Career for most of us now is corporate. We are
struggling to move forward and settle in a place where we feel respectable and
posh. The truth is every one of us is affected by corporate and its norms in
one way or the other. There are two types of corporations if we should
simplify. One is ‘talent - minded’ corporate and the other one is ‘work -
minded’ corporate.
Learn
from mistakes
Today, most of them believe that for a successful
corporate business, one should have a talent mindset. Corporates create a
culture that worships talent which in turn pushes them into a fixed mindset.
When people
live in an environment where they are recruited solely for their so-called
talent, they have great difficulty when their image is threatened.
For example,
Jacob is hired for a manager’s post in a very profitable corporate company. He
is hired only because he studied at the World’s best university. People who
hired him thought that since he has studied in that university, he is naturally
talented.
One day, Jacob
makes a very blunder mistake by forgetting a client meeting. Now, he has a
reputation to be saved. What did/would he do? He just blamed others for not
reminding him of the meeting. He tries to cover up his faults by blaming
others. This is an indication of a fixed mindset.
A growth
mindset will accept the mistake and try to learn from it. As known, learning is
the ultimate goal for a growth-minded person. Just by avoiding the situation, you will not learn anything. You have to accept the fact that you have made a
mistake and learn to learn from it.
Do not
see hierarchy
People with a fixed mindset imagine that some people
are superior and some are inferior. A fixed mindset has a hierarchy. You might
be a manager today but don’t forget the bottom line from where you climbed.
Because you are in a position to look superior does not mean you are superior.
Everyone can learn, everyone can put in the effort to become the person you are
today. So, no one is superior or inferior.
Do
not feed your ego through your career
So many corporates have faced downfall because of
fixed minded leaders. These leaders have a “personal ego” attached to them.
They always kept the needs and improvements of the company second rate and
often put their ego as the utmost priority.
The best example for this is Lee Iacocca, who was once
with Ford company and was terminated by Henry Ford II. He also has a huge part
in developing the Ford Mustang.
Iacocca applied himself to the monumental task of
saving face and, in the process, Chrysler Motors. Chrysler, the once-thriving
Ford rival, was on the brink of death, but Iacocca as its new CEO acted quickly
to hire the right people, bring out new models, and lobby the government for
bailout loans.
Just a few
years after his humiliating exit from Ford, he was able to write a triumphant
autobiography and in it declare, “Today, I’m a hero.” Within a short
time, however, Chrysler was in trouble again.
Iacocca’s fixed mindset would not stay put. He
needed to prove his greatness—to himself, to Henry Ford, to the world—on a
larger and larger scale. He spent his company’s time on things that would
enhance his public image, and he spent the company’s money on things that would
impress Wall Street and hike up Chrysler’s stock prices. But he did this
instead of investing in new car designs or manufacturing improvements that
would keep the company profitable in the long run.
He also looked
to history, to how he would be judged and remembered. But he did not address
this concern by building the company. This resulted in a great loss for the
company.
Accept
constructive criticism
A fixed mindset hates criticism. People with a fixed
mindset always think their ideas are superior and perfect. They have lost the
ability to fix their mistakes and move forward. They ignore the criticizers and
surround themselves with their worshippers.
Always wanting to look perfect is called “CEO
disease.” Lee Iacocca had a bad case of it. After his initial success as head
of Chrysler Motors, Iacocca looked remarkably like our four-year-olds with
a fixed mindset.
He kept bringing out the same car models over and over
with only superficial changes. Unfortunately, they were models no one wanted
anymore. Meanwhile, Japanese companies were completely rethinking what cars
should look like and how they should run. We know how this turned out. Japanese
cars rapidly swept the market. Lee Iacocca surrounded himself with worshipers,
exiled the critics—and quickly lost touch with where his field was going. Lee
Iacocca had become a non-learner.
Elevate
the life of your colleagues and supporters
A company that is led by a growth-minded leader has
innumerable possibilities of growing into the giant store of developed and
skilled individuals. Let’s take the example of Microsoft, the well
known super developed technology-based firm.
Microsoft has totally rethought and reformed the idea
of growth and development. As a result, previously unidentified — yet skilled —
leaders are rising to levels they might not have in a traditional development
model.
The CEO is generally the bellwether of a company’s
culture, and under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft is emphasizing
learning and creativity. Nadella believes this is how leaders are made, and
that idea is reflected in several programs that have been designed to uplift
the company’s employees.
One wise program built by the company is
The Hackathon where it offers people to step out of their daily jobs and
develop leadership skills like collaborating across disciplines and advocating
for ideas. An employee has an idea with business or societal merit — a hack —
and then others who share that interest apply to join the team to develop the
business plan, create the prototype, and pitch it company-wide. Winning teams
are funded to build their projects.
By
giving many more people chances to become leaders, these programs are
unleashing greater potential across the company. By providing greater
opportunities they might well attract new people into the company.
Take care of your asset - employees
A growth-minded company is focused on the growth of
the company. Employees are the first step when a company needs to elevate. By
taking good care of the employees, by taming them for their growth and
providing them with numerous chances increases a growth-minded environment and
culture.
When people work in an environment that
uplifts their skills and work, they tend to work hard and dedicated to
improvising the growth of their company.
Jack Welch was the chairman and CEO of
General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his tenure at GE, the company's
value rose by 4,000%. He is also an author and philanthropist. GE Motors was
the most valuable company in the world. Fortune magazine called Welch “the most
widely admired, studied and imitated CEO of his time. . . . His total economic
impact is impossible to calculate but must be a staggering multiple of his GE
performance.”
When interviewed Steve Bennett, the CEO
of Intuit for the New York Times he said that “I learned about nurturing
employees from my time at General Electric from Jack Welch. . . .
He’d go directly to the front-line employee to figure out what was going on.
Sometime in the early 1990s, I saw him in a factory where they made
refrigerators in Louisville. . . . He went right to the workers in the assembly
line to hear what they had to say. I do frequent CEO chats with front-line
employees. I learned that from Jack.”
If you are just starting out in your
career or if you have achieved several milestones and at the peak of your
career, a growth mindset is necessary anyways. Real confidence is never in your
designation, an expensive suit, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in
your mindset. Your willingness to grow amidst the situations. In your
enthusiasm to learn and implement. Warren Bennis, the leadership guru studied
various leaders across the globe. He then boiled down to a single point
clubbing all the ideas from the renowned leaders. These great leaders said that
they didn’t start doing what they do to become leaders. Moreover, they had no
interest in proving themselves to others. They said that they just did what
they loved.
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