The Growth Mindset – Why Cultural Change is Needed

As a business owner, it’s pretty easy to buy into the idea of growth. You see the big picture of where your organization is and where it is headed, and you understand that it will be necessary to grow to reach your goals.

That vision may not be as obvious to everyone on your team, however. For those individuals, their focus is narrower, as they try to check off items on their task list and keep up with the daily workload. They may think of growth as a positive, but it’s likely far from their top priority – they just want to get the job done. 

It’s this dichotomy between management and employee that speaks to the need for a cultural change within your organization. Rather than striving for growth with a team full of individuals focused only on today, you want to unify the business so everyone has their eyes on the same prize. 

The Many Forms of Growth

If you only focus on one type of growth, it will be hard to get commitment and focus from your team. I think this is a common mistake among many types of organizations. The only growth they consider is growth that is reflected in the bottom line. As a result, workers lose focus, as they are caught up in the day-to-day and don’t see their actions leading to immediate growth outcomes. 

This can be solved by changing the way you define growth within your organization. Offering definitions of growth like learning new skills, exploring new market opportunities, or building stronger relationships can help your teams understand how they can constantly be growing even if that growth doesn’t result in instant revenue. 

Walking the Walk

You can’t just talk on and on about growth as a business owner without doing something to back up that talk. Put another way, you need to invest in all kinds of growth to show your teams that you are serious about the value of growing in all aspects. 

Here are two examples of what I mean by walking the walk in reference to growth. First, you can invest in training and education for your people. Spending money on opportunities for your team members to develop new skills shows them directly how much you value growth. You aren’t sending them out to learn on their own – you are investing in those people to help them grow and help the business develop at the same time. 

Another way to prove your commitment to growth is to give your people time on the job to work on projects that escape the scope of their typical duties. These kinds of endeavors need to be scheduled carefully, but you should be able to build in blocks of time – even if it is only periodically – where they can look at the bigger picture and develop ideas or concepts that may help take the company in a new direction. If you never provide the time and space for your employees to think about such things, it will be difficult to cultivate a powerful growth mindset.