A TRUE GROWTH MINDSET 🤔
I finally read Mindset by Carol Dweck. Twenty years after everyone else in sport started quoting it.
Here's what struck me. Sport talks growth mindset better than almost any industry. But the systems we build don't always match the language we use. I've been part of that gap myself.
We tell our teenagers aspiring to be a professional athlete that effort beats talent, then hand them a career forecast based on a combine result. We tell players failure is feedback, then run reviews that feel more like verdicts than lessons. Our systems still drift toward measurement, and measurement drifts toward labels, the old you can't manage what you can't measure adage.
A few things from the book that hit home and rang true for me after 18 years inside AFL clubs:
1. Praise the process, not the potential.
Dweck's research shows praising talent creates kids who avoid hard things to protect the label. I've seen highly rated juniors carry that weight. The "gifted" or "natural talent" tag becomes a weight on the shoulders they spend years trying to shake off. Meanwhile the kid nobody rated, with nothing to protect, just keeps getting better.
2. "Not yet" is the most underused phrase in football departments.
A player who can't defend one on one isn't a bad defender. He can't defend one on one yet. Sounds soft, but it isn't. It changes what the coaching intervention looks like. One version writes a player off. The other writes an individual development plan.
3. Beware the false growth mindset.
I loved this section of the book, and is probably the most powerful message. A lot of people role out words that look like they are supporting a growth mindset, but its a false dawn. Growth mindset is not telling everyone to try harder while changing nothing about how you select, review and develop. If the language changed but the process didn't, you don't have a growth mindset. You just have words on a wall.
4. The scoreboard lies about learning.
Wins hide bad habits. Losses expose good ones early. The best programs I've been part of review a four goal win with the same rigour as a four goal loss. It's harder than it sounds. Winning makes everyone a worse listener, and listening (and asking great questions) is the key to learning.
The bit that stayed with me the most, I coach junior footy on the weekend, and the fixed mindset arrives long before the AFL does. It arrives the first time a coach/parent/teacher tells a junior they are who they are and that wont change, rather than focusing on helping them develop, and showing them what they "can be." That one's on all of us who work with young athletes, and it's the easiest one to fix.