Psychologist and Stanford University professor Carol Dweck highlighted the value of a 'growth mindset’ in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It’s a belief that people can develop new abilities over time. This contrasts with a 'fixed mindset,’ which assumes that you’re either good at something or not, and that no amount of practice will make much difference. The book highlights that people with a growth mindset:
- Have a less stressful and more successful life
- Learn faster and collaborate better
- Treat failure as a natural part of the learning process and don’t allow it to undermine their self-worth
- Are more comfortable taking risks in order to achieve a goal 

The illustration shows some ways to foster a growth mindset in yourself and others.

​BELIEVE IN POTENTIAL
Having a growth mindset means believing in people’s capacity to continually develop and improve. Everyone has brain capacity to spare; a growth mindset means believing that anyone can use this capacity to become great at something if the conditions are favourable.
 
SHOW BRAVERY
We learn most from new experiences, so it pays to push ourselves out of our comfort zone into unfamiliar situations. For this to happen, we need the courage to raise our hand when opportunities arise, and leaders need to take calculated risks when deciding whom to assign to different challenges.
 
VALUE FEEDBACK
Feedback is vital for effective learning. When a golfer strikes the ball cleanly and it sails into the distance, they need to know what was right about their swing to help them do it again. When a business meeting turns into a train wreck, finding out why enables the next one to go more smoothly.
 
APPRECIATE FAILURE
Thomas Edison, the great American inventor, is believed to have said that he never failed — he just found thousands of ways that didn’t work. Our attitude towards failure affects whether we’ll take on new challenges and our resilience when things go wrong. Fear of failure holds us back; if we take on challenges knowing that a stumble will help us learn, we’ll cope better with setbacks. Leaders need to create an environment that allows people to volunteer for tough challenges, safe in the knowledge that if they do their best, failure will not reflect badly on them.
 
APPLAUD EFFORT
To prevent failure being stigmatized, leaders should recognize and celebrate people’s efforts regardless of success or failure. Whilst this is rarely seen in a business context, placing as much value on effort and learning as on achievement would help create the right conditions for a growth mindset to flourish.
 
CULTIVATE PATIENCE
In his 2008 bestseller, Outliers, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell showed how experts in any field have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice to master complex skills. He pointed out that Microsoft’s Bill Gates spent thousands of hours programming the school computer, and the Beatles played more than 1,200 sets in the bars of Hamburg in the early 1960s before they became famous. Businesses and individuals need to acknowledge that learning takes time and that practice is required to achieve mastery.