Mind 16

A STUDY OF GROUP PROCESSES Researcher Robert Wood and his colleagues did another great study. Th time they created management groups, thirty groups with three people Half of the groups had three people with a fixed mindset and half had th people with a growth mindset. Those with the fixed mindset believed that "People have a certain fixed amount of management ability and they cannot do much to change it le contrast, those with the growth mindset believed. "People can always substantially change their basic skills for managing other people." So group thought that you have it or you don't, the other thought your s could grow with experience Every group had worked together for some weeks when they w given, jointly, the task I talked about before a complex management tak which they ran a simulated organization, a furniture company. If you remember, on this task people had to figure out how to match workers wi jobs and how to motivate them for maximum productivity. But this tim instead of working individually, people could discuss their choices and the feedback they got, and work together to improve their decisions. The fixed- and growth-mindset groups started with the same ability, but as time went on the growth-mindset groups clearly outperformed the fixed mindset ones. And this difference became ever larger the longer the groups worked. Once again, those with the growth mindset profited from their mistakes and feedback far more than the fixed-mindset people. But what was even more interesting was how the groups functioned The members of the growth-mindset groups were much more likely to state their honest opinions and openly express their disagreements as they communicated about their management decisions Everyone was part of the learning process. For the fixed-mindset groups with their concern about who was smart or dumb or their anxiety about disapproval for their ideas that open, productive discussion did not happen. Instead, it was more like groupthink.