Lead with a Culture of Heart

Ever watch a master gardener work? They don't try to force plants to grow. Instead, they create the best conditions for growth.

That's exactly what great HR leaders and owners do with their managers and teams. Rather than pushing performance, they cultivate growth.

When I interviewed Scott Greenberg for the Work Positive Podcast, he shared this mic drop nugget: “The average manager leads people for 10 years before getting any formal training.” (https://workpositive.today/scott-greenberg)

Is it any wonder pushing performance is more common than cultivating growth?

Think about that. The eye surgeon who performed my cornea transplant was thoroughly trained by numerous mentors and succeeded enough to serve on the Duke Eye Center staff. I vetted him completely. Do you think for a nanosecond I would give him permission to operate on my eyes if he lacked training?

And yet daily, on average for 10 years, managers shape people's work lives without preparation.

Let’s do something about this unfortunate truth. Let’s get started with this: your Growth Mindset Manager's Culture Toolkit. You’re free to share it.

It has three parts:

1. Create Your Growth Mindset Vision
2. Converse about Growth Mindset
3. Celebrate Daily Growth Moments

Let’s unpack each one briefly with some simple yet profound actions you can take.

Create Your Growth Mindset Vision

I love this question: "What could our team become?"

It begs for more than numbers. Think energy, innovation, collaboration. One manufacturing leader painted this picture: "We'll be the team that others look to for new ideas." His team now leads company innovation.

Try this today: Gather your team for 15 minutes. Ask, "What would make us excited to come to work?" Avoid the urge to judge. Listen. Collaborate. Watch expressions brighten with possibilities. That's your growth mindset vision taking root.

Converse about Growth Mindset

Forget annual reviews. Create “growth talks.” These are regular conversations about development. Try these conversation starter questions with your team:

• What are you learning right now?
• Where do you want to grow next?
• How can I help clear your path?

These open-ended, deeply personal, and specific questions intensify your colleagues’ engagement. Each one assumes a growth mindset. Each one presumes your support.

Celebrate Daily Growth Moments

Small actions prompt big shifts. That’s why I focus you as an owner and HR leader on Do One Thing. It’s the perfect counter-balance to the overwhelm you experience daily.

Select One of these Things to Do. Prepare for the shift from a fixed to a growth mindset, from a toxic to a positive work culture:

• Celebrate learning from mistakes: switch from problem solving mode to practical solution stage. As Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said, “Within every adversity lies the seeds of opportunity.” Celebrate as you plant development. Expect a growth mindset, positive harvest.

• Celebrate your own growth journey: just because you’re the HR leader or owner doesn’t make you immune to development. Actually the opposite is true. Lead the charge toward growth as you share your discoveries.

• Celebrate responses to, "What did we learn?": peer-to-peer learning is the most effective modality among adults. Think of yourself as the facilitator of growth mindset development; a curator of culture content. Move beyond service as a depository. Actively invest best practices learned on the job by everyone.

• Celebrate progress: your culture may not be where you wish, but you’re moving in the right direction. Regardless of whether the progress is incremental or incredible, note it publicly and celebrate it. Celebration creates sustainability.

• Celebrate safe spaces for experiments: the largest barrier to your growth mindset, positive culture breakthrough is a lack of psychological safety for your teams. You must create and celebrate safe spaces for experiments so that team members run up to the edge of the competencies and fail graciously. That failure is the seedbed for cultural growth and positivity. Failure is an experience instead of a person.

The Heart-Map Challenge

Now you may be thinking, “Thanks Dr. Joey. Those are all great suggestions. But I’m just too busy to start anything new.”

I know. It’s challenging to see yourself starting something new that’s unfamiliar. You lack any guarantees for this new behavior.

Let me make it easy for you. 

Here’s a cadence or a heart-map you can follow to expand your influence as an HR leader or owner in your company. Follow this map to your desired destination of a growth mindset, positive work culture.

There’s a theme for each daypart with three questions to check-in on how you’re doing. The purpose of these three questions is course correction. Like Google Maps, even your fastest route zigs and zags because of traffic. These three question sets keep you on course to the culture you want.

Morning: Intention

• “What growth will I encourage today?
• “Who needs my support?
• “Where can I model learning?”

Midday: Impact

• “Who have I helped grow?
• “What learning have I noticed?
• “Where have I shown trust?”

Evening: Influence

• “What growth did I see?
• “How did I support it?
• “What's tomorrow's opportunity?”

Management that leads a company to create a growth mindset, positive culture that grows people and profits is magical. Follow this framework to build yours:

• Create Your Growth Mindset Vision
• Converse about Growth Mindset
• Celebrate Daily Growth Moments

Taken from Dr. Joey’s soon-to-be-released book, Growth Mindset and Culture: Six Power Moves for a Growth Mindset at Work.