According to Carol Dweck, there are two basic mindsets, fixed and growth.
These mindsets are a model for how we think, and as a model they help us to explain/understand our reality. But, like all models they are not your reality – they are useful representations but are always incomplete.
Look at the following common models of thinking
- Open/Closed
- Divergence/Convergence
- Exploring/Exploiting
- Disrupting/Capturing
- Creating/Executing
- Unfreeze/Freeze
- Diffuse/Focused
- Growth/Fixed
Eight different ways to say the same things. 16 words that can be used to describe a “mindset”. And therein lies a basic problem of these models.
A useful diagnostic tool (the model) is used as if it were the reality. You get typecast (or typecast yourself); for example, as open or closed, as an explorer or exploiter. You tick a box to say, yes that’s me.
Look again at the eight pairs of words above.
They are all different ways (models) for looking at the same thing – they describe the end points of a continuum and our reality lies somewhere between each extreme (mindset).
And having multiple models, like the above 8, helps you understand this as a dynamic system.
For effective functioning we need to embrace each process, and function somewhere in the middle depending on the particular activity or circumstance we are navigating,
For example, we need open thinking to come up with new options and ideas, and then closed thinking to focus on using those ideas.
Two lessons:
• Don’t pigeonhole yourself according to a model, rather use it as a understand the way you function.
• Use multiple models to build a more accurate picture of reality.