Picture Hampden, Scottish football’s home, on a cloudy overcast Friday afternoon; It’s 3PM and most are dreaming of the weekend, but not for an elite cluster of Scottish football coaches and a small, dainty, American psychology professor by the name of Carol Dweck.

Today’s lecture is on ‘The Psychology of Success in Sport’, and with this understanding comes an apprehension suggesting something special is about to take place. The sort of apprehension teams experience when putting all their training to the test. Nobody is quite sure what to expect, but a feeling of excitement has been ignited around the room.

It could be argued that this meeting of the beautiful game with leading edge psychology is a first in Scotland. How many times has as world authority on psychology from one of the top universities in America met with those at the pinnacle of the game in Scotland? Such an encounter made for a truly gripping occasion.

As everybody shuffles into the auditorium awaiting the lecture, muffled whispers die down and stillness sets in. The panel is introduced; Mr Geoge Burley the national team manager, along with the under-21 team manager and head of SFA youth.

The first story of the afternoon is delivered by Winning Scotland Foundation executive director; Graham Watson, as way of introduction and with the mention of John Wooden the tone of the afternoon is set. Wooden won 10 straight NCAA men’s college basketball championships, a feat unheard of and unlikely to ever be repeated.

You may be thinking he must have been one talented coach, superb at strategy and tactics – wrong. Wooden admits his ability as a strategist was questionable however his emphasis on directing effort and developing athletes via commitment was what brought him success.

As Professor Dweck starts her lecture, it’s immediately clear she has a knack of communicating complex material in a digestible, easy manner. The first topic Professor Dweck gets to grip with is ‘failure’. One might be forgiven for thinking, how is failure related to success, isn’t it the opposite of success?

This starting point, at first, seems somewhat alien considering the professor has come to lecture on the psychology of success! She continues to expand by stating failure is a predictor of future success. It is not actual failure but the reaction to and interpretation of failure that distinguishes the two mindsets she has come here to educate us on.

One burning question, over 20 years ago, is all it took for Dweck to kick-start her interest the psychology of success “why is it that some people love to fail and others avoid failure at all cost?”

From this question Dweck has developed a theory of mindsets. In particular, two mindsets: The Growth Mindset and The Fixed Mindset. The discussion around these two mindsets forms the basis of her talk on ‘The New Psychology of Success’.

The Fixed Mindset embodies the notion that it’s important to prove you are smart, talented and king of the hill. Everybody knows this type of athlete, the one that struts around as though they are a gift to the sport they play.

This mindset is coupled with a feeling of infallibility, the notion of being perfect and believing talent is innate, where talent is born, it doesn’t go away and will always deliver results. Athletes with this mindset like to show others they are the best and pride themselves on their results and achievements. This Mindset encompassed the phrase ‘if you have ability, why should you need learning?’

A Growth Mindset embodies the polar opposite of the Fixed Mindset. Instead, with the Growth Mindset emphasis is on learning and improving for the sake of seeing how far you can develop your skills. Here an athlete will accept that they always have room for improvement and to do this, learning is of key importance.

As part of the growth mindset, accepting we are human and all make errors is central. Results and scores play second fiddle to those athletes with a growth-orientated mindset. This mindset emphasizes delayed gratification, accepts short-term failure and weaknesses as part of the journey on the road to skill mastery in sport.

Dweck reinforced her explanation of each mindset with concrete examples from the sports world. She mentioned a topical quote from Chris Hoy on athletes that were talented but never made it. But it is her example of Tiger Woods that most personifies the Growth Mindset. Tiger Woods, since his “Hello World” announcement by Nike in 1996 has dominated the game to a scale unseen previously.

Such a meteoric rise to fame, right out of the blocks, may have tricked Tiger into thinking he is good enough to beat anyone and that relying on talent was enough.

Indeed many critics thought this child prodigy would fade away and in the 2001-2002 seasons these same critics thought their prophecy had come true. But Tiger’s primary focus, like all growth minded athletes, wasn’t about the short fix of playing on his talent and trying to win tournaments on what skills he had.

His motivation for the game was based on effort, learning and trying to always stretch the boundaries of what was possible by embracing challenge. Tiger, by taking his swing apart to learn improved swing mechanics, suffered a dip in results during 2001 and 2002 but understood that by working on his weaknesses and improving them his game would be elevated to new levels. Indeed, it has been propelling him to 14 majors so far, only second to the great Jack Nicklaus.

Dweck believes that the mystery of why some develop to a certain proficiency and then stop and why others continue to develop is born out of these two mindsets. But what is more interesting is no one person is born with one or the other mindset. In fact, Dweck states, each mindset can be developed and learnt.

A critical factor inherent in children learning the Growth Mindset is praise. Dweck singles out two types of praise: intelligence praise and effort praise. Children will behave and respond to what they think those who teach them value.

If a coach values natural talent, raw ability and winning silverware as the key to performance in sport then the kids he or she coaches will adopt those values, embody them and try to aspire to them. Such intelligence praise develops a fixed mindset where self-confidence and motivation are easily threatened and hence vulnerable.

Dweck explains that vulnerable confidence and wavering motivation are by-products of embodying a Fixed Mindset and occur as a direct result of being self-conscious by trying to guard and protect self-esteem levels. Intelligence praise bolsters false self-esteem, self-esteem not actually based on concrete facts.

For example, a player may be told his poor performance was not a result of the strategies he used during a game but as a result of bad decisions made by a referee.

Dweck identifies intelligence praise which helps keep intact a false level of self-esteem but also reinforces behaviours towards protecting self worth and away from focusing on mistakes and learning. The end result is an avoidance or Fixed Mindset that avoids challenge in the hope that self-esteem can be maintained and not threatened.

The player then becomes very self-conscious, focused and concerned with always looking good in a vain attempt to bolster feelings of self-worth. This type of behavior is maladaptive to learning and reaching the top of one’s sport. Challenge, adversity and mistakes all have to be welcomed with open arms by seeing them as vehicles for learning and improvement.

Dweck’s lecture really brought home the message that coaches today have immense power and control in developing not only physical, technical and tactical skills but mental skills too. Dweck gave strategies for coaches and managers at the end of her lecture as ways of applying her research findings in sport. This was warmly welcomed by the audience and a sign of a world class academic, one that can generalize the research they undertake to practical settings by reflecting on what implications it carries.

From the lively debate after the mid-point break it was clear that Dweck had successfully managed to communicate her message. Especially interesting was the reaction of the panel to Dweck’s lecture. George Burley genuinely seemed interested in what ways he can communicate to his players to instill a Growth Mindset. The implications of her mindset research were picked up upon by talent development coaches too, which was encouraging to see.

It is clearly evident that embracing such a mindset from the national squad to grass root programs in Scotland will greatly benefit the levels of competitive participation and standards of performance in the game.

After the presentation of a crystal jug by Claire MacDonald of Winning Scotland Foundation and a signed Scotland shirt presented by George Burley on behalf of the SFA, the mood was buoyant and talk of the application of the Growth Mindset with youth teams and development teams was evident. Here’s to the success of the growth mindset in Scottish Football!

See Professor Dweck’s Hampden presentation here.

NB