In this lesson, we are going to discuss giving and receiving feedback using a growth mindset. Let's start with a fixed mindset first before we talk about how to move to the growth mindset. In a fixed mindset, both positive and negative labels can really mess with your head. For example, if someone at work, let's say your supervisor, refers to as the superstar on the team or the best speaker or my best salesperson. That actually is something that you feel you have to constantly live up to. You're afraid of losing that label, but let's flip it. Let's say that you're referred to with something more negative. "She's my slow salesperson, she closes deals, but it takes her forever or he doesn't like to speak up at meetings, he so quiet and they say it in a negative way." The problem with those negative labels, if you're a fixed mindset person is you feel you deserve it and that there's no way to overcome that. It's insurmountable. The fixed mindset puts you in a really difficult position when it comes to feedback because you're paying a lot of attention to those labels and you're making them to find you. If you have a growth mindset around how to handle feedback, and let's say for example, labels or stereotypes, whether they come from your supervisor or someone else, you can handle them a lot more easily and gracefully. The reason is that you don't think they define you. They're not an overarching way of defining your abilities and your talents, and your ability to grow because you constantly think, well, "I can work harder, I can seek help and I can improve," and so using a growth mindset to take in feedback and take in criticism and take in labels, for example, is a great way to reframe those types of experiences. Let's talk about a difficult situation now. What if you have a supervisor that has a fixed mindset about your work? What if you have a supervisor that has a fixed mindset about your actual abilities, they have a snapshot in time and they always see you that way, and therefore, they're not even seeing your improvement in your performance over time. It's difficult but you have to actually have a growth mindset in the way that you handle their fixed mindset. You have to try to respond to that with a growth mindset to help you see that someone else's view of you is not the be-all end-all, and it should not define you and take away your confidence. With that type of growth mindset, you're better equipped to confront the feedback as temporary and to keep your confidence, and your abilities in tact. Let's look at some best practices for giving and receiving feedback, remembering that it's a two-way street. I want you to take every one of these best practices and try to use them when you're giving feedback, but you can also try to slip in the growth mindset when you're receiving feedback from someone else and you realize that they're not doing it well. The first thing is the definition of constructive criticism itself needs to be broken down and redefined. It is not an invitation to personally attack someone. Basically, constructive criticism is a way to praise or critique the efforts, strategies and solutions, not the person, him or herself, so any feedback should be initiated by ensuring that the purpose behind it is to seek improvement and not to reprimand or rebuke someone else. That helps employees, whether it's you or someone else, come to this constructive feedback conversation in a way that's not defensive and very open to feedback. That's how you foster a growth mindset from the beginning of the conversation. Make sure that you're looking at the performance, let's say the outcomes, the achievements and the traits, and not the person, him or herself. It's very difficult but it's a really important thing to do is to reframe constructive criticism itself, not about the person, but about the assignment, the task at hand. The second thing is to really look at the language that you use, either in your writing or the language that you speak. Make sure that it is done in a way to actually incite a positive outcome and growth mindset. How is the feedback conveyed? You've been given a quiz for this lesson. In that quiz you will see a number of different statements. What I'd love for you to do is label the statements that give feedback in a way that is fixed mindset and label the ones that give feedback in a way that is growth mindset. Then do yourself a favor and grab some of the statements that use a growth mindset and try to incorporate them into your own feedback giving and receiving for the future.
