The alternative to a fixed mindset is a growth mindset. In this way of thinking, attributes are changeable, manageable, and can be learned. People with a growth mindset believe that with the right amount of focus and effort, intelligence and ability can be developed.(This is further supported through studies in neuroscience, in which we have learnt of the brain’s plasticity from childhood, to maturity, and into old age. Brain plasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change its structure and function in response to sensing, perceiving and learning.) Dweck has commented, “Just because one person can do something well without much training, doesn’t mean another person can’t do it well with training”. Consider a sportsman such as Andre Agassi who practised for hours on end, day in, day out; consider Michael Jordan who has been described by his assistant coach at the Chicago Bulls Basketball Team as “a genius who consistently wants to upgrade his genius”.

People with a growth mindset see failure as an opportunity to learn; failure does not attack their core identity. (Dweck 2008)

Coaching is about doing things differently; it is about changing something. A growth mindset will enable this change; it will encourage focus and attention for development and learning. A fixed mindset will disable this change.

It is important for coaches to acknowledge effort in order to create a growth mindset. Alternatively, acknowledging competence and achievement encourages a fixed mindset—that is, there is no more to learn…

Strategies that encourage a growth mindset:

• Acknowledge the effort, courage, persistence, etc that a person has put into achieving a good level of performance as opposed to acknowledging the achievement, the skill or the talent.
• Work to strengths and help your coachee identify how to use these more fully.
• Create positivity in your coaching conversations. Increased positivity results in:
  • Increased capacity to think and to act;
  • Broadened (self) awareness;
  • Increased creativity;
  • Increased optimism and resourcefulness (resilience);
  • Improved relationships, and more.
• Encourage acceptance of developmental feedback as useful information from which to further succeed, rather than a personal criticism.
• Stress that failure is feedback, and even though it might “hurt” it should be valued as a useful source of information about performance.
• Help your coachee focus on being better, not necessarily the best.
• Revise goals and make them more challenging, engaging and valuable for the coachee.
• Look for responses in your coachee’s body language, tone, words and emotions in all coaching conversations and during different parts of the coaching conversation. For example, when revising goals above, how is your coachee responding? What does this tell you?
• Think of your own mindset as this will directly influence the mindset of a coachee. A coachee needs to believe in their ability to do what they want to do or what needs to be done. How do you demonstrate this belief in them? Do they want to believe but do not dare? Why?
• Listen for the story that the coachee is telling themself about the situation (rather than the facts of the matter), as it is the story we tell ourselves that determine our future behaviour.
• Ask stories about growth experiences that will have your coachee feeling energised and confident. Consider questions such as:
  • Tell me about a time you performed in a way in which you didn’t think you were capable.
  • What have you become better at over the years?
  • Tell me about an important lesson you have learned from your mistakes.
  • How have you developed professionally in the last year?
  • When were there exceptions to the “rules” of your personality? For example, if you consider yourself a private person, tell me about a time when you shared information about yourself with others.
  • When you have to perform “x” task, what do you hope to learn from it?
• Identify and understand what motivates your coachee. Create the conditions for motivation as opposed to feeling responsible for creating motivation in the coachee. Three things that will motivate your coachee are:
  1. Ensure that they have clear goals.
  2. Help them to think positively and resourcefully; they need to believe that they can achieve what they want to achieve and to be resilient to overcome setbacks/barriers.
  3. Be sure that the coachee knows what they need to do next—the next step needs to be perceived as more valuable than the status quo.

Adapted from ”Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, by Carol Dweck; “Coaching Positively”, by Matt Driver; “Practising Positive Psychology Coaching”, by Robert Biswas-Diener; “Positivity”, by Barbara Fredrickson; “Encyclopaedia of Positive Questions, Vol 1”, by Diana Whitney et al.