Product development core belief: Performance comes from playfulness.
Core belief in effective product development culture.
A growth mindset is the belief that intelligence/talent/capability is something that is developed.
Via the Farnham Street blog post on Mindset, Nigel Holmes created a nice graphical summary of the difference between a “fixed” vs “growth” mindset:
A fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence/talent/capability is both innate and static. This leads to the desire to look smart/capable which leads to avoiding challenges, giving up early, discounting effort (which would not be required for innate ability), ignoring critical feedback, and feeling threatened by the others’ success.
A growth mindset is the belief that intelligence/talent/capability is something that is developed. This leads to the desire to learn, persisting through setbacks (which are an inevitable part of a learning process), valuing effort as a path to mastery, seeing criticism as valuable information to learn from, finding lessons and inspiration from the success of others.
Effective product development cultures have a growth mindset.
Playfulness is a more sustainable path to high performance
You can see deliberate practice to improve as being mostly about serious, hard work, discipline, and dedication. This is difficult to sustain for most people.
Instead, another more effective path is to use play. Playfulness, specifically in the work, is a more reliable, sustainable way of achieving flow. Achieving flow enables high performance.
Therefore, effective product development cultures don’t just have a growth mindset but, more specifically, a playful, growth mindset.
References
- Growth mindset from Mindset by Carol Dweck;
- Playfulness as a better path to high performance from The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler
