The success of a teaching session, training workshop, change initiative, collaborative partnership, new software, or recently introduced strategy depends less on what we know or can do, but much more significantly on how we think or feel. As we enter each moment, our brains trigger a mindset that offers certain thoughts, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and assumptions. This mindset influences how we will engage in the moment presented, how we will make meaning, what behaviours we will enact, and if and how we create successful outcomes.

Although our mindset is one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal to control the direction of desired outcomes, it is also an elusive, contradictory, malleable and situation-specific concept that can be difficult to understand, let alone attempt to surface and capture.

“Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” - Clifford Geertz

In other words, these webs of significance that make up a person’s mindset in any particular situation, are subjective, that is they are particular to each person. They are the composite results of an individual’s life experiences, socialisation and upbringing, learned beliefs, values and personality traits.