The Gift Mindset is the Portal to Supercharge Workplace Culture

It’s surprising that many workplaces do not encourage the sharing of challenges or failures and even sometimes the sharing of successes. Therefore, if the culture you work within doesn’t have a focus on sharing lessons, it may be something that never enters your mind or your team, especially if that workplace is all you have ever known.

In our home life, this is the same. If you are bought up not to share failures and to just suck it up and get on with it, then chances are this same behaviour will play in your life. If you are encouraged to share successes and challenges at home, at school and amongst your social network, you will be more likely to be open to The Gift Mindset.

This mindset is all about embracing the gifts in both the challenging and positive experiences we encounter and then using these to progress ourselves and others forward. Gifts can come from both challenging and positive situations and people. By being aware of and accepting these lessons, we can then share them within our team and take engagement, collaboration and connection to the next level.

Why do we need a Gift Mindset?

More than ever, many teams have never felt more disconnected, working in a hybrid environment, and dealing with the constant change and uncertainty we all face in this new world of work. Many people are feeling time poor, skill stretched, isolated, and caught up in the “doing” vs. the “being”. There has never been a better time to adopt this mindset. We need to let go of judgement from others, suppression of our learnings and make the time for self- reflection and sharing, as a team and across the organisation we work within.

How can a Gift Mindset supercharge your team?

• Creates sharing of best practice where success can be replicated
• Challenges and mistakes are openly shared creating a culture of learning
• Encourages vulnerability and openness to move beyond mistakes
• Fast tracks performance as lessons are shared in real time
• Successes are shared and not used as a secret weapon
• Creates a forum to build trust and respect

Ways to supercharge your team

Think about the return on investment and start small. Involve the team in deciding how and when you will come together and bring the Gift Mindset to life. Remember it all starts with creating a space of trust to deepen self-awareness and accept and share the lessons as one team.

Create a forum to share

Initiate small activities at team catch-ups to share wins and/or challenges. Make self-reflective time as a team and maximise online platforms such as Zoom, Yammer and Teams to create space for sharing if not working physically together.

• Win Wednesdays-Each person to share a success and how they achieved this. This could be something small or large, remember we are all motivated by progress so even the process of sharing this will lift the team and can assist in replicating success.
• Failure Fridays- sharing a challenge or mistake and what you learnt from this such as; growth, resilience, change, courage etc. Remember our learnings could be a survival guide for someone else and sharing our challenges can encourage risk and people being open to learn as they know they will be supported.

Shadow and share

Shadowing and sharing the best practice of success and lessons learnt from challenges is one way to promote gradual team change to adopt the Gift Mindset. This can also be done by not just talking and/or observing someone but instead really encouraging interactive conversation and questioning. What this does is allow the learner to understand the underlying reasons behind someone else’s actions, making it easier to adapt what’s learned to a new situation or task. Create a platform to share these such as on a virtual board/platform or a physical place in the office.

Use the G.I.F.T process

Many teams have found this structured process has helped open up deep and meaningful interactions within the team and during one-on-one conversations. Work through the questions below and decide on what “gift” your lessons fall into in order to deepen and develop in this area.

Grow
What key lessons has this challenge or success taught you?

What gift have you unwrapped? (the 12 gifts-optimism, change, growth, gratitude, connection, re-energising, courage, curiosity, forgiveness, empathy, resilience or contribution?)

Integrate 

How will you incorporate these lessons into your life moving forward?

Facilitate
What lessons from this gift can you share with the team and when?

Transform
How will you know that this gift has transformed you and others?

Involve and discuss

There was a study done in May 2012 that found that pharmaceutical development teams were better able to translate and learn from another team’s past experience when they invited members of the other team — the “sharers” of knowledge — to actively participate in their discussion and problem-solving. Look at sharing across other divisions and levels.

How can you instil The Gift Mindset to supercharge your team today?

Written by Renee Giarrusso.