My coach recommended The Outward Mindset, from the Arbginger institute, same as Leadership and Self Deception (one of my all time most impactful books) and The Anatomy of Peace. It feels in many ways a continuation of those ideas, but more team/business oriented.
The first part of the book focuses on the impact of mindset, and how you can focus on changing behavior, or you can focus on changing mindset and let behavior change follow from it. I really liked this way of expressing something that I’ve really found to be true.
The outward mindset is about how when teams and businesses that think about the perspective of the teams they work with before their own perspective, can be more impactful and effective. When you have an inward mindset, you’re thinking about what you want to get out of things. When you have an outward mindset, you’re thinking about what others need and focusing on that.
One example was that of a debt collection agency, who instead of hounding people for debt started focusing on helping those people make more money.
Another example was of a non profit building wells, who identified that the real success metric was how many days children were in school. They took a more expansive view of what they were doing, and it shifted their approach.
There’s a shift in mindset in both of those from “what is my job” to “what is the real outcome I’m trying to drive”, which is pretty fascinating.
I’ve been thinking about concept a lot in terms of the challenges of building a first team mindset. When people have a perspective of competition, they tend to be inward focused. Having a first team mindset is having an outward mindset with your peers; focusing on being a good team mate rather than being a good competitor.
As with other Arbinger books, I totally see that it’s a really powerful concept when it’s shared, and a really challenging concept to hold up when it’s not. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.