Fixed and Growth Mindset

14 February 2021

lock and growth

From schools to businesses, from Instagram to motivational forums, it seems everyone is talking fixed and growth mindsets. In the pursuit of success for ourselves as individuals as well as company objectives, it seems we all appreciate that a growth mindset – measured by flexibility and adaptability is key. In our COVID era, this certainly has been tested and many of us are now familiar with being forced out of usual methods of operation to seize new opportunities or overcome never seen before production / transit hurdles. This month we’re taking what we know about the value of growth mindsets and giving ourselves a health check in terms of labour, management and production. Assess your company as to where your strengths are and discover any areas that might be stagnating your progress goals for this year.

If you desire a quick overview, here’s a handy summary of fixed and growth mindset:

growth fixed mindset

Source: 3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com

Now, let’s look at the three tiers of an organisational structure, as outlined earlier and examine what they might look like within a fixed mindset vs growth mindset.

Example of Fixed and Growth Mindset in a Production Facility
Tier	Fixed	Growth
Labour force	workers reflecting in work or words the attitude of 'I can’t do this', 'This is too hard'; blame is shifted away from self to blame process, management or other worker; 'not my fault', 'not my job' worker only understands their task and not how it fits into the greater purpose/context defensive to feedback	pride in the collective energy of team goals over individual encouragement and scaffolding of others' talents to 'get the job done' Being willing to 'have a go' or 'learn a new way' value and understand their own role in the bigger picture
Management	only employ workers with familiar prior experience to do set tasks avoid surrounding own role with highly capable individuals who may expose own weaknesses believing self to be superior to workers who perform your delegated tasks assuming own skillset for management is already fully attained assuming industry is static highly critical of others' mistakes and choosing blame over redirection of others when error occur	identify potential in workforce and be willing to train/nurture people into new roles looking to diversify skillset of workers to allow for contingency/prevent gaps in workforce understanding integral role of motivation and recognition of those completing tasks set by management offering clear guidelines for workers to follow including being open to feedback for reflection/learning opportunities for self as well as employees
Production	allow pre-existing machinery and processes to dictate practices and methods of production satisfied with production schedules met; 'done for the day!' see workers as machinery assume current practice will meet future need seeing challenge as failure or insurmountable	seek upskilling of workers or innovative equipment to meet future desired outcomes open to streamlining production to achieve greater yield or economise environment valuing worker input to improve practice see challenge as possibility for new directions and opportunities open to using existing product or process to meet a newly identified market need

Clearly, food production relies on the interconnected success of a growth mindset across all tiers of an organisation. Becoming too focussed on one area may result in a fixed mindset in another area hindering all successful attempts in others.

At Regethermic, we understand our role is not just to supply equipment and imagine such achieves your organisational goals. We recognise key to the success of machinery is understanding the desired vision behind it, the environment it will fit within and the workforce to be trained to use it. With an eye to the future, Regethermic recognises that our service to you must be individually focussed – we undertake to appreciate your journey and offer counsel on where you see yourself heading in your production goals. We offer insight to how equipment or process may be adapted or increased in flexibility of use to afford your company its greatest success moving forwards into an unknown, but exciting future.

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow".
Ronald. E. Osborn

Article written by Jon Gibson