ITB December 2024/January 2025 - Magazine - Page 56
“Enacting a growth mindset can take a lot of work when
applied to deliberately developing a skill or asking lots
of questions about your assumptions. The trick is to work
out where a fixed mindset is holding you back — one
or two areas that would really enrich your life and your
career — and try to be more growth-minded in those.”
CAREER GROW TH
PROFESSOR PETER HESLIN, UNSW BUSINESS SCHOOL
GROWTH VERSUS FIXED MINDSET
Put simply, a person’s mindset is the assumptions
they hold about how much they can change and
cultivate their personal attributes, such as capability
and personality, explains UNSW Business School’s
professor Peter Heslin, who pioneered research
on mindsets in organisations.
“The hallmarks of a growth mindset are basically
setting goals and persistently trying to achieve
them,” says Heslin, who has co-authored numerous
mindsets-related research papers and hosts regular
one-day growth mindset workshops.
56 INTHEBLACK Dec 2024/Jan 2025 SPECIAL EDITION
Statements such as, “In negotiations, experience
is a great teacher” and “People can always turn over
a new leaf” reflect a growth mindset, he says.
“On the other hand, the hallmarks of a fixed
mindset are trying to direct yourself to areas where
you think you have inherent capabilities and avoiding
areas where you don’t think you’ve really got talent,”
says Heslin, adding it is reflected in statements such
as “I’m just too old for this”.
“For example, some people might say, ‘Look, I’m
not cut out for socialising’, as opposed to, ‘Well,
networking is important for my future career
