The Five Mindsets program
Managing is a practice of five interwoven mindsets.
Most leadership development initiatives begin with a familiar premise: define the competencies, deliver the content, measure the outcomes. The underlying assumption is clear: good leadership can be cultivated through the accumulation of discrete skills, practiced in isolation and applied on demand. The problem is: this has little to do with the reality of leading!
Within daily organizational life roles blur, competing priorities collide, and situations are uncertain. This is where the five mindsets conceptual framework, developed by renowned thinkers Jonathan Gosling and Henry Mintzberg, offers a crucial reframing for leadership development.
Rather than treating managing as a set of tasks to be performed, the five mind-sets framework views it as a practice interwoven of five mindsets. These mindsets—reflective, analytical, worldly, collaborative, and action-oriented—change the orientation of learning from simply acquiring competencies to developing capacities. A program based around the five mind-sets fosters well-rounded, adaptive, and insightful leaders. It moves beyond merely delivering content to cultivating depth and maturity.
Consider a five mindsets program for Capability & Culture, with two sessions per mind-set. This results in ten 90-minute sessions, which can be run comfortably over a 12 month period. Combined with the CoachingOurselves train-the-trainer, this is a scalable high end in-house-leadership development program based on peer coaching circles/peer learning groups.
To design the Capability & Culture program, start by browsing the lists of peer learning guidebooks for each mindset below, and contact us for a co-design discussion.
The Five Mindsets could also be used for shorter programs, such as a Fast-track Foundation for new manager training. One topic per mind-set, and it could be run in 10-12 weeks.
The guidebooks provide timing, content, questions and exercises for each 90-minute session. The train-the-trainer prepares L&D professionals to facilitate the sessions and design programs. The manager-as-facilitator workshop supports managers to facilitate sessions for their peers.
With the five mindsets framework and the library of CoachingOurselves peer learning guidebooks, L&OD professionals can offer a comprehensive program that transforms participants and the organization.
A five mindsets program always begins with the special guidebook From Reflection to Action. This guidebook introduces participants to the five mind-sets and grounds the program in their day-to-day experiences and challenges. In addition, a learning impact project component can be added to the program.
Now you can equip your leaders with essential skills AND cultivate leaders and managers who are reflective, analytical, worldly, collaborative, and action-oriented.
A variation of this program called the Reflection Round Table program has been used in since 2009. Many thousands of managers have gone through this program in dozens of corporations. The results have been exceptional.
To learn more about the Five Minds program contact us for a discovery call.
Discover the Coaching Circles with CoachingOurselves.