Every elementary school Learner at River Oak Academy has heard and knows the difference between growth mindset and fixed mindset. Having a fixed mindset and allowing fear of failure may keep them from doing something that may have been amazingly innovative or reach a goal or create a strong friendship.
There’s a link between innovation and embracing failure. In our era of unprecedented disruption and change, companies that don’t take risks find themselves fading into obsolescence, or worse, bankruptcy. It’s absolutely critical to a company’s survival for risk-taking to be part of its DNA and culture. We watched a video on Blockbuster Video. The once video rental giant is not even recognized by any of our Learners. At its peak in the late '90s, Blockbuster owned over 9,000 video-rental stores in the United States. They had 65 million registered customers. Once valued as a $3 billion company, and in just one year, earned $800 million in late fees alone.
Netflix founder created a DVD-by-mail rental service at the time, in part after being frustrated with a $40 late fee from Blockbuster. Blockbuster walked away from the first major development of wide-scale movie streaming. Within a few years, Netflix and other competitors began to eat into Blockbuster's profits, not by undercutting it, but by reimagining video rental in the digital age. Netflix had amassed almost 3 million customers, had no store overheads, and was preparing to launch its revolutionary streaming service. Blockbuster had missed out by focusing on what was working for them instead of looking into the future and how they might stay current and meet their consumer’s ever changing needs. All because of their fixed mindset. Even Babe Ruth, one of the most famous baseball players who had set a record on the most home runs, set a record for the most strikeouts.
Powerful Question for Learners
Was there ever a time when fear has kept you from doing something you would have wanted to do or tackled a big problem? How did you counteract negative self-talk from preventing you from learning along the way?
From our Head of School
How do we embrace failure? Failure is, after all, a road not a wall.
Post written by: Mary
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