The strong belief and mindset

Shelter Chieza Change Management
We often overlook a superpower that is inherent in most people, the unbelievable power of our personal beliefs. Throughout the years, I have had moments of examining the beliefs that are responsible for my actions. I was even shocked to learn how many such powers had been passed willingly or unwillingly to me. We often behave according to those beliefs, these are purely make or break for some of us. I took some time to study people’s mindsets and attitudes at the workplace.

For instance, you may have two people that behaviourists have categorised as having either a fixed or growth mindset. Those with a growth mindset have an aptitude to learn more, grow more, succeed more and they always make it.

Those with a fixed mindset do not really bother to expand and grow them. The two types of people differ in the way they view intelligence, how to solve problems at the workplace, how to increase or manage sales.

Throughout the years, I have learnt that the key to success is not simply a mind that can focus or that can be resilient, it is the growth mindset that you have, the aptitude to success. Having the qualification on paper for being an accountant does not guarantee you success.

In fact, most success names that we have heard about in our time are people that were thought to be without success.

People like Charles Darwin, Mozart, Albert Einstein were never individuals that excelled in classroom set-ups.

What they succeeded in doing though was building their abilities. Individuals are not chained to current capabilities, there is more that someone can do to succeed. What then kicks in for most of these people is the drive to succeed, is the growth mindset that sets them to achieve higher than they would have thought they would achieve.

It is generally understood through observation of a brain scan, those individuals with a fixed mindset can be evidently seen due to a brain that becomes most active when they receive information as a result of things like a big scores or recognition. Compare it to the one who has a growth mindset whose brain is most active when they receive information of what they could do better next time.

I am sure you can relate to such type of people that are constantly looking for recognition for having contributed directly to presenting a marketing and sales pitch or that are looking for a mention in the company bulletin.

Those on the other side are focused more on learning. If you have a fixed mindset, making an effort becomes an underdog. Those with a fixed mindset are focused only on achieving. That is why most people with a highly competitive spirit become social misfits, to them everything is about winning or losing, they will step on people heads and toes to go higher. They literally have no time to learn and grow.

The aptitude to succeed will tell you that losing is not failure, it is learning. Most of the people that quickly lose interest in a job or withdraw and set the team back belong to the group of people with a fixed mindset. Those with egotistic attitude also belong to this group that is constantly looking for accolades and recognition.

Within companies, managers struggles to deal with people that lack motivation, yet after careful analysis, psychologists would conclude that lack of motivation in reached in stages.

As a manager, watch and observe how you comment on individuals in your department. For instance, these comments presented to different people have variations in effect.

“Wow that is a good piece of work, you must be good at this” as compared to “Wow this is a good piece of work, you must have put a lot of effort into it “, will get you different reactions. The first one reflects a fixed mindset because it portrays intelligence or abilities as a fixed quality.

Many people that have a growth mindset choose tasks that are not really easy but take up the harder tasks to challenge themselves to achieve more.

A fixed mindset person will lie, cheat, beat, sputter to get their way up. They normally do not have alternatives and cannot cope with failure.

A fixed mindset manager will not mentor their employees whereas the growth mindset manger can become much better with negotiation skills.

When you hear yourself say you can’t do it, teach your mind to believe self. I have delivered a talk on a controversial subject lately,

“If you want to achieve your goals do not focus on them.” This topic purely goes against most things we have said to managers.

A lot of times as managers, we focus on achieving the highest scores and grades that our predecessors have achieved but that ends up making you too myopic and can even frustrate you.

A lot of instances, the goals that we set are outside our control, for instance to convince the top five companies listed on the ZSE to purchase IT products from us.

It is a very ambitious goal to have but the only drawback is that we are not in total control of the outcome.

I would suggest that you focus on your behaviour instead of your goals. Goals require participation of other people whereas you can moderate the behaviours in your life.

Food for thought as you strive towards impact. Till next week, may God richly bless you!

Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of management exper- ience . She can be contacted at [email protected]