"To be outward doesn’t mean that people should adopt this or that prescribed behavior… it means that when people see the needs, challenges, desires, and humanity of others, the most effective ways to adjust their efforts occur to them in the moment. "

The outward mindset is a way of looking at the world. It involves seeing beyond yourself and making others feel valued. An outward mindset focuses on others, on what is important to all stakeholders: our employees, customers, manager, family members. An outward mindset means that we genuinely see (and hear and listen to) others. We evaluate their needs, objectives, and challenges rather than focusing on our own. When we do this, options occur to us that never could have before (e.g., the formula story) and we can focus on the collective result we desire.

The Outward Mindset

"So while the goal in shifting mindsets is to get everyone turned toward each other, accomplishing this goal is possible only if people are prepared to turn their mindsets toward others with no expectation that others will change their mindsets in return."

"With an inward mindset, people behave in ways that are calculated to benefit themselves. With an outward mindset, people are able to consider and behave in ways that further the collective results that they are committed to achieve."

Adopt an outward mindset even when others don’t. Rather than complain, we can make the move we are waiting for the other person to make—we can act the way we want the other person to act. While we think this might lead us to be taken advantage of, it is not a “soft” thing to do—in fact, it’s a hard behavior that requires courage. Putting others’ interests first when we aren’t sure others are doing the same is a scary move.

Make the First Move

An inward mindset is focused on self-benefit and self-concern—our individual self-interest or if we are operating in a larger organization, our individual team, or our division. When people focus on themselves rather than on their impact, lots of activity and effort get wasted on the wrong things. Collaboration suffers, innovation is limited and employees disengage due to the boredom inherent with inward-mindset thinking and working.

The Inward Mindset

The framework for working with the Outward Mindset goes by the acronym SAM—See others, Adjust efforts and Measure impact.<ul><li>See others: Ask your executive team to see what each of their colleagues is doing and push the executives to reveal what is not working, to be vulnerable about their real needs and challenges. </li><li>Adjust efforts: Once challenges are revealed, invite the team to step in and help. </li><li>Measure impact: At weekly meetings, the executive team assesses the effects of the help they are providing across the entire team’s efforts.</li></ul>

See, Adjust, Measure

Unknowingly, too many of us operate from an inward mindset—a narrow-minded focus on self-centered goals and objectives. When faced with personal ineffectiveness or lagging organizational performance, most of us instinctively look for quick-fix behavioral band-aids, not recognizing the underlying mindset at the heart of our most persistent challenges. Through true stories and simple yet profound guidance and tools, The Outward Mindset enables individuals and organizations to make the one change that most dramatically improves performance, sparks collaboration, and accelerates innovation—a shift to an outward mindset.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

teamwork

Teamwork

books

Books

The Arbinger Institute has helped millions with their books Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace. Their newest book, The Outward Mindset, reflects their latest research and experience and offers a new and intuitive way to teach people how to implement mindset change in themselves and scale it across organizations, with incredible effect. One's mindset governs how one views the world, what one does, and how one does it. One's mindset can be self-focused, which Arbinger calls an inward mindset, or it can be inclusive of others, which Arbinger calls an outward mindset. It turns out that our own actions, and others responses to those actions, end up being dramatically different depending on which mindset we are operating from. The Outward Mindset teaches readers how to shift more fully to an outward mindset and how to help others, even whole organizations, to make that shift-a shift that sparks innovation, increases accountability, and transforms collaboration, engagement, and fulfillment.