7 Growth Mindset Principles for Businesses
Today I am going to share with you the 7 Growth Mindset Principles for Businesses
Everyone has the ability to grow because everyone starts somewhere. Abraham Maslow said, “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
Oprah Winfrey said, “We can’t become what we need to be, by remaining what we are.”
It’s important to recognise that growth is not purely measured by sales. In fact, from a monetary measure, it’s about profit rather than sales. It begins with you and your people, and it’s measured by their wellbeing and happiness.
Happy people generate hyper-growth. Happy customers mean loyal customers. And they are the key in attracting more customers who will pay you well for your products and services.
However, to achieve this you often face the treacherous path of disruption and change, and we all know that for many people these two words cause a significant amount of anxiety. This anxiety and discomfort caused by disruption and change can lead to a crisis and in many cases can result in failure rather than growth. I am here to tell you that this can be avoided and the 7 Growth Mindset Principles for Businesses that I will share with you today will absolutely assist you.
Hyper-growth sounds fun and for the most part, business owners and executives are continuously in search of the magic pill that will create a constant and significant rise in sales. When we sell more, we feel accomplished, but often this leads to burn out, stress, lack of control and exhaustion. These outcomes of hyper-growth lead to a drop in your morale, operational dysfunctionality, and pain points for customers that can see many negative outcomes for your business or firm.
The human pain points, such as exhaustion and burnout are significant considerations for business owners and executives. These are often overlooked because of the need to generate sales and growth. This will lead to a lone wolf approach where people begin to isolate themselves from their team, family and friends. For many business owners and executives, this can lead to depression and business or career failure.
The primary casualty of hyper-growth gone bad is a human one and often starts with key people. To avoid the pitfalls of hyper-growth you need to make sure that you and your team are mentally prepared, and this comes in the form of developing and practising growth mindset principles.
As Professor Dweck states in her research on growth mindsets, “We need to be mindful of the misconception of equating the growth mindset with effort.” Effort is certainly a primary factor in achievement, however, we need to learn new ways and strategies, as well as “seek inputs from others when we are stuck”.
She goes further to state, “Effort is a means to an end to the goals of learning and improvement.” This means that from time to time we will face adversity, disruption and change. It’s how we learn and improve that assists us with growth both personally and financially.
One of my favourite quotes from Professor Dweck is, “That the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.” This is fundamentally critical when you practice the principles I will share with you today.
Growth rarely happens overnight and it most certainly isn’t lineal like many think. Success is in fact a messy scribble and bound with failure experiences that force learning and improvement. Having the right mindset, a growth mindset will help you grow and flourish throughout your journey.
Adopting a growth mindset is not an easy task because we all have fixed mindsets. However, the following 7 growth mindset principles will help you supercharge your growth and wellbeing for you and your business.
Welcome the Chaos
As Bob Dylan famously sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Welcoming the chaos can help you with creativity and the ability to adapt to change. Crisis spawn’s innovation, effectiveness and success. Distribution is innovation, so come to terms with chaos and embrace reality. As a result, you can sacrifice efficiency for speed and lower the resistance to change as well as minimise the impact of disruption.
Hire Doers
Hire someone who is an action taker. Don’t waste your time hiring the next big thing. You need people that can get you from A to B, then B to C, not A to Z. These are different kinds of people and you will need them at different intervals of your journey.
I seek out mentors and advisors for each stage of my journey both professionally and personally. I recently hired two wellbeing coaches working together to help me form new thought processes about my health and wellbeing and the other to help me clear my energy and unbound the things that have held me back in the past. Because they are action takers, and I am a total doer, the results have surpassed all expectations we set on day one.
Hiring doers is a mindset formed from many steps and processes that you must act upon, having this mindset during all your recruitment stages will help develop a hyper-growth team.
Embrace a Lack of Management
There is no substitute for speed. And with that will come poor management from time to time, so it’s imperative that the team understand it’s not personal but a requirement to act quickly.
Rapid growth does not form many friendships, in fact, it breaks even the best. Set the tone and the rules at the start. This doesn’t mean to hate people or do the wrong thing; it means establishing a culture of action takers driven by purpose and outcomes.
To combat the risk, develop a culture of empowerment as this will accelerate learning and improvement because of accountability. People who are empowered perform much better than those that are oppressed or fear failure.
Get Your Product to Market FAST
Don’t worry about perfection. The market will dictate changes and navigate your innovation. Testing your products and services market fit is critical, this won’t happen in your head or in a workshop. Get it to market and let the market tell you what it needs and why.
So many people and organisations failed to understand this fourth principle. Fear of failure causes paralysis making products, and services take too long to be deployed in the market which burdens the company and impacts profit.
Break the fixed mindset cycle that speed is your enemy and work yourself towards freedom and adventure.
Laser Focus
Business owners and executives get distracted by new shiny objects or unforeseen challenges. Not every new idea is worth pursuing and not every fire needs putting out.
Don’t overthink it. Sometimes things need to burn so you can get on with it and not lose focus on your destination. Too often I see entrepreneurs worrying about little things and spending too much time trying to appease everyone.
The most successful entrepreneurs, business owners and executives I have worked with are those that get on with achieving their goals. They are purpose-driven and have laser focus.
Hack Away
What I mean is find the fastest way to get from 0 to hero. This is for everything you do!!!
What’s important to realise is that getting shit done fast is critical to your business and progress is better than perfection.
Perfection is a detrimental mindset to establish. Developing a growth hacking mindset is powerful and I recommend the ‘high tempo testing’ concept coined by Sean Ellis.
That is; learn from insight, create a hypothesis, test, measure and go again.
You will be amazed when you develop this mindset. You will solve problems by creating problems and you will grow from cutting corners, improving and learning along the way.
J.K. Rowling famously said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
Solve a Massive Market Problem
In whatever you are doing, remember that the key to success and impact is to solve a massive problem. You solve these problems by breaking them down into manageable and actionable tasks.
When trying to solve big problems in established businesses, don’t gravitate to bold moves but rather seek out small wins.
Once you know you are solving a big problem, don’t get caught up in customer service because the customers will sort themselves out in the early stages. It’s a learn and test experiment.
This does not mean abandoning your customers but rather offering the most basic support necessary to facilitate such service.
For example; once a tech start-up has validated their product and they are ready to deploy on the scale they may offer email support with a 48-hour response time.
For an established business that is navigating disruption, perhaps caused by a pandemic, it’s critical to recognise that when leading change, less is more.
These 7 Growth Mindset Principles for Businesses will help you develop success in more ways than you could imagine. It will help your self-confidence. It will improve your social proof and increase your knowledge base. These factors will help you empower others and get them into action. More importantly, you will become more fulfilled because when you are taking action every day on things that matter – you will immediately feel accomplished.
This is your chance to start, refine and grow! Despite the challenges and disruption caused by COVID we are blessed with an abundance of opportunities and by developing a growth mindset, those opportunities will become more apparent and you will give yourself the best opportunity to grow and flourish.
I really loved hanging out with you today and sharing my tips that will help develop a growth mindset. I hope you will implement these tips that I have shared with you today, and put them into practice immediately. Don’t wait!!
Purpose has become a cornerstone in my teaching and advising business owners and executives.
Knowing the habits and principles of success will allow you to move forward with courage and action.
Building courage is a key instrument in accelerating my client’s growth and deepening their impact both professionally and personally. I want this for you. This is why I share my knowledge and experience with you through various media.
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Please take care during this time, be kind and be courageous.
AND until next time, Live with purpose.
