Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM  

How can we insure that personal and organizational transformation will succeed?  The secret lies in integrating recent discoveries in psychology and neuroscience, where breakthroughs in brain research are helping us understand the nature of successful behavioral change.

Success isn’t possible without changing the day-to-day behavior of people throughout a company.  But changing behavior is hard, even for individuals.  The authors explain how managers who understand recent breakthroughs in cognitive science can lead and influence mindful change: organizational transformation that takes into account the physiological nature of the brain, and the ways in which it predisposes people to resist some forms of leadership and accept others.

Here’s this month’s feature ...

The Neuroscience of Leadership by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz

From strategy+business Magazine, Issue 43

Highlights from the article:

• Change is pain.  Organizational change is unexpectedly difficult because it provokes sensations of physiological discomfort.  Much of what people do in the workplace -- how they sell ideas, run meetings, manage others, communicate, etc -- is so well routinized that the “habit-center” portion of the brain is running the show.  Trying to change any hardwired habit requires a lot of effort, in the form of attention.  This often leads to a feeling that many people find uncomfortable.  Also, trying to change a routine behavior sends out strong messages in the brain that something is not right.  These messages grab the individual’s attention, and they can readily overpower rational thought.
    

• Behaviorism doesn’t work.  Many existing models for changing people’s behavior are drawn from the field of behaviorism.  However, there is plenty of evidence from both clinical research and workplace observation that change efforts based on incentive and threat (the carrot and the stick) rarely succeed in the long run.  Yet, despite all the evidence that it doesn’t work, the behaviorist model is still the dominant paradigm in many organizations.
    

• Humanism is overrated.  In practice, the conventional empathetic approach of connection doesn’t sufficiently engage people.  In theory, an effective solution might well emerge from this person-centered approach, but in practice, it often leads to an emphasis on persuasion.  The implicit goal is to “get people on board” by establishing trust and rapport, and then to convince them of the value of a change.  Depending on how it’s delivered, this approach can be as mechanistic as behaviorism.  People naturally push back.
    

• Focus is power.  The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain.  Concentrating attention on your mental experience, whether a thought, an insight, a picture in your mind’s eye, or a fear, maintains the brain state arising in association with that experience.  Over time, paying enough attention to any specific brain connection keeps the relevant circuitry open and dynamically alive.  These circuits can then eventually become not just chemical links but stable, physical changes in the brain’s structure.  The brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his or her attention.
    

• Expectation shapes reality.  People’s preconceptions have a significant impact on what they perceive.  Cognitive scientists are finding that people’s mental maps, their theories, expectations, and attitudes, play a more central role in human perception than was previously understood.  People experience what they expect to experience.  Large scale behavior change requires a large-scale change in mental maps.  This can occur when people experience insights that change their attitudes and expectations.  During a moment of insight a complex set of new connections is being created.  These connections have the potential to enhance our mental resources and overcome the brain’s resistance to change.  Leaders wanting to change the way people think or behave must learn to facilitate, encourage, and deepen their team’s insights.
    

• Attention density shapes identity.  Repeated, purposeful, and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.  With enough attention density, individual thoughts and acts of the mind can become an intrinsic part of an individual’s identity.  Perhaps any behavior change brought about by leaders, managers, therapists, trainers, or coaches is primarily a function of their ability to induce others to focus their attention on specific ideas, closely enough, often enough, and for a long enough time.

For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.giftedleaders.com/PDFs/Neuroscience-of-Leadership.pdf

Mindful Change in Practice

How can leaders effectively change their own or other people’s behaviors?  The answer: focus people on solutions instead of problems, let them arrive at their own answers, and keep them focused on their insights.

Start by leaving problem behaviors in the past; focus on identifying and creating new behaviors.  Over time, these may shape the dominant pathways in the brain.  This is achieved through a solution-focused questioning approach that facilitates self-insight, rather than through advice-giving.

Human brains are pattern-making organs with an innate desire to create novel connections.  When people solve a problem themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline.  This phenomenon provides a scientific basis for some of the practices of leadership coaching.  Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, effective coaches ask pertinent questions and support their clients in working out solutions on their own.

Next Month

The concept of employee engagement makes all the sense in the world, as it always has for businesses that value long-term success.  The commitment and involvement that employees feel toward their company has an influence on productivity.  So, with all the emphasis on engagement, how are managers and leaders doing?  Unfortunately, not well.

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