optimizing leadership a brain-based approach

A Brain Based Approach to Optimizing Leadership

Susan PennReInventure Consulting

Neuroscience and Leadership Optimization

In a world of increasing interconnectedness and rapid change, there Is a growing need to improve the way people work together.

Understanding the true drivers of human behavior is becoming even more urgent in this environment

Neuroscience Research:The Brain is a Social Organ

ReInventure Consulting, 2013

Social Neuroscience Research

Dodgeball/avatar experiment (UCLA Naomi Eisenberger)

Social needs treated in the brain much the same way as the need for food and water (survival)

When people felt excluded= activity in the dorsal portion activated (MRI) provoking the same sort of reaction that physical pain might cause.

Brain will label good/bad and trigger either approach/avoid within seconds.

Much of motivation governed by 2 things….


Minimizing threat, maximizing reward


We’re making a decision about good or badall the time.

Safe or unsafe?

Ton of research in the last 10 years= the things that create the strongest threats and rewards are social.

Triggers brains primary threat and reward center

Feeling left out=same reaction as putting hand on hot plate

Link between physical discomfort and social connection

Social connection is necessary for survival

The workplace is experienced as a social environment, not merely an economic transaction.


Threat or Reward…

…a neurological and largely unconscious mechanism that governs a great deal of human behavior

Encounter!-limbic system aroused-”Mission central…” survival systems

Activate neurons!

Release hormones!

Friend or foe????

Danger? Hijack! Emotional overwhelm…CALL TO ACTION!!

HOW LONG DOES THIS ALL TAKE?


The Threat and Reward Response

Easy to see how this helped us out a million years ago, but what are the things we react to now?


Research suggests:

The same neural responses that drive us towards food or away from predators are triggered by our perception of the way we are treated by other people

More intense and longer lasting!

Big reframe of the role that social drivers play in influencing how humans behave

Being hungry=being ostricized, similar neural responses.

Social needs=survival!


Challenge to leaders

Enormous!

People who feel betrayed or unrecognized at work

People who are reprimanded

Given an assignment that seems unworthy

Pay cut

Performance Reviews

Experience this as a neural event, a powerful, painful blow Become transactional, Impact on engagement, commitment,

retention when it’s perceived social context getting in their way.


The threat or avoid response is not ideal for collaborating with and influencing others


The modern workplace and the hypervigilent amygdala

A boss undermines the credibility of an employee, or perhaps just didn’t smile…. Perceived threat

Resources and executive functions in prefrontal cortex decrease

Less oxygen and glucose available

More mistakes, defaulting to generalizations

Less ability to solve complex problems

Reduced cognitive performance and ability to take risks

Decision making

Stress management

Collaboration

Motivation

….more?

The threat response is mentally taxing as well asdeadly to the productivity of the person

The “approach” response is synonymous with the idea of engagement


How creating ‘safety’ pays off in the workplace

Ability to do difficult things, responsiveness

Safety to take risks, innovate

Accelerate learning through ability to think deeply about issues.

Dopamine: critical for interest and learning, accessing the whole brain, ‘higher thinking.’

Building resilience from the inside out: Key to responsiveness in an environment that changes by the nanosecond


David Rocks’ ‘SCARF’ Model:

An easy way to remember the social triggers that can generate the approach and avoid responses.

To minimize threat responses

To maximize positive engaged states of mind

To influence others

Maximize rewards inherent in everyday experience

Helps understand why you can’t think clearly when you feel threatened in any of the following ways.

Focuses on the deeply social nature of the brain

STATUS: Your Relative Importance To Others

In the animal kingdom, status=survival

Higher status=lower baseline cortisol, live longer and healthier (primate studies)

Perceived loss of status: strong threat response Research, being left out of an activity, dodgeball/video

game

Very easy to threaten someone’s status: Meeting expectations Body language Introductions Verbal: “We need to meet,” “Let’s take that off line.”


Certainty= Predictability

Hurricane Sandy: the feeling of uncertainty feels like pain. Holding multiple uncertainties in your head can be cognitively exhausting!

Big job of managers and leaders! Providing clarity about business plans, strategies

Break down projects into small steps

Establishing clear expectations

Setting structure in chaos

Give new hires an idea of cultural norms as they are onboarding

Other?


Autonomy= Control: The sensation and freedom of having choices

The degree of control organisms can exert over their environment=level of stress and functioning

Same stressor:

Inescapable=destructive

Escapable=significantly less destructive

Rodent studies: life and death

Subtle perception is important

Not micromanaging

Giving choices, decision making capabilities

Setting up desks, working hours

Relatedness: Friend or Foe?

The amygdala and meeting someone new (in group/out group?) Foe until proven friend (unless really attractive or you are drinking)

In the absence of safe social interactions, the body generates a threat response (life and death)

Tribes and sense of belonging formed in organizations

Gallup studies: “I have a best friend at work.”

The need for safe human contact is a primary driver (food).

Closely related to trust, collaboration, empathy, sharing of information Share personal aspects of yourselves via stories, photos

Water-cooler conversations

Buddy systems, mentoring or coaching programs

Fairness

Threat response can be triggered easily Favoritism: “He has a

different set of rules for Sarah.”

Incongruity: “We have layoffs, but they just bought new laptops for the Executives.”

Create through: Increase transparency

Allowing teams to

establish rules, initiatives

Self directed teams

Challenging Implications:

If you’re the boss, you trigger a threat response by simply walking in the room.

Triple threat:

Status: You “rank” higher

Certainty: What now?

Autonomy: You have more power

Fairness: You earn more

Keep Calm and Carry On

Rationalizing, tempering reactions or “sucking it up…”

Decreases commitment

Disengages

Disempowers

Results in ‘transactional employees’ reluctant to give of themselves

Big picture implications for leaders:

A new intentionality to address the social brain in the service of optimal performance

Create emotional safety and trust

Rethink old hierarchical approaches (HR, Executive Leadership) processes and “how we do things around here.”

Focus on team interactivity which reward working together

R –create hiring process and criteria (as well as performance reviews and other processes.

Building Resilience from the inside/out: A distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead

What leaders can do:

Create shared goals, “in group” mentality

Work on certainty and autonomy to make sure your establishing clear expectations

Play down status, “link” rather than rank. Meet people where they are

Fairness: be more transparent

Relatedness: build mutual respect, shared goals, and insuring there is a feeling of being valued and on the same team

Set the stage for even informal meetings. Pace, listening skills key

Steps you can take:

Education and Training: Use interest, focus on how people are improving (increasing sense of status)

Create a Coaching Culture: Personal and Executive Coaching can increase all five SCARF domains.

Leadership Development: Train on how to impact each area positively through igniting an approach response

Organizational Systems: Reward systems more creative ways of motivating that are cheaper but also more sustainable.

Performance Reviews: Design and conduct with objectives to build engagement and alignment. Train Managers on how to set up.

Interviews: Selection criteria clearly defined and aligned with culture,inclusion, assessment processes

Bottom line: Leaders are cultural architects and environmental agents

“The ability to intentionally address the social brain in the

service of optimal performance will be

a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead.”

David RockReInventure Consulting, 2013

Bibliographies

David Rock, Managing with the Brain in Mind, Strategy & Business (issue 56, Autumn 2009)

Michael Marmot, The Status Syndrome; How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longevity (Times Books: 2004)

Adam Bryan: Interview with David Rock “ A Boss’s Challenge: Have Everyone Join in the ‘In’ Group ,(The New York Times, March 24, 2013).

David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership: Summer 2006, (Strategy-Business article, 6/2007.)

David Rock, “SCARF: A Brain-based model for Collaborating with and InfluendcingOthers,” (NeuroLeadership Journal, vol 1, no 1, December 2008)

Naomi Eisenberger and Mathew Lieberman, “The Pains and Pleasures of Social Life,” (Science, vol 323, no 5916, February 2009).

optimizing leadership a brain-based approach

Leadership & Management

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social environment

social drivers

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minimizing threat

triggers brains primary

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