The concept of mindsets predisposing portions of the population toward certain behaviors struck a chord (or a nerve) where real estate is concerned, so I bought the book and started reading. About half way through and enjoying the insights into why agents are the way they are. I trained and managed agents for 18 years. Wish I'd had the book back then. I did some of the right stuff, but could have done better, particularly with some of the gifted agents starting out.
Dweck's "Mindset" breaks the population into two groups. 1. fixed mindset and 2. growth (AKA learning) mindset. The fixed mindset people buy into the nature mode (as opposed to nurture)--you have intelligence and abilities that stay largely fixed throughout life. The Run What You Brung philosophy. Can't change how smart you are. If you believe that, you tend to be a little insecure about how smart you actually are--because it really matters--you're stuck. You look for opportunities to prove your "smarts". Activities that you're good at, bringing rewards (external motivational rewards) with the least possible effort. Effort doesn't make you smarter, so what's the point. It's a simple world and it sound a lot like real estate.
The Growth/Learning mindset people believe that you can change your "intelligence" by practice and study and discovering new ways to do things. Effort brings more intellectual capacity (if not native intelligence) and so even if success is illusive, the effort may still be worthwhile immediately or down the road. The effort may even be FUN!
The real estate industry is predominantly a fixed mindset business in which agents do repetitive activities and have an opportunity to make lots of money. It's all about PROVING that you're good (by making lots of money) over and over. Some people are great salespeople, some aren't. Many in management positions feel that you can't improve salespeople through training. That's why large firms are always recruiting. They hire many agents, then put them through some preliminary training and let most of them go. The training isn't for training, it's to weed out those not deemed winners. That fixed mindset is pervasive. It also inhibits the ability of the industry to provide increasingly better service in the best interests of the Buyer and Seller. The industry prefers to keep things simple rather than explore the host of ancillary intellectual realms that overlap with real estate decision making. To discourage discovery and exploration, the trade organizations standardize almost everything possible in a business that assists unique people in buying what are usually unique properties. MLS databases, standard forms, Codes of Ethics etc offer a secure environment for those who don't want to explore and discover. Real estate is the perfect habitat for the fixed mindset.
I've observed some very smart and extraordinarily successful people in real estate who became visibly uncomfortable at the mere suggestion that there might be different, perhaps better ways to approach the business. These icons of the fixed mindset are driven to prove their "innate" skills over and over in an artificially simple world reduced to the bare basics, list, sell, collect commission check. Disrupting the security of repetitive "success" just because Buyers and Sellers might benefit through making wiser decisions has little appeal to those with a fixed mindset.
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