Cultures of Growth: An interview with Mary Murphy

Issue 109: Mary Murphy on how culture impacts the mindsets and performance of people within teams and organizations.

One of the cores themes of our newsletter is understanding how organizations and teams fail and what we can do to make them run more smoothly. In a new book, CULTURES OF GROWTH, our colleague Professor Mary Murphy argues that organizations and teams geared toward growth inspire deeper learning, spark collaboration, spur innovation, and build trust necessary for risk-taking and inclusion. Members of these groups are less likely to cheat, cut corners, or steal each other’s ideas. In growth-oriented cultures, great ideas come from people from all backgrounds and at all levels — not just those anointed as brilliant or talented.

Jay recently shared a meta-analysis (an analysis of 63 studies) that was quite critical of growth mindset interventions. It suggested that many of the short-term growth mindset interventions used in classrooms have limited effects on student outcomes. This led to a thoughtful conversation with Mary and why her approach her is a bit different from most of the literat…