Alistair Schofield, MyBrain International Ltd.

Workshop 2 - How Neuroscience Can Improve Employee Engagement

Why do you have a brain

10 hours ago: Stone Age36 minutes ago: Homo Sapiens

4m years in 12 hours

1 minute 40 seconds ago: First house

12 hours ago: Australopithecus

1 minute ago: Earliest writing2 seconds ago: The Industrial Revolution

For almost 4m years we lived like this

In 0.25% of that time we went from this to this

© Edward H Adelson

Miller’s Law

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information (1956)

George A. Miller Cognitive psychologistPrinceton University

Habits dominate our lives

Unconsciousincompetence

Consciouscompetence

Consciousincompetence

Unconsciouscompetence

99% of an average day

is routine

Picture of a lady

Novel

New task

Routine

Practiced task

Novelty, routine & priming

James M Gold et al. The National Institute of Mental Health 1996. “PET validation of a novel prefrontal task: delayed response alteration”

Summary

• Human brains have limited conscious processing capacity• They are optimized for stable and predictable environments• We cope with newness and complexity by

forming rules and habits

Industrial revolution

• 90% of people in worked in agriculture

• Average manufacturing company had less than 5 employees

Basic philosophy of management

• There is a “right” way• The role of the manager

is to know that “right” way• To train people in the

“right” way• To supervise people to ensure

that they always do it the “right” way

Work tasks

AlgorithmicFollow rules for a defined outcome

Motivation

HeuristicUndefined process with imprecise outcome

First image

Cognitive Bias Task

First image ………………………………………………………………………………

A B

Source: Goldberg et al 1994

Which image is most like the

image you have just seen?

Which image do you like the

most?

The education system

The answer

6782 = ?31 2

3

20th Century GDP growth

Performance related pay• Professor Sam Gluksberg 1962

On average the incentivised group took 3½ minutes longer to arrive at the solution!

• “In eight of the nine tasks higher incentives led to worse performance” Ariely et al 2005

Neurological impact of financial reward

Algorithmic

Heuristic

McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein & Cohen (2004) “Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards”

Motivation in the modern world

Source: Edward Deci & Richard Ryan, University of Rochester

AUTONOMY COMPETENCE RELATEDNESS

COMPENSATION

REWARD

PUNISHMENT

INTRINSIC MOTIVATORS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATORS

Autonomy companies

Autonomy

• Cornell University studied 320 small businesses

4 X GROWTH

1/3 STAFF TURNOVER

Competence - Playing to your strengths

RANGE OF TASKS TO BE PERFORMED

PE

RF

OR

MA

NC

E

LE

VE

L

Weaknesses improved

Relatedness

Higher levels of satisfactionLower levels of anxiety & depressionLower levels of stress

Satisfaction & self-esteem no higherIncreased anxiety & depressionHigher levels of stress

University of Rochester graduate study

“Profit” goals“Purpose” goals

The Working BrainHow neuroscience can improve

employee engagement