UTS21440 Chap.6 The Growth Mindset and Managing Change
The Growth Mindset and Managing Change
Week 5 of 21440 Management Skills at University of Technology Sydney also covers the belief side of the same week. A mindset is defined as a frame of reference, a belief and a way of viewing the world, and the specific belief at issue is whether ability is static or can be developed.
The chapter sets out the contrast across five situations, extends it to the level of a firm and its hiring practices, works through the three misconceptions the framework's own author published, and then adds the two things a belief alone does not supply: feedback literacy as the skill, and a three part feedback prompt as the practice.
What this chapter covers
- 01
What a mindset is: frame of reference, belief, perspective
- 02
Five situations where the two beliefs produce opposite behaviour
- 03
The two end states: plateauing early, against ever higher achievement
- 04
The motivation chain from learning goal to higher achievement
- 05
The organisational mindset, and the hiring practices each produces
- 06
Four reported differences in what employees of growth mindset firms say
- 07
Three published misconceptions, and the idea of fixed mindset triggers
- 08
Feedback literacy, defined, with its four features
- 09
Giving and receiving stances, and a three part feedback prompt
Rewriting three feedback comments so they can be acted on
- +1The positive prompt. Good job becomes a statement about what specifically worked and why it worked, in a named section. What changed is that the praise became specific enough to repeat, and a compliment that cannot be repeated is not information.
- +1The critical prompt. This does not work becomes a statement that it is not landing yet, followed by the reason. What changed is that a verdict became a diagnosis, and the word yet moved the claim from the person's ability to the current state of the draft.
- +1The opportunity prompt. There is nothing more you can do becomes a statement that you are not there yet, plus one concrete thing to try next. What changed is that a closed assessment became a single bounded action, which is the only form the taking action feature of feedback literacy can operate on.
Key terms
- Mindset
- A frame of reference, a belief, and a way of viewing the world. In this literature the belief at issue is whether intelligence and ability are static or can be developed, and the answer is reported to predict behaviour in the situations where management happens.
- Fixed mindset
- The belief that intelligence is static, which produces a desire to look smart and a tendency to avoid challenge, give up easily, treat effort as fruitless, ignore useful criticism and feel threatened by others' success.
- Growth mindset
- The belief that intelligence can be developed, which produces a desire to learn and a tendency to embrace challenge, persist through setbacks, treat effort as the path to mastery, learn from criticism and find inspiration in others' success.
- Fixed mindset triggers
- The specific circumstances that push a person out of a growth orientation. The corrective offered for the belief that one already has a growth mindset is to identify and work with these triggers rather than to claim a permanent state.
- Organisational mindset
- The same distinction applied to a firm, measured by how strongly employees agree that talent is fixed, and expressed in hiring practices, attitudes to risk, treatment of feedback and preference for developing or importing talent.
- Feedback literacy
- What a person needs in order to read comment on their work well and act on it: the grasp, the skills and the habits of mind that turn an observation into a changed way of working or studying. Its four features are appreciating feedback, making judgments, managing affect and taking action.
- Managing affect
- The third feature of feedback literacy, covering the handling of an emotional response so that it does not end the process at the first sentence. It is the feature a growth orientation supports most directly.
- Entity theory
- The original academic label for the fixed position, renamed for a general readership when the popular book appeared. The corresponding label for the growth position is incremental theory.
The Growth Mindset and Managing Change FAQ
Is a growth mindset just believing in yourself?
No. It is a specific belief about where ability comes from, and it produces a goal rather than a mood: if ability can be developed then learning becomes the goal, effort becomes the mechanism, and difficulty becomes information rather than evidence. The framework's own author warns against three misreadings, including the idea that it is simply about praising effort.
How would I tell whether an organisation really has a growth mindset?
By its practices rather than its statements. Look at whether selection emphasises past credentials or potential and a passion for learning, whether the culture is a control culture that avoids risk or one that supports it, and whether the preference is to hire outsiders or to develop and promote from within. The third published misconception is precisely that espousing a mindset is enough.
Why is feedback literacy taught alongside mindset?
Because a belief on its own changes nothing. A growth orientation only supplies the conviction that getting better is possible; what converts an observation into an actual revision is feedback literacy; and the three part prompt supplies a practice for saying it out loud. The feature that collapses under pressure is managing affect, which is exactly the one the belief supports.
What does the word yet actually do?
It relocates the claim. Saying that something is not landing yet attaches the judgement to the current state of the work rather than to a fixed property of the person, which keeps the comment inside the growth reading of ability and leaves a next step available. The accompanying rule of thumb is to aim the comment at the work rather than at the person, and to leave a route forward open.
How should I write about mindset in a journal entry?
Evidence it rather than claim it. Asserting that you have a growth mindset scores nothing, because the rubric is looking for evidence of changing perspectives over time. The stronger entry names a fixed mindset trigger you actually noticed in yourself during the session and says what you did differently the second time it appeared.
Assessment move
Do not spend long on the two column contrast, which is easy to remember and easy to write shallowly about.
Spend the time on three things instead: the organisational practices table, because that is what the reading questions ask you to apply; the three misconceptions, because quoting a framework's own published corrections is the cheapest demonstration of critical engagement available; and the four features of feedback literacy, because the fifth reading question asks you to join them to mindset rather than to summarise both.
Practise the three prompt rewrite on real comments from your own group, since you will need the same move in the tutorial peer review.
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