Meet Your Brain
For my final post in the series on the books that have made the biggest impact on my coaching practice, I choose Your Brain at Work by David Rock. It outlines the implications of all the recent research in neuroscience to the way we function at work – as employees, as bosses. There are several terrific takeaways from it, notably, that the pre-frontal cortex – the front of the brain where complex calculations take place, decisions get made and self regulation gets handled – is easily exhausted. It needs a great deal of rest and glucose. Our ability to think clearly, make good decisions and manage ourselves erodes steadily over the course of the work day.
David Rock also shares his model expressing what people need for their brain to be at its best, known as the SCARF Model:
Status – a clear sense of our own self worth and the acknowledgement of this perception in our environment is critical to our brains feeling good.
Certainty – we crave certainty the way we crave sugar or any other reward. We will avoid uncertainty at all costs.
Autonomy – it is critical that we feel as much control over our environment as we are capable of managing; loss of control is interpreted by the brain as a serious threat.
Relatedness – we will naturally find what we have in common to increase relatedness, we will move toward people with whom we can relate believing them to be like ourselves, and away from those to whom we cannot relate making them “other”.
Fairness – is as rewarding as food or sex, and when things are perceived as “unfair” it causes us to feel an intense sense of threat.
For more on The SCARF Model check out some of David’s YouTube videos. The book is also a really fun read, and there is a lot more that what I can share here!
The E-Myth Revisited
As a fledgling coach with a private practice, back in the day when if you said you were a coach the inevitable question was “oh, what sport?” a book that made an earth shaking difference was the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. If you are in business, thinking of starting a business or have a friend or loved one who is suffering in a business, this book is a must. There are several brilliant ideas in this book including:
- If you have started a business, you are either a technician (that’s what I was as a coach, so is your friend who loved to knit and started a knitting shop), a manager (the guy who understands the processes and systems that a business must have to succeed – people who buy franchises are usually managers) or a visionary (the person who sees a gap in the market place – Don Fisher started The Gap because he couldn’t find a pair of jeans, Steve Jobs wanted computers to be friendly). You might have a little of the other two but you are primarily one of these and if you are going to succeed you need to partner with others who have the other two or find a way to grow yourself enough to get the other two covered. It is stunningly simple and true. The crazy thing is that as I have moved out of the small business world into the corporate world, I find that the same holds true for leaders inside organizations who need to be “intrapraneurs”.
- As a business owner, you need to find a way to spend as much time working on your business as you spend working in your business. Obvious? Maybe, but in 1995 I didn’t know it. Again, totally applicable to people in organizations.
- Anything that works in the business must be systemized and if possible automated. You have to do this so if you get the flu and can’t make it in, the whole house of cards doesn’t fall down. You also have to do it so you can grow. It was the compelling evidence for how important this is that made me start my own coaching company with coaches using my system to coach the audience I had mastered. And finally, I have used this maxim again and again as a manager in a much larger machine and it has served me well.
Michael Gerber has many other books out and has an institute and all that, but for sheer straightforward simplicity for people who maybe don’t think of themselves as “business” people, this book is a bible.
Habits Make All the Difference
The promise was books that rocked my coaching practice that are off the beaten path. OK, so maybe this one isn’t that original, and I must have stumbled on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey in Barnes and Noble because I can’t remember who recommended it. But I have to say that from the day I read this book, I changed some habits that utterly altered the trajectory of my life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that when I started doing what Covey said (and let’s be clear, not everything, just a few things made a huge difference) my business took off, my household became more orderly and calm and my quality of life shot up. I developed a reputation for being freakishly productive. I feel that almost every other “self-help” book that came after this one simply fleshed out some of the good ideas that were here in the first place.
In the section called Put First Things First, the 4 box quadrant probably made the biggest impact on me. The idea is that we all can put every single thing we do into one of the four quadrants.
| Urgent | Not Urgent | |
| Important | QUADRANT I crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects |
QUADRANT II prevention, Principle Centered activities, relationship building, recognizing and leveraging new opportunities, planning the future, recreation |
| Not important | QUADRANT III interruptions, some calls, some mail, some reports, some meetings, popular activities |
QUADRANT IV trivia, busy work, some mail, some phone calls time wasters, pleasant activities |
The ones who spend the bulk of their time doing things in the “important” quadrants are simply going to have a much higher life satisfaction quotient. This very concrete model gave me the courage to say no to things that did not fall into the Quadrants I or II. Today, I let people assume I am extremely busy (everybody does) and if pressed I will admit that I am no busier than anyone else, just extremely focused on what is most important to me and ferociously choosy about what I focus on. Don’t tell anyone.
Managing in an Age of Superstars and Superegos
The new issue of ESPN the Magazine is entitled, The Interview Issue. As you might have guessed, it is filled with one-on-one conversations between different sports personalities and ESPN staffers. One interview in particular, captured my attention.
The interviewer was John Sawatsky. He is described in The Mag as “a former investigative journalist,” who, “coaches many of the network’s reporters in the science of asking the right questions at the right time.”
Photo courtesy of SD Dirk via Creative Commons
The interviewee is the recently retired manager of the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, Tony La Russa. Over the course of his successful 30+ year managerial career, La Russa has won three World Series titles and four Manager of the Year awards. His next award will likely be induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
So, what we have here basically boils down to one “coach” interviewing another “coach.” (And as an added bonus, Sawatsky critiques his own line of questions in the footnotes.) While I recommend reading the interview in its entirety, Sawatsky tosses one question that La Russa knocks out of the park…
Sawatsky: So how do you manage in an age of superstars and superegos?
La Russa: Personalize, personalize, personalize. You need to show you care; you need to earn their trust and respect. This is the entire staff, not just me. And trust means telling the truth. Sometimes that’s not what they want to hear, but you can’t bulls–t them, because there goes your credibility.
But you also understand that these guys have a life. So you make it clear that if at any point there is a personal need I can help with, I’m there.
In his brief response, La Russa effectively demonstrates that the key to his success as a manager was to be a leader.
- Treat your people as individuals. Don’t lead with a one size fits all approach.
- Build relationships on a foundation of trust and mutual respect.
- Surround yourself with a team who lead by a set of shared values.
- Give honest feedback. Don’t be afraid to have difficult conversations.
- Be empathetic, and offer support, when personal issues inevitably arise.
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What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About Change
There are probably six excellent change theories and models, and hundreds of books. Here are a couple of little factoids about the human brain that just cuts to the chase on this topic:
- People can only really focus on one big goal at a time. Setting another goal will most likely cancel out the original goal (Rock).
2. Change is hard for everyone and really really hard for some, because it literally sets off alarm bells in the brain (Rock and Schwartz). When navigating a change, take more time than you think should be needed, set up systems for people to have conversations about the change to process it. People need time and coaching to relate, repeat and reframe (Deutschman) their thinking about the changes expected of them. Be ready to be talking about the change long after you have become bored to death with it.
As Peter Senge so advises:
- Start small
- Grow steadily
- Don’t plan everything and
- Expect challenges.
Image by Paul Brentnall
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About False Consensus
You will vastly overestimate what people know, for example, your take on the current context or your reasoning for a specific course of action, assuming that others know what you know and see what you see; this is called False Consensus (Ross et al). Remember this when explaining the nuts and bolts of your vision, strategy and goals. Become accustomed to seeing the world differently from others, and defining reality as you see it regularly, more than you think you should need to (Senge).
Stan Slap once said “Most leaders would just get where they’re going by themselves and send a postcard if they could.” Don’t try it, it won’t work. Stand at the front, hold the map aloft and keep explaining again and again. Long past the point when you are bored.
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders About Feedback
Feedback: The never ending mystery! Here is yet another installment in the series on what we have to learn about Leadership from the study of neuroscience.
Feedback:
- Hire for Feedback Orientation. Individuals, who have feedback orientation like feedback, believe it has value, seek it regularly, have the wherewithal to process feedback with and without help, are sensitive to others’ view of themselves and generally feel accountable to act on feedback (London and Smither). Ask yourself about your own feedback orientation? Are you a role model for asking for and receiving feedback?
2. Build a culture in which feedback is natural and given in the moment. A culture of feedback is :
“…one where individuals continuously receive, solicit, and use formal and informal feedback to improve their job performance. This may be linked to effective policies and programs for performance management, continuous learning and career development. The individual’s feedback orientation depends in part on the support and climate for learning. The more frequent the feedback and the closer it follows the behavior in question, the more likely it is to be accepted. The more support [from you the leader] for learning and development, including the availability of behaviorally-oriented feedback, the more the individual is likely to develop a positive orientation toward feedback. ” (London and Smither)
3. People who have sustained a great deal of trauma are going to have a very hard time distinguishing a real threat from a potential one (Rock). This means that workers who go through rounds of layoffs and are not given new information to raise their levels of certainty will most probably become less and less able to receive any critical feedback. Only people working in an environment where they feel safe will be open to learning, be more likely to have insights and be generally more creative and productive (Gordon).
Image from Grant Cochrane
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders 4
A new installment in the series on what we have to learn about leadership from the study of neuroscience.
Fear is bad for Business:
Well, it’s true. We suspected that it was, but now we know for sure. No one gets smarter when they are afraid. Living in an environment of constant threat erodes creativity and cognitive ability (Phelps) (Gordon).
And:
Expectations have real power. The disappointment of expectations feels much worse to people than simply not liking events or policies when something happens. If an employee has an expectation of a reward or promotion that is not met, the brain feels just terrible. It is critical to manage expectations carefully to avoid people feeling awful and taking it out on each other or even more likely, your customers (Rock).
Image from IdeaGo
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders 3
1. The division between thoughts and feelings is in fact an artificial one. From a brain standpoint they are indistinguishable (Phelps). The best ways to understand what you are thinking and feeling is to make time to reflect upon them, (Ochsner et al) and use language to label them (Lieberman et al). This means you will need a trusted advisor who will listen to you, e.g.: get a coach if you don’t already have one.
2. Habits are driven by the unconscious. Some are useful, some are not. It serves you well to notice your habits, examine each one and choose whether or not you want to allow it to continue (Rock).
What Neuroscience Can Teach Leaders
Pioneers in the coaching profession began coaching people using age old wisdom gleaned from history, philosophy, art, spirituality, anthropology, psychology, psychiatry and business. The techniques we used were built from trial and error, when we found ones that worked we simply kept using them even if we didn’t necessarily know how or why they worked. The great value of the study of neuroscience in the context of leadership is that what we intuitively knew to be true is in fact supported by the scientific research. The following will be part of a series over the next few weeks. Each item is short referenced, full references available on request.
Your Brain is Key:
Take care of your Pre-Frontal Cortex, the “seat of judgment”. It requires rest and glucose. It fatigues easily though you don’t necessarily feel it when it is tired (the way you do when you are physically tired). Every decision you make adds to “decisions fatigue” and erodes your energy for thinking things through (Beameister). Your ability to regulate your emotions and make good decisions declines with fatigue. People who make consistently good decisions aren’t necessarily smarter; rather they know when they are not at their best:
“Even the wisest people won’t make good choices when they’re not rested and their glucose is low. The best decision makers are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.” (Baumeister in Article by John Tierney, NYTimes Sunday Magazine, August 17th, pg. 47)
Image: Carlos Porto
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