Managing With the Brain in Mind

#ALFA2014

Beth Burbage Vice President, Organizational Development

Silverado Senior Living

Agenda

• NeuroLeadership

• Decision Making and Problem Solving

• The Quiet Leader

• The SCARF Model

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What is NeuroLeadership?

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NeuroLeadership is an emerging field of study

connecting neuroscientific knowledge with the fields of

leadership development, management training, change management,

consulting and coaching.

The NeuroLeadership Institute

• Purpose is to encourage, generate and share neuro-science research that transforms how people think, develop and perform

• Over 500 members

• 40+ countries

• www.NeuroLeadership.org

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David Rock

Four Domains of NeuroLeadership

• Decision making and problem solving

• Staying cool under pressure (emotion regulation)

• Collaborating with others

• Facilitating change

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Decision Making & Problem Solving

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Decision Making & Problem Solving

• Natural reaction is linear problem solving (we think it’s the right way)

• It’s a conscious task—we have to focus on the problem

• Math example

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Conscious vs. Nonconscious Resources

• Prefrontal cortex vs. the rest of your brain

• Cubic foot vs. the milky way

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PFC: • Understand

• Decide

• Recall

• Memorize

• Inhibit

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Conscious vs. Nonconscious Resources

• We need to tap into how to use the rest of our brain for tasks like problem solving

• Most real world problems, especially at work, tend to be far more complex than multiplying four digits

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Nonlinear Problems

• What we mostly deal with at work

• Have no pre-existing, logical or easy answer

• Conscious problem-solving resources are no good in these situations

• Example: How do we fill a new Silverado Community in a new market in a short period of time?

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No One Solves Problems at Will

• How do YOU solve complex problems? • People say the answers suddenly arrive:

- As you fall asleep - In the middle of the night - As you wake up - In the shower - As you exercise - While you’re driving - Doing something pleasant or repetitive

• You have an “Aha” moment

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“Aha” Moments

• We can’t control them

• But we can increase the likelihood of them happening

• Four simple rules: - Quiet

- Inward looking

- Slightly happy

- Not effortful

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Quiet

• An insight (or “aha”) is often a long-forgotten memory or combination of memories

• These memories don’t have a lot of neurons involved in holding them together

• We only notice signals above whatever our baseline “noise” is in our brain

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We notice insights when our brain activity is low.

Insights require a quiet mind because they themselves are quiet.

Inward Looking

• Insights occur when you are “mind wandering” or daydreaming – not externally focused on the problem

• You shut out external data (interference) to save resources for noticing the insight

• Insights more likely when you look inside yourself and feel safe to reflect on deeper thoughts

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Slightly Happy

• Being slightly happy vs. slightly anxious helps people solve more problems and be more creative

• When you are happy, you notice a wider range of information—you don’t have tunnel vision

• You need to be feeling open, curious and generally interested in something

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Not Effortful

• If you want insights, you need to stop trying to solve the problem!

• When we get to an impasse it’s because we are focused on the wrong solutions

• The more we focus on the wrong solution, the harder it is to think of new ideas

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Effort

• Effort involves a lot of electrical activity which can reduce the likelihood of noticing the quiet signals of insight

• We need to inhibit the wrong solutions in order for the right ones to come to our attention

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It’s a Mind Shift…

• You can’t force an insight to occur, but you can put your brain into a state that significantly increases the chances of an insight occurring

• It means being ok with feeling like you do when you first wake up in the morning—relaxed and with diffuse, easy attention

• Learn to be ok with uncertainty because the more anxious you are, the less likely you are to notice any subtle insights

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Implications in the Workplace

• When solving complex problems, don’t put pressure on yourself, gather lots of data, etc.—all that makes the brain noisier than quieter

• Don’t brainstorm as a group—too much mental noise

• Instead define the question as a group, then take time out to do something interesting, but repetitive and simple, to allow your nonconscious brain to solve the problem for you

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Take a Walk

Play Ping Pong (in a Winery)

Knit

The Role of the Leader

What do we need to do as leaders to help our associates have more

“aha moments” or insights?

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The Quiet Leader

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It is not…

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David Rock

“If people are being paid to think, isn’t it time the business world found out what the thing

doing the work, the brain, is all about?”

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The Brain: A Connection Machine

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The Brain: A Connection Machine

• We just learned that our brain has the ability, if we are quiet enough, to make connections with ideas that are not currently connected (aha moments/insights)

• It’s because the underlying functionality of our brain is one of finding associations, connections, and links between bits of information

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The Brain’s “Comfort Zone”

• To be in the nonconscious mode

• Where we don’t have to think about what we’re doing

• We can rely on our habitual behaviors—our hard wiring

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Our Hardwiring Drives Automatic Perception

“When we wish upon a a star…”

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Downside of Hardwiring

• Changing the way people think becomes very tough

• When external realities change, people’s internal realities often don’t change as quickly

• Given that our wiring is all so different, any group of people will see the same situation from substantially different perspectives

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Improving Performance in Others

• Leaders need to influence the way people perceive the world

• This requires helping them to change their habits, which are hardwired into the brain

• This is a new art for most leaders, one that requires developing new muscles

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“Our default mode for trying to change our habits is to try to “unwire” what is already there, to deconstruct it somehow. However, it’s like trying to get rid of the Grand Canyon— It’s not an easy task.”

“…the more we focus on a problem we have, the more ingrained we make it.”

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“…I am not saying that the brain has no ability to change—clearly with a million new connections being created each second there is an awful lot of change going on. However, the WAY we go about trying to change our habits most of the time is fundamentally flawed.”

~ David Rock

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Another Way…

• Leave the problem wiring where it is, and focus wholly and completely on the creation of new wiring

• This is what happens in the brain when we are solutions focused

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It’s Easy to Create New Wiring

Enter knowledge of “neuroplasticity.”

“It is now widely believed that our brain doesn’t just get rewired when life-changing events occur; it happens second by second, day and night, in response to everything going on around us.”

“Our brain is very comfortable making new maps, perhaps you could even say it’s the brain’s favorite activity.”

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Build New Neural Pathways

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New Habits Happen Faster Than You Think

• New habits take time, but not that much. Studies show that physical new branches, called dendrites, emerge after just one hour of stimulation

• Positive feedback to reinforce the new habits is essential!

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We need to give up our desire to find behaviors to fix, and become fascinated with identifying and growing people’s ability to make new connections.

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#ALFA2014 Rock, D. (2006) Quite Leadership, HarperCollins, New York

Six Steps

1. Think about Thinking

2. Listen for Potential

3. Speak with Intent

4. Dance Toward Insight

5. Create New Thinking

6. Follow-Up

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Step 1: Think About Thinking

• Let them do all the thinking

• Focus on solutions

• Remember to stretch

• Accentuate the positive

• Put process before content

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Let Them Do All The Thinking

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Let Them Do All The Thinking

• Managers often complain about how they constantly have to solve other people’s problems

• Is the manager more addicted to this than the staff??

• Anytime a person wants your help they could most likely benefit from coming up with the answer themselves…

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Focus on Solutions

• An analytical and problem-focused approach is very useful when analyzing and trying to change processes

• When trying to change people, and the way they do things, something else is needed

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Problem Focus vs. Solution Focus

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Problem Focus Solution Focus

Why didn’t you hit your targets? What do you need to do next time to hit your targets?

Why did this happen? What do you want to achieve here?

Where did it all start to go wrong? What do you need to do to move this forward?

Why do you think you’re not good at this? How can you develop strength in this area?

What’s wrong with your team? What does your team need to do to win?

Why did you do that? What do you want to do next time?

Who is responsible for this? Who can achieve this?

Why isn’t this working? What do we need to do to make this work?

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Ask

Problem Solution

Tell

Quiet Leaders

Remember to Stretch

• Quiet Leaders know that transforming performance - bringing about change -means stretching people

• It means taking people to the edge of their comfort zone

• Leaders have to learn to be comfortable with making people uncomfortable

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Accentuate the Positive

• People get, on average, a couple of minutes of positive feedback each year, versus thousands of hours of negative feedback

• Give positive feedback!

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Put Process Before Content

• Good process - Macro level: have clear objectives each year to focus on

- Micro level: every time you have a conversation to improve a person’s performance, plan for the success of the dialogue itself

- Establish clear expectations so that you both know exactly what you are talking about, and why, and where you are trying to get to

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Step 2: Listen for Potential

• Listening for potential is a choice in every moment

• By choosing to listen to people as successful, competent, and able to resolve their own dilemmas, guess what’s likely to happen?

• They often solve their own dilemmas, and get on with the job!

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Step 3: Speak with Intent

• Be Succinct - Be clear about your core message

• Be Specific - Provide just enough to illustrate the point you’re making

• Be Generous - Speak so that the other person relates to what you’re

saying

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Step 4: Dance Toward Insight

1. Awareness of Dilemma – when various mental maps are conflicting

2. Reflection – making new links

3. Illumination (Insight) – Aha moment

4. Motivation (Action) – time to make it happen

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The Four Faces of Insight

#ALFA2014 Rock, D. (2006) Quiet Leadership, HarperCollins, New York

Step 5: CREATE New Thinking

CR = Current Reality EA = Explore Alternatives TE = Tap Their Energy

#ALFA2014 Step 5: CREATE New Thinking

Step 6: Follow-Up

• F.E.E.L.I.N.G.: - Facts

- Emotions

- Encourage

- Learning

- Implications

- New Goal

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F.E.E.L.I.N.G.

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Six Steps

1. Think about Thinking

2. Listen for Potential

3. Speak with Intent

4. Dance Toward Insight

5. Create New Thinking

6. Follow-Up

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Create the Right Environment for Thinking to Occur

Social Neuroscience…

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Minimize Threat

And

Maximize Reward

Background

• Much of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by the overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward

• Research has shown that several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs

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The SCARF Model

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Our Brain Craves SCARF

• The five domains of human social experience: - Status

- Certainty

- Autonomy

- Relatedness

- Fairness

#ALFA2014 Rock, D. (2009) Your Brain at Work, HarperCollins, New York

Reward the Threat Circuitry

• These domains activate either the primary reward or primary threat circuitry (and associated networks) of the brain

• For example, a perceived threat to one’s status activates similar brain networks as a threat to one’s life

• A perceived increase in fairness activates the same reward circuitry as receiving a monetary award

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SCARF Model

• Provides a lens for looking at minimizing threat and maximizing reward

• Model can be applied and tested in any situation where people collaborate in groups (e.g. work, educational environ-ments, family settings, social events, etc.)

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The Five Domains of Human Social Experience

• Status: Relative importance to others

• Certainty: Concerns being able to predict the future

• Autonomy: Provides a sense of control over one’s environment

• Relatedness: Sense of safety with others, friend or foe

• Fairness: Perception of fair exchanges between people

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Work Situations that Produce Threat/Reward Responses

• Engagement

• Leadership practices

• Organizational change

• Motivation

• Incentives

• Managing performance

• Teams and collaboration

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SCARF Examples

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Domain Description Threat Reward Status Relative importance to others Do you need any advice?

Annual performance review

Pay attention to work done and improvements Provide positive feedback and public acknowledgement Allow people to provide feedback on their own work

Certainty Ability to predict the future. Without prediction, brain must use more resources, involving more energy pre-fontal cortex

Change Lies Not knowing people's expectations

Vision, strategies, map Plans (even if we know things won’t be as planned) Turning implicit into explicit If unable to tell now, give date when you’ll be able to tell

Autonomy Perception of exerting control over events

Inescapable stress can be highly destructive Working In teams reduces autonomy

A choice between 2 options: which one do you prefer? Enable individual decision making w/o intervention of managers Hard wire autonomy in organization processes

Relatedness Sense of safety with others Meeting someone unknown Feeling let down, not involved

Shaking hands, sharing names, discussing something in common Share personal information with team members Mentoring, coaching

Fairness Perception of fair exchanges between people

Lack of ground rules, expectations or objectives

Increase transparency and level of communication Establish clear expectations Groups creating their own rules Help people see situations from other perspectives

SCARF Caution

• Mistakes new leaders can make: - Provide too much direction and not enough feedback

(affects status)

- Don’t provide clear expectations (impacts certainty)

- Micromanage—impacting authority

- Want to maintain a “professional distance”—impacting relatedness

- Impact fairness by not being transparent enough

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The Model in Action

• Knowing the drivers that can cause a threat response enables people to design interactions to minimize threats

• Knowing the drivers that activate a reward response enables people to motivate others by tapping into internal rewards, thereby reducing the reliance on external rewards such as money

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Summary

• NeuroLeadership

• Decision Making and Problem Solving

• The Quiet Leader

• The SCARF Model

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Wrap Up

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