Mary Murphy’s book, Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations, introduces a revolutionary approach to corporate development. Speaking at the 2024 Wharton People Analytics Conference, Murphy challenged the traditional fixed vs. growth mindset binary, arguing that the right managerial and HR strategies can actively shift employee mindsets toward learning and adaptability.
For many employees, a Culture of Growth is energizing—it creates an environment where learning is continuous, career mobility is encouraged, and teams collaborate more effectively. However, not everyone adapts at the same pace. While some employees embrace new challenges and thrive in growth-focused environments, others may feel overwhelmed, uncertain, or resistant to change—especially if they are used to clear, structured expectations and stability.
This is where Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) and knowledge networks come into play. Instead of making assumptions about how employees will react, ONA provides a data-driven approach to understanding real engagement patterns—helping leaders pinpoint who is thriving, who is struggling, and where intervention is needed. By analyzing knowledge-sharing trends, collaboration patterns, and influence networks, organizations can ensure that cultural transformation is inclusive, strategic, and effectively supported at all levels—rather than simply imposed from the top down.
Triggering Growth through Challenge and Feedback
Murphy posits that specific interventions, such as thought-provoking feedback, can jolt an employee out of a fixed mindset. For instance, implementing programs like “coffee chat“ can serve as a subtle nudge toward embracing challenges, sparking a transformation in mindset. These initiatives not only foster a culture of learning but also leverage key influencers within the organization—employees who naturally shape team dynamics, influence mindsets, and drive behavioral change.
-
Fostering a Collaborative Growth Culture: The Transition from Genius-Centric to Data-Driven Leadership
Within the evolving corporate ecosystem, Mary Murphy’s observations challenge the conventional ‘Culture of Genius’, a paradigm where individual prowess is celebrated, often at the cost of collaborative growth and ethical conduct. She contrasts this with a data-driven ‘Culture of Growth’, which relies on empirical evidence and collective advancement rather than the risky bet of singular intuition.
-
The Role of Influencers in Cultural Shifts
In any change management initiative, a small percentage of employees wield disproportionate influence over organizational culture. These individuals—whether formal leaders or informal connectors—shape how information flows, how decisions are accepted, and how change is embraced or resisted. Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) helps identify these key players, ensuring they are strategically engaged in leading the shift from fixed to growth mindsets.
ONA maps the organization’s hidden networks—revealing who employees naturally turn to for advice, support, or validation. Leaders can use these insights to target interventions more effectively, ensuring that growth mindset principles don’t just come from the top down but spread organically through trusted influencers.
-
The Pitfalls of Genius Culture
Murphy highlights the dangers of workplaces that idolize ‘genius’, often synonymous with a fixed mindset. Such environments—seen in early-stage hyper-growth companies like Uber—can incubate toxic behaviors, where employees undermine colleagues, gatekeep critical knowledge, and prioritize competition over collaboration. Without deliberate cultural interventions, these behaviors create bottlenecks in knowledge flow, reinforcing silos and inefficiencies.
-
Applying Change Management Frameworks for Sustainable Growth
Successfully transitioning from a Genius Culture to a Growth Culture requires structured change management methodologies. Kotter’s 8-Step Model for Change, for example, provides a roadmap for shifting organizational behavior:
- Create a Sense of Urgency – Use ONA insights to pinpoint disengaged teams and highlight the risks of maintaining a fixed mindset.
- Build a Guiding Coalition – Identify influencers through ONA who can advocate for change at all levels.
- Develop a Vision & Strategy – Align the transformation with clear goals, focusing on collaborative learning, mentorship, and data-driven decision-making.
- Communicate the Change Vision – Leverage internal champions and informal influencers to reinforce the messaging in everyday work settings.
- Empower Broad-Based Action – Use AI-driven tools like LEAD.bot to facilitate cross-functional connections and knowledge-sharing.
- Generate Short-Term Wins – Identify and showcase “bright spots” (teams demonstrating successful adaptation) to encourage wider adoption.
- Consolidate Gains & Drive More Change – Analyze knowledge flow trends to continuously refine collaboration strategies.
- Anchor New Approaches in Culture – Reinforce growth principles through ongoing mentorship, training, and transparent performance evaluations.
-
Evolving from ‘Bot’ Teams to ‘Built’ Teams
Murphy suggests moving from ‘bot teams’—which focus on mechanical task execution—to ‘built teams’, which emphasize collective learning and growth. Instead of just cultivating the top 5% of talent, growth cultures cultivate the top 20%, encouraging these individuals to nurture and coach their peers,, expand collective intelligence, and ensure that knowledge is not concentrated but widely distributed.
ONA provides a crucial advantage here—by identifying who truly drives collaboration and knowledge exchange, leaders can ensure that training, mentorship, and growth initiatives reach the right people. This prevents siloed learning and ensures that organizational development is systemic, not sporadic.
Key Takeaways: Why This Matters for Change Leaders
- Influencers drive adoption – Change doesn’t happen through mandates alone. Identifying and activating key network influencers can accelerate transformation.
- Data beats intuition – Instead of assuming who leads culture, use ONA to track engagement patterns and knowledge-sharing trends.
- Behavioral change requires structure – Leveraging Kotter’s 8-Step Model, combined with ONA insights, ensures that growth initiatives are intentional, measurable, and scalable.
Data as the Cornerstone of Cultural Shift
In a growth-focused organization, decisions are driven by data, not dominated by the whims of those perceived as geniuses. This approach minimizes risk and maximizes the opportunity for informed strategy, ensuring that the company’s trajectory aligns with concrete metrics and a clear understanding of its workforce’s capabilities and needs.
Murphy’s narrative is a call to action for leadership and employee development experts to rethink their approach to talent and culture. By embracing a mindset that prioritizes learning, ethical leadership, and data-driven decisions, organizations can create an environment that not only supports the continuous development of its people but also fosters a robust and resilient corporate structure prepared to adapt to the inevitable shifts of the market.
Metrics of Success: Continual Growth versus Static Satisfaction
Organizational growth is often misinterpreted through traditional satisfaction metrics. Many companies rely on employee surveys or one-time feedback loops, which can present a misleadingly positive picture—masking deeper disengagement, silos, or performance bottlenecks.
Murphy urges companies to embrace a growth-driven mindset, akin to a ‘founder mentality’, where leaders proactively seek and develop talent smarter than themselves. This approach encourages continuous iteration and improvement, rather than complacency with existing structures.
By integrating ONA and knowledge network mapping, companies can shift from measuring static engagement scores to analyzing actual behavioral patterns, such as:
- Cross-functional collaboration trends—Are employees engaging across departments, or are silos deepening?
- Knowledge flow efficiency—Are high-value insights being shared, or are they concentrated among a few individuals?
- Informal leadership influence—Are the right employees being recognized as key contributors, or is valuable talent being overlooked?
Pulse Surveys: The Litmus Test for Micro-Cultures
Murphy suggests using pulse surveys as a tool for ‘hotspot’ and ‘bright spot’ analysis within teams and divisions. These surveys can reveal micro-cultures and team dynamics, showing whether areas of hypergrowth are in sync with the company’s overarching cultural DNA.
◊ Hotspots: These are areas within an organization that are struggling or underperforming, which might be indicated by negative feedback, lower engagement scores, or high turnover rates. Pulse surveys can help identify these problem areas quickly.
◊ Bright Spots: Conversely, these are areas where teams or departments are thriving, showing high satisfaction and performance levels.
LEAD.bot enhances this by combining pulse survey insights with ONA, allowing leaders to cross-reference survey sentiment with actual collaboration trends—revealing where interventions are needed and where organic team synergies are already forming. You can find more about how to create a good pulse survey here.
Generational Dialogues and Managerial Development
Jacqueline Arthur,the Global Head of Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs highlights the value of intergenerational conversations in understanding and evolving company culture. Programs that facilitate dialogues between senior leaders and junior employees can offer insights into the organizational pulse, which is an area where tools like LEAD.bot can be instrumental.
Mental Health and Managerial Effectiveness
Training sessions for managers, such as those offered by the KFCI in Goldman Sachs, aim to increase awareness about mental health—not just for employees but for the managers themselves. Such initiatives can be further supported by sentiment surveys, which provide a deeper understanding of employee well-being.
Fostering Employee Mobility through Informal Networks
Jacqueline Arthur’s advocacy for informal networking channels to explore internal job opportunities aligns with a forward-thinking vision for workplace dynamics. By promoting systems where employee profiles are accessible for networking, Goldman Sachs encourages internal mobility and collaborative engagement. Similarly, LEAD.bot’s virtual coffee/ coffee meetup program across various companies has shown promise in facilitating this type of environment. Feedback from employee participants suggests that such tools are effective in opening up new avenues for career development within their organizations.
Integrating AI into the Workforce
In the context of “Unlocking Employee Potential” integrating AI into a multi-generational workforce stands as a pivotal strategy. The widespread adoption of AI by 80% of interns in Goldman Sachs for tasks like research and writing underscores its capacity to elevate employee development across industries and sectors.
Traditionally, creating content and surveys demanded considerable effort from Employee Engagement managers, but AI, through tools like LEAD.bot, offers a solution. Integrated within Slack and Microsoft Teams, it automates the sharing of educational and wellness content via Watercooler, fostering a culture that prioritizes continuous improvement, knowledge sharing, and innovation.
Creating Spaces for Open Dialogue and Allyship
Lastly, fostering a psychologically safe workplace requires structured, ongoing conversations about workplace culture, inclusion, and collaboration. Allyship training plays a crucial role in helping employees engage in difficult discussions, develop mutual respect, and build inclusive team environments.
At LEAD.bot, we’ve observed how our clients use the platform to spark these conversations organically, allowing employees to connect, discuss, and problem-solve across departments. Whether through structured mentorship programs, executive Q&A sessions, or informal discussion groups, technology can facilitate inclusive, high-trust workplaces.
FAQ: What is LEAD?
LEAD is a people operations platform that specializes in team-building programs, such as virtual coffee chats, buddy programs, birthday celebrations & work anniversary celebrations, new hire onboarding programs, and Pulse Surveys. Our mission is to help companies attract, retain, and optimize top talent.
In addition to these traditional team-building activities, LEAD also utilizes Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to create strong networks within hybrid workforces. Our innovative technology connects employees in a way that improves peer learning, performance, and productivity.
With our platform, companies can access cutting-edge people analytics and insights that are tailored to their unique needs. This allows businesses to make data-driven decisions that optimize their teams and drive results. If you’re looking for a solution that delivers real value to your organization, LEAD is the ultimate choice.
