‘Winter Paralympics’ and ‘National Wheelchair Tennis Singles Championship’ for two consecutive years 1982 & 83. Moreover, Marilyn also received ‘Minerva Award’ in 2006, one of the top honours California gives to its most successful and inspiring women. Thus, this story portrays how Marilyn Hamilton bounced back after a major accident in her life by developing a Growth Mindset to come out from the difficult phase of her life.

• Story 2: It was the 3rd test match against South Africa in March, 2018 series, when Australia’s captain, Steven Smith was banned for 1 year by Cricket Australia, due to his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal using sandpaper. During this period, he had to face a lot of criticism not only from the cricketing fraternity & experts but also from the cricket fans all over the world. Thus, he was going through a difficult period which may have ended his cricketing career. Finally, around one & half year later he got the comeback opportunity in the Australian team for the popular ‘Ashes series’ against England during August, 2019. English fans were teasing Smith with various comments & gestures as he entered the ground. Furthermore, Australian team’s batting performance was also poor, as at one-point Australian team was struggling at 122 for the loss of 8 wickets. From this stage, Smith formed two important partnerships with the tail-enders, and added valuable 168 more runs to take Australian team to a respectable score of 284. Subsequently, Australia went ahead to win this test match and Steven Smith was named as “Player of the Match” for scoring two consecutive tons - 144 runs in the 1st innings & 142 runs in the 2nd innings. Moreover, Smith could play 4 test matches in that series and scored 774 runs which was fifth highest ever in a series, in the history of Ashes, despite of missing one test match due to his injury. In terms of percentage contribution to Australian team’s total runs (excluding extras), Smith’s performance was at par with that of Don Bradman’s contribution in the memorable 1930 Ashes series, where he scored 35.5% runs of Australian team’s runs off the bat. And currently, as per the ICC records, Smith has the all-time 2nd highest batting average of 62.8 behind the legendary Don Bradman’s batting average of 99.9. Thus, the second story displays how Steven Smith with the Growth Mindset reclaimed his lost position, performance and respect in the world cricket.

• What is ‘Growth Mindset’ & How to Develop it? The term Growth Mindset may seems to be a common buzzword, but let us try to understand as it has been explained in one of bestseller books “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol Dweck. The book says, there are mainly two types of mindsets: Growth mindset & Fixed mindset, which creates a significant difference in the outcomes. Dweck mentioned that understanding these two mindsets, will not only help people in determining their existing state of mindset, but also will help them in providing direction for further improvements. Following table gives a gist to these two mindsets:

On developing the Growth Mindset, Dweck shared about the importance of ‘Power of Yet’, where she mentioned the following experience: “I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate, and if they didn’t pass a course, they got the grade “Not Yet.” And I thought that was fantastic, because if you get a failing grade, you think, I’m nothing, I’m nowhere. But if you get the grade “Not Yet” you understand that you’re on a learning curve. It gives you a path into the future.” She further added that, “Some of them reacted in a shockingly positive way. They said things like, “I love a challenge,” or, “You know, I was hoping this would be informative.” They understood that their abilities could be developed. They had what I call a growth mindset.” The following chart highlights, how Growth Mindset leads to the higher achievement.

Finally, regarding how and when to praise students or team members for developing the Growth Mindset, Dweck shared: “We can praise wisely, not praising intelligence or talent. But praising the process that kids engage in: their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. This process praise creates kids who are hardy and resilient.” Thus, Growth Mindset can develop a belief to face and overcome the uncertainty and motivate people to put more efforts without having fear of failure.

- Prof. Krunal K. Punjani Dr. V. N. Bedekar Institute of Management Studies