Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM, ACC  

The brain is a social organ. Its physiological and neurological reactions are directly and profoundly shaped by social interaction. People who feel betrayed or unrecognized at work – for example, when they are reprimanded, given an assignment that seems unworthy, or told to take a pay cut – experience it as a neural impulse, as powerful and painful as a physical blow to the head!

New findings in neuroscience are reframing the prevailing view of the role that social drivers play in influencing how humans behave. Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” theory may have actually been wrong in this respect. Maslow proposed that humans tend to satisfy their needs in sequence, starting with physical survival and moving up the ladder toward self-actualization at the top. In this hierarchy, social needs sit in the middle. But many studies now show that the brain equates social needs with survival; for example, being hungry and being ostracized activate similar neural responses.

So, since the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system, the ability to intentionally address the social brain in the service of optimal performance will be a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead.

Here’s this month’s feature ...

Managing with the Brain in Mind by David Rock

From strategy+business, Autumn 2009/Issue 56, August 27, 2009

Highlights from the article:

• Neuroscientist Evian Gordon maintains that the tendency to “minimize threat or danger and maximize reward” is the fundamental organizing principle of the brain. Threat always trumps reward, though, because the threat response is strong, immediate, and hard to ignore. By managing in ways that honor this principle, leaders can bring out the best in their people and facilitate enhanced engagement and performance.
    

• Perceived threat or danger activates the brain’s limbic system and leads to a “fight or flight” response or, in its extreme form, an amygdala hijack, named for the part of the limbic system that can be aroused rapidly and in an emotionally overwhelming way.
    

• Humans cannot think creatively, work well with others, or make informed decisions when their threat responses are on high alert. The threat response is often triggered in social situations, and it tends to be more intense and long-lasting than the reward response. It results in:

1. Decreased capacity for creative insight

2. Decreased capacity for learning

3. Decreased capacity for problem-solving

4. Decreased motivation

5. Decreased productivity and performance

• When business leaders trigger a threat response, employee’s brains become much less efficient. But when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people’s efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response. Reward responses result in:

1. Increased employee effectiveness

2. Openness to new ideas – they notice the kind of information that passes them by when fear or resentment makes it difficult to focus their attention

3. More creativity

4. Decreased susceptibility to burnout because they are able to manage their stress

5. Intrinsic motivation

• There are five social qualities that, when present in the workplace, serve to minimize people’s threat responses and maximize their reward responses. The author presents them using the acronym, SCARF:

1. Status - This is about leveling the playing field by avoiding power differentials, hierarchies, or competitive systems where there are “haves and have nots” or superiors and inferiors.

2. Certainty - Uncertainty creates tension. Life is obviously uncertain, but the point here is to do what’s within your control to avoid the perception of too much uncertainty.

3. Autonomy - Let people be at choice, exert as much control as possible over their own work, and make and carry out their own decisions.

4. Relatedness - Teams of diverse people cannot be just thrown together. They must be deliberately put together. This requires time and repeated social interaction to build trust.

5. Fairness - People can be very passionate about issues of fairness. A perception of unfairness undermines trust and collaboration so it’s important to avoid favoritism or giving some people special treatment.

• What can you do to apply this SCARF model?  Start by reducing the threats inherent in your business and especially in its leaders’ behavior. Just as the animal brain is wired to respond to a predator before it can focus attention on the hunt for food, so is the social brain wired to respond to dangers that threaten its core concerns before it can perform other functions.
    

• Understanding the threat and reward response can also help leaders who are trying to implement large-scale change. The human brain is highly plastic. Neural connections can be reformed, new behaviors can be learned, and even the most entrenched behaviors can be modified at any age. The brain will make these shifts only when it is engaged in mindful attention. Mindfulness requires both serenity and concentration; in a threatened state, people are much more likely to be “mindless.” Their attention is diverted by the threat, and they cannot easily move to self-discovery.

  
For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.strategy-business.com/media/file/sb56_09306.pdf

   
Shhhh ... Don't Wake the Amygdala

Awareness of your own personal “threat responses” can also help you achieve personal growth and positive behavior change.

Our brains are designed so that any new challenge or opportunity or desire triggers some degree of fear. Whether the challenge is a new job or just meeting a new person, the amygdale alerts parts of the body to prepare for action - and our access to the cortex, the thinking part of the brain, is restricted, and sometimes shut down. It can look something like this:

     Large Goal  →  Fear  →  Access to Cortex Restricted  →  Failure

Your brain is programmed to resist change and fear can cause you to unconsciously sabotage your best intentions.  In reality fear is the body’s gift, alerting us to a challenge. The more we care about something, the more we dream, the more fear shows up. Understanding that fear is normal, and a natural sign of ambition, makes us more likely to hold on to hope and optimism - qualities that increase our willingness to take the kinds of small steps that circumvent the fear.

By taking small steps, you can effectively rewire your nervous system and progress toward your goal.

When considering your need and desire for personal growth and change, start by asking small questions.  Forget big, scary questions like, “What am I going to do to put my life back together?” and instead ask something more like, “What is one small step I could take today to improve my health (or relationship, or career, or any other area)?” The “small step” strategy looks like this:

     Small Goal  →  Fear Bypassed  →  Cortex Engaged  →  Success

By asking small, gentle questions, we keep the amygdala’s fight-or-flight response in the “off” position.  Ask a question often enough, and you’ll find your brain storing the questions, turning them over, and eventually generating some interesting and useful responses. The mere act of posing the same question on a regular basis and waiting patiently for an answer mobilizes the cortex.  A small question is not demanding, not scary. It can actually be fun and stimulate creativity.

Source: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer, Ph.D.

 
Next Month

Ever wonder what makes some workgroups fantastic and others not? Next month we’ll look at the results of a four year study of sixty extraordinary groups that examined what motivates extraordinary performance, the feelings that result, and what these outstanding groups actually did. In the process, the researchers discovered that there are eight performance patterns that most exceptional groups share.

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