Don’t bring me down …
According to a study by David Rozado, there has been a big increase in negative news headlines over the past decade. (https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/the-increasing-negativity-and-emotionality). The results of the study show an increase of negative sentiment in headlines across written news media since the year 2000. The chronological analysis of the emotionality of headlines shows a growing proportion of them denoting anger, fear, disgust and sadness and a decrease in the prevalence of emotionally neutral headlines across the studied outlets over the 2000–2019 interval.
This doesn’t surprise me one bit, and it is not an exaggeration to say that media outlets of all kinds thrive on negativity. Bad news sells, clearly. But the constant exposure to negativity is damaging to the psyche and some people allow themselves to be consumer with doom and gloom. They allow others to bring them down.
I don’t let that happen to me, and it’s one reason why I stopped watching televised news a long time ago. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep up to date with what’s happening in the world, but I do it in a way that allows me to digest the facts and then I can decide what my emotional reaction should be. My outlook on life and daily mood is not determined by what dramatic messaging the news editors decide to put on things.
I am not saying that times aren’t tough right now, no matter where you live or what you do, but focusing only on the downsides when faced with any sort of challenge isn’t helpful. Yes indeed, mindset does matter during difficult times. Of course, positive thinking alone won’t end the war in Ukraine, solve world poverty, or sort out the latest banking crisis and, no, it won’t put food on the table either, but it does make a difference what outlook we hold – individually and collectively – and that principle applies whether we are talking about a country, or an organisation. Despite the undoubted challenges we face, there is still a lot of negativity floating about these days, far too much if you ask me.
While the idea that mindset matters is certainly not new, it is becoming a lot clearer now the impact it can have on performance and achievement – and as a manager, that is something you should take particular heed of. In her bestselling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck, a leading Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, demonstrated how mindset makes a real difference to performance. She outlines her thoughts on the issue:
“For 20 years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value. [1]
One of the most compelling aspects of Dweck’s work is that it was solidly research based, unlike much of the go-get-’em nonsense you hear from self-help gurus on Tik Tok, which seems to have been plucked out of thin air. it is the rigorous analysis that helped Dweck’s work to become so popular over the past decade.
For those unfamiliar with her findings, Dweck highlighted that there are essentially two types of mindsets, ‘fixed’ and ‘growth’. A person with a fixed mindset believes that the skills and competences they are born with are what determine their potential for success. You either have a talent for something or you don’t; and if you don’t have a particular skill or competence, then there is no point in wasting time and effort trying to master something new. It’s better to make the most of what you have. For me, this is a mindset that only sees limitations and boundaries.
On the other hand, with regard to the growth mindset, Dweck argued that this way of thinking views anything and everything as being possible. If you lack a skill or competence, then go learn or develop it, do whatever is required, no matter how difficult. Everything is achievable. This mindset is about constantly stepping out of your comfort zone to improve and develop. And even if you do fail, that too can be a source of learning. For me, this mindset is all about possibilities.
Although her Fixed/Growth mindsets relate to how an individual views their potential for personal development and advancement, it’s a great description of the divide you see in people’s attitudes these days – even among some managers. You find many people who are upbeat, wide awake to the challenges that lie ahead for certain, but optimistic nonetheless; and then there are others, like some headline writers, for whom the end is always nigh. Which mindset best describes you most of the time?
Of course, it is not only your overall mindset that matters in terms of your performance but also how you view the management role itself. Two leading experts in this area, Jonathan Gosling and Henry Mintzberg, made the point very well about the diverse talents and thought processes needed by effective managers when they introduced “The Five Minds of a Manager”. First of all, as I have frequently argued in my articles, they too make the case that there is no separation between the leading and managing functions and, in fact, strongly argue that it is dangerous to view them as being independent of one another because: “Just as management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities, leadership without management encourages a disconnected style which promotes hubris. And we all know the destructive power of hubris in organizations. [2]
To succeed in such an expansive role as management, Gosling and Mintzberg argue that individuals must have strengths across what they term ‘five mindsets’:
Managing the self (the reflective mindset)
Managing organisations (the analytic mindset)
Managing context (the worldly mindset)
Managing relationships (the collaborative mindset)
Managing change (the action mindset).
They also promote what is a very valid proposition that a manager must be able to combine all these five mindsets to be effective when they conclude:
“Imagine the mindsets as threads and the manager as weaver. Effective performance means weaving each mindset over and under the others to create a fine, sturdy cloth. You analyse then you act. But that does not work as expected, so you reflect. You act some more, then find yourself blocked, realizing that you cannot do it alone. You have to collaborate. But to do that you have to get into the world of others. Then more analysis follows to articulate the new insights. Now you act again – and so it goes as the cloth of your eff ort forms.[3]
It is the sheer depth and breadth of talents and thought processes required to make it as a manager that exposes individual weaknesses, because it is naturally hard for any one person to have strengths across all five areas, but it is precisely those strengths that are needed more than ever now.
So, to conclude for today, the best managers are obviously special individuals in terms of how they look at the world generally, and specifically in how they see the management role itself; nonetheless, for all of that, they are born on Earth not Krypton, or at least they leave the tights and cape at home every morning.
You become what you think about most of the time.
If you found the content of this article interesting, I have expanded on the topic in my book, 'The Essential Manager'. Click on the image to the left to purchase the book on Amazon, or if you'd like a signed copy you can purchase one directly on this site via our products page.References:
[1] Dweck, Mindset: Th e New Psychology of Success (Ballantine Books 2007).
[2] Gosling and Mintzberg, “Th e Five Minds of a Manager” (2003) November, Harvard Business Review, pp. 54–63.