This year’s National Registry Summit featured several outstanding speakers, including Dr. Jay Van Bavel, Associate Professor at New York University and senior scientist at the NeuroLeadership Institute. 

Dr. Jay Van Bavel’s presentation, entitled “Cultivating an Organizational Growth Mindset,” dove into the science behind mindset and examined how you can implement practical changes to develop a growth mindset. Dr. Van Bavel runs a research lab of roughly 20-30 people at any given time and believes in this science so strongly that he practices the methods in his presentation on a regular basis. 

Over the course of the presentation, Dr. Van Bavel addressed what is growth mindset, why use the growth mindset and how to create a growth mindset. Growth mindset is the understanding that your skills are not fixed, that they can grow, and you can get better and change. While in this type of mindset, you should not focus on the right now, but instead focus on how you can improve and get better. In addition, you are trying to maximize your potential and do the best that you can, whereas a fixed mindset is all about being good, proving yourself, demonstrating your skills and performing better than others to convince yourself or management that you are “good at something.” 

So, why use the growth mindset? Personal benefits of a growth mindset include superior performance, persistence, resilience and creativity because you are taking chances and getting better. As a leader with a growth mindset, Dr. Van Bavel talks to his team about their growth over time and the necessary growth needed for each person to achieve their own goals. He remains focused on getting better all the time, “like a paper under constant revision.”

Three habits that encourage a growth mindset include embracing a growth mindset, concentrating on continual improvement and inspiring others. If you think to yourself, “I’m not good at this,” or, “I don’t think I can,” shift your mindset to “I’m not good at this yet.” By adding yet, you will have changed your mindset to one of growth. Inspire others to also develop a growth mindset by recognizing the value of improvement, focusing your team on performance over time and sharing stories of mistakes and learning.