Growth Mindset and Your Growing Company:
Do you own or work for a growing company? Or maybe you want to build a growing company? That's where the growth mindset comes into play as a way to build your company and start seeing some serious results!
Our CEO, Shawn Burcham, gave us his take on how to build a growing company and why a growth mindset is so important. He must be on to something, considering PFSbrands has been named one of the fastest-growing privately held companies for the last 8 years in a row! Want to get anywhere near that? Well, it's time to evolve a growing mindset and then a growing company! [You can find his full article over at ShawnBurcham.com]
Growth Mindset and PFSbrands
Typically, top performing sales people have a growth mentality. I read “Hyper Sales Growth” this past week written by Jack Daly. While Jack’s book is mainly geared toward sales coaching, he does talk quite a bit about culture and how a company’s culture affects results.
At PFSbrands we give everyone plenty of opportunities to participate in surveys. We survey our employees consistently to get feedback on how well we are doing with our culture. We also survey our customers to see how satisfied they are with our products and services.
Many CEOs and business owners get defensive as they get feedback that is not necessarily positive. However, I welcome this type of feedback and prefer the straight-talk approach. If I am raising the expectations of employees, it is only natural for them to expect more from me. If PFSbrands is raising the expectations of our franchisees, licensees, and wholesalers, it is only natural for them to expect more from us.
The attitude of seeing challenge as a good thing, reflects a growth mindset. While some people get defensive and give up when faced with challenges, others have a “no quit” attitude. I like to say those with a growth mindset have a lot of GRIT.
Early Age Growth Mindset
I believe a growth mindset starts when we are children. In middle school and early high school, I remember competing in athletics with boys that matured physically faster than I did. At this young age, things came easier to those boys because of their size and muscle development. I had to work harder to keep up. However, because things were easy for those boys at an early age, many of them that didn’t have a work ethic were mediocre athletes a few years later when others caught up in muscle development.
I believe the same case can be made in other areas as it pertains to how kids are raised. Many people believe in teaching kids that they can always win. I’ve seen this in youth sports and in our public school systems. Some adults in our society want to standardize everything rather than creating challenges for those that may excel in certain areas. I personally believe that while we need to build self-esteem within our youth, it’s also very important to teach them that there are winners and losers in life. If we don’t do this, we will continue to slide into an entitlement mentality.
What a Growth Mindset Has to Offer
A growth mindset requires individuals to think positively. Growth minded individuals welcome challenges and difficulties. Rather than being discouraged by failure, they have GRIT and treat every failure as an opportunity to learn and improve.
Finally, growth minded individuals are inspired by excellence and respect the achievements of successful people. Rather than being jealous of others, growth minded people seek to learn from these successful people.
Growing as a Team
At PFSbrands we seek out people that care, people that want to have fun, and people that have a competitive spirit. You have to enjoy an extremely fast paced environment. You have to embrace change and continuous improvement. And, you have to be comfortable with high expectations and being held accountable to those expectations.
Are you growth minded? Do you spend your time trying to look smart in the eyes of others or are you constantly putting in the work to get smarter?
Wrap-Up
See, having a growth mindset isn't about just showing up, it's about continually improving yourself and constantly learning! So what growth mindset principles are you going to employ in your soon to be growing company?
