PCI Media Impact is a New York-based non-profit leader in the production of Entertainment-Education (EE) programs delivered to over a billion people around the world. Entertainment-Education programs share empowering stories via a combination of radio and TV serial dramas, talk shows, and related community mobilization activities to promote positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours regarding targeted health and environmental issues, such as access to drinking water, conservation, and surviving Ebola mediaimpact.org

To contribute such positive social change projects, UNSW Associate Professor of Management Peter Heslin has invested part of his sabbatical in New York helping to facilitate PCI Media Impact's work by mentoring project managers on using growth mindsets to unleash their employee's and partner's full potential.

"We often attribute lack of performance to a breakdown in communication, a shortage of staff, or a thousand other common excuses. A growth mindset check and update may be all that's needed to move toward achievement of our goals and objectives that may have seemed impossible," says David Andrews, PCI Media Impact Director of Development.

When people have a fixed mindset, they label themselves unhelpfully with statements such as "I'm just not good at negotiating with people from other cultures." When such people to develop more of a growth mindset, they instead focus more how abilities can be cultivated. They instead remind themselves that, for instance, "With mentoring and experimenting with different approaches, I can get better at negotiating with people from other cultures."​​​​

Based on the success of this collaboration, Heslin now plans to take up an ongoing honorary role as Inaugural PCI Media Impact Academic Fellow. He will continue to mentor staff in applications of growth mindset principles and how they can be worked into the Entertainment Educational programs that PCI Media Impact provides to help enrich and save lives around the world!

Peter Heslin is an Associate Professor at UNSW School of Management with research focusing on the role of self-regulatory dynamics in career success, as well as leadership development and performance. His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, and Personnel Psychology.