How to Improve Team Mindset at Work (2-Minute Exercise)
Team mindset shows up in the moments that matter most, like how your team speaks to each other under pressure, how they respond when plans change, and what happens after a mistake.
If you’re trying to improve your team’s mindset at work and you’re not looking for surface-level motivation, you’re in the right place.
You want something practical that helps people stay calm, work through challenges, and move into solutions faster.
In this blog, I’ll break down why mindset matters, the real cost of a negative team dynamic, and a simple 2-minute exercise you can use with your team to shift minds quickly to build more positive momentum day to day.
Contents
Why Team Mindset Matters at Work
The Cost of a Negative Team Mindset
How to Improve Team Mindset at Work
Try This 2-minute Mindset Exercise
Organise a Mindset Workshop for Your Team
Why Team Mindset Matters at Work
Our mindsets shape how we interpret everything that happens around us.
Two teams can face the exact same pressure, setbacks and challenges, but respond completely differently depending on their mindset.
When team mindset is positive, people are more likely to stay calm under pressure, look for solutions when problems arise, and bounce back quicker when something goes wrong.
On the contrary, when team mindset is negative, small issues feel bigger than they are, feedback often feels personal, and people don’t respond to setbacks with solutions.
In a team context, without a good mindset it can:
- Slow things down
- Cause confrontation
- Lead to more blame and less ownership
- Increase stress
- Reduce team motivation
- And more
However, when teams have a positive mindset, it can:
- Improve problem solving
- Reduce stress
- Boost team connection
- Create positive momentum
- Reduce misunderstandings
- Strengthen trust
- Increase motivation
- And more
With the right team mindset, teams are able to continue to grow together and achieve their goals, and feel good doing it.
The Cost of a Negative Team Mindset
A negative mindset within a team can be show up in a range of ways and this can have a detrimental impact on teams with both performance and retention.
Poor mindsets often feed negative work environments, and negative work environments are among the top reasons employees choose to leave a job.
According to SHRM, 32.4% of employees quit their job because of a toxic or negative work environment.
Additionally, when the tone in a team becomes negative, people often become quieter, more cautious and less open which isn’t doing any good for their psychological safety at work.
BCG found 12% of employees with the lowest psychological safety were likely to quit within a year, versus 3% where psychological safety is high.
The cost of a negative team mindset can show up in more ways than we realise, which is why teams need simple tools to shift it.
How to Improve Team Mindset at Work
Improving team mindset at work isn’t about forcing positivity or pretending things are fine they’re not.
It’s about shaping how a team responds when challenges arise, priorities change or something goes wrong.
The teams that perform best aren’t the one’s without problems, but with the right mindset to adapt, communicate clearly and then move into solutions quickly, without dwelling on the problems.
A great place to start is by providing clarity to teams on what you want to see more of.
For example, more solution focused conversations, curiosity, openness or calmness.
When teams only focus on what they want less of, like negativity or blame, it can keep everyone stuck in the negative mindsets they are trying to move away from.
Focusing on what we want to attract, allows our minds to stay in this mindset, therefore focusing on the positives.
A positive team mindset is built in the every day decisions and conversations that occur in teams.
These moments either build trust and resilience, or they slowly cause tension, defensiveness and distance.
One of the simplest ways to improve mindset is by making it normal to pause and reframe situations.
Changing from “I have to do something” to “I get to do something”
Reframing our language helps our minds to see things in a more optimistic light.
Our vocabulary is extremely important when adopting a positive team mindset and it’s just one of the things we cover in our team Mindset Magic webinar and workshops.
The biggest difference I see in teams that shift their mindset quickly is that they have a shared tool they can use in the moment, especially when emotions are high.
That’s why I like using a simple 2-minute exercise with teams, because it’s quick, practical, and it can change the tone of the room fast.
Watch it below!
Try this 2-minute Mindset Exercise
Organise a Mindset Workshop for Your Team
At Loving Life, we deliver a range of workshops to help teams support their, health, wellbeing and mindset.
Whether it’s a tailored session or one of our core workshops or programmes, we work closely with organisations that care about their people to improve collaboration, communication, performance and more!
If you’d like to support the mindset of your team, and learn how we can tailor our workshops to get the best out of everyone, get in touch to see how we can help!
Author
Tyler Lowe – Workshop Facilitator
