What mindsets do you want to use to get flourishing in your current context?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Use mindsets that help you get flourishing in your current context! Why?

• Because using context-appropriate mindsets help you get flourishing.
• Because by using context-appropriate mindsets, you increase the likelihood that you’ll see challenges as opportunities and that you’ll take risks and carry out experiments as you pursue your purpose.
• Because by not using context-appropriate mindsets, you increase the likelihood that you’ll see challenges as stressors, that you’ll use inappropriate or less helpful mindsets, and that you’ll seek comfort rather than pursue new opportunities that entail taking risks.
• Because using context-appropriate mindsets is a best practice.

What mindsets could you use to get flourishing? Mindsets that come to mind for me include:

• A Christ-centered mindset (Matthew 6:33, Romans 12:2).
• An Agile Change Mindset (graphic).
• A Scout, Not Soldier mindset—when addressing a conflict, think like a scout (open, curious, seek truth), not like a soldier (closed, defensive, seek evidence/winning).
• The 4 Success Mindsets: growth (not fixed), open (not closed), promotion (not prevention), and outward (not inward).
• The 5 Elements of Flourishing Mindsets which include a wellness mindset (not a personal neglect mindset), an abundance mindset (not a scarcity mindset), and a Christ-centered, focused, trust/inspire mindset (not a worldly, scattered, command-and-control mindset).

The mindsets you choose must take into account your current context—so, what’s your current context like? Your geographical context might be in Asia or Europe. Your cultural context might be egalitarian or hierarchical. Your work context might be inspiring or ho-hum, and your economic context might be prosperous or poor. Your context might be familiar, unfamiliar, or somewhere in between; and no matter the context, it is affected by sin, and with varying degrees of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).

What mindsets do you want to use to get flourishing in your current context? My context is new in terms of location (North America) and role (coach/consultant working remotely), so I’m intentionally using a combination of open mindset, growth mindset, and promotion mindset to get flourishing.

• I need to be open to new cultural experiences.
• I need to grow so that I can be helpful as a coach/consultant.
• And I need to take some risks in order to promote my purpose of helping international Christian school students, staff, and leaders flourish in Jesus.

If a key feature of my context was uncertainty, I’d consider using the 6 mindsets suggested in The Imperfectionists: Strategic Mindsets for Uncertain Times:

1. Curiosity mindset (not a closed mindset).
2. Imperfectionist mindset (not a perfectionist mindset).
3. Dragonfly-eye (aka multiple-lens) mindset (not a single-lens mindset).
4. Occurrent (aka real-time experimental) mindset (not a rely-on-past-data-or-projections mindset).
5. Collective-intelligence mindset (not a we-already-have-all-the-smarts-we-need mindset).
6. Show-and-tell mindset (not a just-logic-and-facts mindset).

Source Robert McLean and Charles Conn (authors of The Imperfectionists) provide help and hope for those pursuing their purpose in uncertain times. I found the following 3 quotations to be insightful: (1) “… in times of rapid change, you should be curious, embrace risk and not avoid it, you should be suspicious of experts, you should think about how to run your own experiments, you should consider ways to source ideas from entirely different fields, and you should convince your colleagues that you have the right answer with rich and visual storytelling that speaks to their values rather than to logic alone” (loc 416).  (2) “Curious questions can be irritating when you’re under pressure. But when companies stifle curiosity, they are shutting off opportunities to search, question, and experiment” (loc 686). (3) “If tomorrow’s strategic and operating environment is going to be like today’s, there isn’t a strong case for experimenting. But if rapid change and high uncertainty are part of an industry’s structure and dynamics (what we face in nearly every situation today), then experimenting is imperative to developing the case for action” (loc 592). The authors conclude, “All real-life strategic problem solving is a wager on an uncertain world. Fortified with a good understanding of your problem’s structure, stakes, and odds, and armed with the six mindsets, we hope you are well equipped to overcome risk aversion and confidently step into uncertainty as a full-fledged imperfectionist” (loc 3696). To learn more, explore this article, this video, and this podcast.

Bottom line: Intentionally and consistently use mindsets that help you flourish in your current context. 

Here are some related resources:

• How important is mindset?
• What mindset are you using to consider focusing on flourishing?
• What mindsets help you flourish? 
• What mindsets help you to flourish and to help others flourish?
• Leaders, is your mindset eating your model for breakfast?

What about you? What mindsets could you use to get flourishing? What’s your current context like? What mindsets do you want to use to get flourishing in your current context?

Get flourishing!

Michael

P.S. What kind of leadership mindset do you need in your current context?