Master These 7 Mindsets to Elevate Your Innovation Leadership
Why knowing — and mastering — your mindset profile is so critical for effective leadership
You’ve seen it before.
The way the energy in the room shifts when that one person walks in. That “grump.” That “Negative Nancy” or “Danny Downer” who not only says no to everything, gives reasons why ideas won’t work, and may even be snappy or downright mean, but whose general aura is of negativity, frustration, or even defeat.
You’ve also experienced how the energy shifts when that other person starts talking, taking over the room with their uplifting presence. That inspiring, energizing, empowering person who makes you feel like anything is possible and everything is worth trying. They emanate opportunity, curiosity, and engagement.
You’re probably even thinking of specific experiences you’ve had with people like these right now.
How can different people have such profoundly different effects on the energy in a room? Why can certain individuals pull their colleagues’ engagement and energy in such different directions? And what’s the dial that they can adjust to shift their impact from draining (or catabolic, in energy terms) to invigorating (or anabolic)?
It all comes down to one thing: the mindset they’re showing up with.
Our mindset informs how we make sense of the world and the people and events within it. As Dr. Jennifer Mueller says in her book Creative Change, “Mindsets are like computer programs that tell you how to interpret information.” Mindset writes the story that we read about the events we experience. It’s the filter through which our experiences pass as we decide what meaning to make from them.
For example, if we have an antagonistic mindset, we’ll tend to believe everyone is out to get us and we’ll therefore interpret what may be benign behaviors as attacks or slights. On the other hand, if we have a collaborative mindset, we may interpret those same behaviors as opportunities to work together and learn from one another. Mindset can strongly influence the discrepancy between the intent and the impact of our actions.
Why does mindset have such a profound impact on our lives? As in the examples above, our mindset plays a pivotal role in forming our thoughts — what we believe about ourselves, others, and our experiences. These thoughts cause us to feel a certain way, which informs the action (or inaction) we take, or the behavior we exhibit. This thought-feeling-action cycle is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, a leading technique for intentional behavior change, as well as a foundational framework for better understanding and altering our behaviors.
So when it comes to understanding behaviors, mindset plays a pivotal role. And when it comes to innovation leadership — how we manage doing and building things the world has never seen before — certain mindsets and behaviors are far more conducive than others. Thus, the mindset you show up with has a direct effect on your ability to be an effective innovation leader and generate the outcomes you want for yourself, your team, and your business.
The model below outlines the seven levels of innovation leadership mindset — from highly “catabolic” mindsets that tend to drain you and those around you to highly “anabolic” mindsets that tend to energize you and those around you.
As you read on, you may find yourself wondering: “Why include the lower, more catabolic levels at all?” Because we all exhibit some mix of these mindsets at all times. If you think of each mindset as having a particular energy, then you could say that everyone shows up with some mix of these energies — an energetic profile, if you will. In order to master the mindsets, we must first acknowledge and name them.
Level 1 Mindset: Doubt
The core thoughts of a Level 1 mindset are victimization, defeat, and doubt. The tendency is to think of oneself as at the effect of the world, rather than having choice and power. The core emotion is, understandably, apathy, and the core behaviors include taking things personally, complaining, doing nothing, isolation, and focusing on problems rather than solutions or opportunities.
The core thought can also be characterized in general as “I lose,” or in the case of creative collaboration (e.g. an ideation session), “My idea is bad.”
In short, if you feel unable to have any sort of impact on a situation and you feel disempowered, you’ll likely disengage and do little or nothing at all. This can be destructive in innovation and creative collaboration since all you think about is what’s not possible and what can’t be done. A Level 1 is predominant in cases of learned helplessness.
Can you think of a time you felt a Level 1 mindset show up for you?
Level 2 Mindset: Conflict
At Level 2, we feel more empowered to influence the situation, but in ways that tend to be destructive. The core thought of Level 2 is conflict, which leads to a core emotion of anger, and the resulting behaviors are struggle, defiance, blame, and judgment. To someone showing up with a Level 2 mindset, life is a zero-sum game.
In general, this mindset can be captured as “I win, you lose,” and in creative collaboration as “My idea is better than yours.”
The Level 2 mindset is the most predominant one throughout much of our life and work — think about how much our society emphasizes winning and losing, right and wrong, objective good and bad, and viewing things as black and white. Ego also plays a dominant role at Level 2.
When was the last time your Level 2 mindset showed up?
Level 3 Mindset: Compromise
At level 3, we begin to accept responsibility for the outcomes we’re seeing. The core thought of Level 3 is responsibility, which leads to the core feeling of forgiveness and the core actions of cooperation, rationalization, tolerance, and justification.
Level 3 can be stated as “I’m going to win, but it’s fine if you do too” in general and by “My idea is the right one; yours might be OK too, and that’s fine” in creative collaboration.
This is the first level where any semblance of collaboration shows up, since cooperation begins to overcome conflict. However, it’s still characterized by self-interest above all else.
How has Level 3 showed up for you recently?
Level 4 Mindset: Generosity
At Level 4, the core thought is concern for others — we focus our thinking on how we can best support and give to those around us. The resulting core feeling is, accordingly, compassion, and the core action or behavior is service.
A Level 4 mindset in creative collaboration might say “Let’s go with your idea,” or even “How can I help you further develop your idea?” More broadly, it says “I want you to win.”
Level 4 is the first mindset where we tend not to take things personally, since it’s not about us. When doing collaborative innovation work, Level 4 begins to invoke the improv norms of “yes and…” and “making your partner look good,” which help produce creative outcomes.
When did you last experience a Level 4 mindset? How did it feel?
Level 5 Mindset: Opportunity
At Level 5, the core thought is reconciliation, and the core emotion is confidence and calm (peace). The resulting core behaviors are acceptance, connection, and true collaboration.
In general, Level 5 can be paraphrased as, “we both win.” In the context of creative collaboration it would sound like, “Both our ideas are really exciting” or “Let’s explore how we might do both.”
Those who show up with a Level 5 mindset see everything as an opportunity and strive for win-win situations. They only see an outcome as successful if both parties are satisfied.
How does Level 5 show up for you? How does it feel when it does?
Level 6 Mindset: Synthesis
At Level 6, the core thought is synthesis — we begin to see the interconnections between everything that otherwise appears separate. This thought inspires feelings of joy and fearlessness, which enables us to connect deeply, see the whole picture, and live in the present.
Level 6 can be summarized by “We always win.” Because the Level 6 mindset focuses on synthesizing and interconnecting possibilities, in creative collaboration we might say “All of these ideas will lead us where we want to go.”
When Level 6 comes through in creative collaboration, we’re able to see ideas interplay with one another and superpower one another to create a connected whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
What does Level 6 look and feel like to you? At work? In life?
Level 7 Mindset: Vision
The core thought at Level 7 is total non-judgment, which leads to absolute passion and unconditional love of life and work. At Level 7, our most visionary, creative, and unblocked self shows up and thrives.
In general, Level 7 says, “There’s no such thing as winning (or losing).” In creative collaboration, someone at Level 7 is open to every path forward.
Level 7 is a difficult place to fully reach, and no one lives their life solely with a Level 7 mindset. Still, it’s a powerful mindset to have access to, and through intention and practice we can increase our ability to leverage it to create the change we want.
Have you ever experienced a Level 7 mindset? What was it like? What were the conditions that made it possible?
An important note is that the goal is not to eliminate Levels 1 and 2 from our repertoire and aim to only show up with Level 7. As boldly visionary as that sounds, we might not get anything done nor be very accessible in collaboration. Rather, the goal is to become aware of what our desired outcome is and be able to choose a mindset accordingly.
For example, the design thinking mindset of “defer judgment” doesn’t mean we never apply judgment to select and narrow ideas to move forward with. At some point, we must introduce judgment and say that this idea (or feature or design or prototype) is better than that one.
We all exhibit each of these mindsets at one point or another, but we can intentionally select which mindset (or combination of mindsets) we choose to show up with.
At every moment and in every situation, we all have the choice to engage whichever mindset we want. Do we want to view the situation as zero-sum, where one of us has to lose so the other can win? Or do we want to view the situation as a win-win, where we won’t even play the game unless that condition is met?
The choice is yours. What kind of innovation leader are you going to be today?
If you’d like to learn your unique mindset profile and explore how you can master it, schedule an introductory call with me here.
This post first appeared on the Lightshed Log at www.lightshed.co/blog. This post contains my interpretation of the copyrighted work of Bruce D Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC).
