You've got a leader on your team who's struggling. They're creating friction, people are disengaged, and results are suffering. So you do what most organizations do: you send them to a communications workshop. Maybe a conflict resolution course. You give them a 360 review and a list of behaviors to work on.
And for a few weeks, things get better. Then they don't.
Why? Because you treated the symptom and ignored the cause.
Most organizations focus on behavior change when they want to improve results. They coach behavior. They track behavior. They reward behavior. And it makes sense on the surface—behavior is what we can see, measure, and manage.
But here's what is actually happening: behavior is downstream.
Behavior doesn't just appear out of thin air. Every action a leader takes, every interaction an employee has, is driven by something deeper—their mindset. How they see the people around them. Whether they view colleagues as people who matter, or as obstacles, vehicles, and irrelevancies in the way of their own objectives.
This is why 70% of organizational transformation efforts fail. Not because the strategy was wrong. Not because the people weren't talented. They fail because no one addressed the mindset driving the behaviors everyone wanted to change.
The Mindset Model is a simple but powerful framework: Mindset drives behavior, and behavior drives results. When you want to change results, you have to start with mindset—not skip ahead to behavior.
Think of it this way. If I see my colleague as someone who is in my way, as a problem I have to deal with, that mindset will shape everything I do. I might still say the right words in a meeting. I might follow the communication framework I learned in that workshop. But the people around me will feel the disconnect. They'll sense that I'm going through the motions. And whatever compliance I get from them will be just that—compliance, not commitment.
Now flip it. If I see that same colleague as a person with their own needs, challenges, and objectives—someone whose success matters to the work we're doing together—my behavior shifts naturally. I don't need a script. I communicate because I actually care about the outcome for both of us.
That's the difference between managing behavior and transforming results.
At the core of the Mindset Model is the distinction between an inward mindset and an outward mindset.
An inward mindset is self-focused. When operating with an inward mindset, people see others primarily in terms of how they affect their own goals. Others become obstacles to work around, vehicles to use, or irrelevancies to ignore. The result is blame, silos, defensiveness, and disengagement.
An outward mindset is others-inclusive. When operating with an outward mindset, people see others as people who matter like they matter. They consider others' needs, challenges, and objectives—not just their own. The result is accountability, collaboration, trust, and measurably better outcomes.
Most people don't wake up intending to operate with an inward mindset. But self-deception makes it invisible to us. We can't see that the way we're seeing is the problem. We think the issue is everyone else. And that blindness is exactly why behavioral training alone can't fix it. You can teach someone new skills all day long, but if they operate from an inward mindset, they'll use those skills for self-interest, not organizational success.
This isn't theory. McKinsey research found that organizations addressing mindsets first are 4x more likely to succeed at transformation than those focusing only on behavior change. Four times.
Consider what that means for the billions that organizations spend on leadership development every year. If you skip the mindset and go straight to behavior, you're playing a losing game.
These aren't soft numbers. This is the hardest work producing the hardest results.
So what does this look like in practice? How do you move from behavior-focused development to mindset-first transformation?
Start by shifting how your leadership team thinks about performance problems. When you see conflict, silos, disengagement, or turnover—those are behavioral symptoms of something deeper. Ask: What mindset is driving this behavior? That question alone changes the conversation.
The most powerful thing you can do is help people become aware of their own mindset. Not just intellectually, but in specific situations with specific people. Arbinger's "Check Your Mindset" tool, for example, asks leaders to identify situations where they might be operating with an inward mindset—and to consider what adjustments would make them more helpful. The four inward mindset styles—Better Than, I Deserve, Worse Than, and Need to Be Seen As—give people a concrete language for recognizing patterns in themselves.
An outward mindset doesn't mean being nice. It means being effective. It means seeing others clearly enough to actually help, to hold them accountable in a way they can receive, and to work across the organization toward shared objectives. When leaders make this shift, the people around them feel it. And they respond—not with compliance, but with genuine engagement.
Mindset change isn't a one-time workshop. It's an ongoing practice that gets embedded in how your organization operates—in how you hire, develop, promote, and lead. Organizations that treat this as a cultural capability, not an event, are the ones that see lasting transformation.
You can do this. You can stop chasing behaviors and start transforming the mindset that drives everything in your organization. The Mindset Model is simple: mindset impacts behavior, which impacts results. You can manage behavior and get compliance. Or you can change mindset and transform results.
Mindset is the difference.
This is the work we do at Arbinger—helping leaders see differently so they can lead differently. Schedule a strategy session to explore how the Mindset Model can transform your organization's results.
The Mindset Model is a framework showing that mindset drives behavior, which drives results. Rather than trying to change results by managing behavior directly, lasting transformation comes from shifting the underlying mindset—from inward and self-focused to outward and others-inclusive. This model is the foundation of The Arbinger Institute's approach to leadership development and organizational change.
Behavior change without mindset change produces compliance, not commitment. People can learn new skills and techniques, but if they still see others as obstacles or irrelevancies, those skills get used for self-interest. Research shows 70% of transformation efforts fail because they skip the mindset and focus only on behavior. McKinsey found organizations are 4x more likely to succeed when they address mindset first.
An inward mindset is self-focused—seeing others primarily as obstacles, vehicles, or irrelevancies in relation to your own goals. An outward mindset is others-inclusive—seeing others as people with their own needs, challenges, and objectives that matter. This shift from self-focus to others-inclusive thinking is what enables lasting behavior change and measurable improvements in organizational results.