Approaches that ignore the importance of mindset fail to account for not only why people are choosing to behave as they do but also why people respond as they do to others.
… in whatever a person does, his or her mindset comes through, and others respond to this combination of behavior and mindset.
…mindset change facilitates sustainable behavior change.
… people who choose to dismiss the needs and objectives of others end up searching for ways to justify that choice.
Inward-mindset people and organizations do things. Outward-mindset people and organizations help others to be able to do things.
We need to have everybody involved. We need to have a plan. And we need to know where we are on the plan.
To be outward doesn't mean that people should adopt this or that prescribed behavior. Rather, it means that when people see the needs, challenges, desires, and humanity of others, the most effective ways to adjust their efforts occur to them in the moment. When they see others as people, they respond in human and helpful ways. They naturally adjust what they do in response to the needs they see around them. With an outward mindset, adjusting one's efforts naturally follows from seeing others in a new way.
In contrast, parents and leaders who have a responsibility to help others improve and grow may engage in harder behaviors when their mindsets are outward. Why? Because sometimes the help a person needs is a long way from soft.
If people see their leader just dipping their toe in, they will think, rightly, that the effort probably won't amount to much. Consequently, the leader sees a lukewarm response in his or her people and on that basis decides it isn't worth the effort. But that same leader is blind to the biggest reason for the observed reaction: the people have a tepid response because they see the leader's tepid response.
When leaders begin to take seriously the project of not taking themselves too seriously and begin collapsing the distinctions between themselves and others, they are positioned to begin scaling mindset change.