This is a human moment

Why we do this work, and the people behind it.

Mindset capability is built in people, supported by leaders, and held by the culture. All three layers move together.

The dignity of work, the agency, support, and conditions people need to develop their potential are not soft arguments. It is how organisations deliver first-rate products, services, and experiences to customers, and how they keep doing so as the work changes.

We believe in people’s potential. Ninety thousand people have used the Mindset Profiler™ to map their fixed mindset triggers and start working with them, in their organisations, in their teams, and in the everyday moments where those triggers show up: a difficult conversation, a mistake that stings, a decision that feels too big.

Most people who come to this work have spent years assuming the problem is them. We see it differently. A fixed mindset trigger is a prediction the brain learned to make, shaped by experience and context.

When people can explore what’s happening with curiosity rather than self-criticism, and when they have the right supports around them, they find they can do more than they expected. That conviction drives everything we do, helping each person, team, and organisation discover their unique learning potential.

You are a permanent prototype.

You do not arrive at “growth mindset.” You practise it, lose it, find a different version of it, discover it does not work the way you expected, adjust, and practise again. A prototype is unfinished by definition. It has directions it has not been taken in yet. Imperfection is built in. You can have as many Day Ones as you need.

Our co-founders

Susan Mackie

Susan Mackie

Co-FounderLinkedIn →

Susan has spent over thirty years in the applied practice of behaviour change, integrating cognitive, social, and organisational psychology into practical programmes. She co-founded GMI to turn academic research on mindset into something organisations can use and measure.

She identified false growth mindset before the research community did: people claiming to embrace growth mindset while their words and actions told a different story. She shared the concept with Professor Carol Dweck at Stanford. Dweck was sceptical. Two years later, she published an article confirming Susan was right, and the concept became a formal area of study. Professor Mary Murphy of Indiana University credits Susan directly in her book Cultures of Growth (Simon & Schuster, 2024) as the originator of both the false growth mindset and the mindset triggers framework.

Peer-reviewed literature recognises these contributions directly. Dweck and Yeager name Susan in the body of their landmark paper (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2019). Murphy and Reeves credit her as the first to describe mindset triggers (Research in Organisational Behaviour, 2020). Dweck named Susan in the acknowledgements of her major theoretical paper in Psychological Review (2017), for contributing to and reviewing the work. Angela Duckworth names Susan’s work in Grit, a #1 New York Times bestseller that has sold over five million copies.

One of the most highly qualified mindset thinkers and practitioners in the world today.

Professor Carol Dweck

Susan is a member of the OECD Committee for Growth Mindset, chaired by Professor Dweck.

Earlier work, results, and speaking

Earlier work. In South Africa, Susan was Project Director of the UPTRAIL Trust, working with Dr Edward de Bono, Professor David Perkins (Harvard University, Project Zero), and Dr Luis Alberto Machado, the world’s first Minister for the Development of Intelligence. The mission: develop thinking skills and literacy in disadvantaged children, regardless of their circumstances. That work led Susan to become CEO of the de Bono Institute in Melbourne, where she led consulting and research projects across education and corporate sectors, and co-presented with de Bono at the United Nations.

Results that stick. In mining, Susan reduced physical conflicts from thirty altercations to three verbal disputes daily. In banking, her team cut system downtime from sixty-four hours to twelve hours and won multiple innovation awards. In a government agency with low psychological safety and widespread passive-aggressive behaviour, her intervention shifted culture results by 75–130 per cent on desirable traits, reduced passive-aggressive interactions from 84 per cent to 15 per cent, and lifted employee engagement above the Australian national norm for the first time.

Speaking and reach. Susan has co-presented with Professor Dweck and has delivered keynotes and workshops across Africa, China, the USA, the UK, India, Singapore, Europe, and Australia. She appeared as an expert on ABC’s Rewire Your Brain with Todd Sampson. Her community work continues. Most recently coaching women in disadvantaged communities in Chicago to start businesses, and presenting at the Special Olympics Conference in the Philippines.

Academic and published citations

Peer-reviewed journals.

Dweck, C. S. & Yeager, D. S. (2019). Mindsets: A View from Two Eras. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(3), 481–496. Names Susan Mackie in the body of the paper as the originator of false growth mindset.

Murphy, M. C. & Reeves, S. L. (2020). Personal and Organizational Mindsets at Work. Research in Organizational Behavior. Names Susan Mackie as the originator of the mindset triggers concept.

Dweck, C. S. (2017). From Needs to Goals and Representations. Psychological Review, 124(6), 689–719. Susan Mackie named in the acknowledgements.

Books.

Murphy, M. C. (2024). Cultures of Growth. Simon & Schuster. Two separate credits: p. 296 credits Susan as originator of both false growth mindset and mindset triggers; p. 151 names John Rives alongside Susan, Dweck, and Muenks.

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset (Updated edition). Ballantine Books. Describes Susan as the first to bring false growth mindset to Dweck’s attention.

Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit. Scribner. Susan named on p. 222 and in the acknowledgements (p. 354).

Public academic sources.

Dweck, C. S. (2015). Carol Dweck Revisits the ‘Growth Mindset.’ Education Week. Names Susan as the colleague who first identified false growth mindset.

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Recognizing and Overcoming False Growth Mindset. Edutopia. Credits Susan twice.

John Rives

John Rives

Co-FounderLinkedIn →

John has spent thirty years leading large-scale technology and customer service businesses. He co-founded GMI with Susan Mackie and has led the development of the Mindset Profiler into a practical platform used across six continents.

He recently led the deployment of AI-powered customer service solutions, handling over 100,000 interactions per month, delivering a 15 per cent reduction in calls requiring live agents, 11 per cent cost savings, and an increase in NPS from 41 per cent to over 50 per cent. That same approach (AI that responds to the individual rather than forcing them through a predetermined path) now informs how GMI is building personalised mindset development tools that use the Profiler dataset to recognise trigger patterns and recommend strategies at scale.

Professor Mary Murphy’s Cultures of Growth names John directly alongside Susan Mackie, Professor Carol Dweck, and Dr Katie Muenks as part of the team that developed and tested the mindset assessment research central to Murphy’s further work (Simon & Schuster, 2024).

John speaks on growth mindset at Fortune 100 businesses and global conferences across the USA, Europe, and Asia-Pacific to audiences of over a thousand.

Earlier career and consulting

Before GMI, John was CEO of UCMS, one of Australia’s top fifty private technology companies, managing large contact centre operations and digital platforms across telecommunications, finance, transport, and utilities. Earlier, he was a founding executive at Optus Communications during its start-up phase, where he recruited and managed over three thousand staff and implemented core customer management systems. He went on to serve as Chief Information Officer and Director of Service Delivery at Optus Vision, overseeing national technology and customer service functions for the multi-billion-dollar telecommunications venture.

Through Service Resonance, John has advised organisations across telecommunications, transport, finance, and government on contact centre optimisation, outsourcing strategy, digital transformation, and customer experience design.

He writes on the intersection of mindset and the future of work, and continues to consult with government and corporate clients on how organisational mindset shapes whether transformation efforts (AI adoption, service redesign, or cultural change) actually stick.

Where to next

Who We Are | Growth Mindset Institute