Brain, Body, And Business

Brain, Body, & Business Want to be Fit to Thrive in Any Economy? © The BestWork People 2009

We’re living in an extraordinary moment
A time of enormous change
What does it take to be in shape for continual change?
To lead others to thrive in a shifting environment?
To minimize the suffering around change, and leverage the opportunity to contribute more?
© The BestWork People 2009

We humans make our living in exchanges
Exchanging with others is in our biology – it’s an essential part of being human

Commerce is based in vulnerability
The roots go back more than 3 million years: walking upright made birthing increasingly difficult; babies were born increasingly immature
Cooperation was essential

Commerce and the brain evolved together © The BestWork People 2009 Brain Body Business Lucy 3,200,000 yrs 160,000 gens 500 cc Male 5’ 100# Female 4’ 50# Walking upright, arched foot Sloped forehead Cooperating and Coordinating Primitive tools Language? Communities in Africa 1,000,000 years 50,000 gens 1000 cc Heavy brow ridges Less sloping forehead Good cutting edges Communities in Asia, Africa, maybe Europe 25,000 years 1,250 gens 1500 cc Modern Pre- Frontal Cortex (PFC) Male 6’ 150# Female 5’5” 120# Fully modern Trading over thousands of miles Art Elegant tools Herding Communities in Asia, Africa, Australia, and maybe the Americas 10,000 years 500 gens X X Horticulture, towns 5,000 years 250 gens X X Cities, warfare, taxes, writing 600 years 30 gens X X Italian Renaissance, banking Can exchange without seeing each others’ eyes 230 years 11 gens X X Industrial revolution, modern cities People become ‘consumers’ & ‘pairs of hands’

Commerce is as old as the first human community
Developed over more than 200,000 generations
The brains of early hominids are about 1/3 the size of modern humans
The brain reached it current size about 1300 generations ago

The brain’s powerful wiring
Because we’re alive
We seek pleasure as part of the life force
We experience pain and fear to protect the life force


Because we’re mammals
We love feeling like we belong and we hate feeling left out
Some social mammals retain into adulthood, eg dogs, dolphins, humans
Among social mammals, when with our group, part of our brain is dedicated to concerns about status (part of belonging)
Concerns about status stress the brain – nothing new is possible

Because we’re mammals cont
When young - when not stressed - brains are plastic: can learn, can make new moves,
When confronted with a threat , we flee, freeze, or fight (we do not think, we do not learn, we cannot see anything new)
We can only take in a small bit of new stuff, then we need to rest or we’ll lose part or all

Because we’re primates
Belonging is the single most powerful driver: “A lone baboon is a dead baboon”
Status is a big concern: determines whether and what we eat, have sex, get beaten, get groomed

Because we’re human
Our brains remain plastic into adulthood
When not stressed, we can learn, we can make new moves, accept new questions, consider new possibilities
We can even alter the brain’s ‘natural pathways’ !
We experience belonging intensely
We love contributing and we hate not being able to contribute

Because we’re human cont
We love being thanked
contributed to; gratitude is a powerful emotion
Most of us feel ‘right’ when we’re doing stuff the way others do, and we can easily feel ashamed when we don’t know the ‘rules’

Exquisitely sensitive mirror neurons tell us how to fit in and whether we can trust
Am I vulnerable with you?
Do you know me?
Do you care about me (do you get me and my concerns?
Are you in my tribe (automatically a safe trading partner?)

Do I know you? (Did your mama know my mama?)
If so
What is my status with you/ your status with me?
Are you OK? How can I take care of you?
What kind of trading partner might you be?
How might you contribute to me and mine?

For what can I rely on you?
In what domains are you competent?
Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
Do you say the same to me as to yourself/others?
When we’re in good shape, our large Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) is capable of remarkable feats

The brain can enable/disable us from responding effectively
Many aspects of modern life conflict with the brain’s wiring
We’re natural inclined to avoid uncertainty, unless it’s in the form of play
We’re extremely disadvantaged doing business in a world bigger than our childhood ‘tribe’
Multitasking ensures that we’re on autopilot

In our world, we are called upon to design important exchanges
An occasional event in tribal life
The Industrial Revolution – and the educational systems it spawned – in which we grew up - drove people away from ingenuity and curiosity
The global information age bombards us with ‘new’ stuff and demands innovation
It’s up to us to find ways to be fit.

Peoples’ concerns are continually shifting
“ You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…” but we humans can learn for our entire lives
We retain Neuroplasticity into adulthood

We are able to take on new challenges (…invariably demanding new exchanges) © The BestWork People 2009

Reality – as processed by our brains - is social
We are designed to consider others:
What they may be thinking and feeling
How they respond to us
Whether we are safe with them
Whether they are safe
“ The brain is built for sociality”
Matthew Lieberman, PhD, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, UCLA
Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA

(c) Matthew Lieberman, UCLA, 2008

The basis of sociality and the basis of commerce are the same
Noticing what others are concerned about
Making reliable promises
Commerce is in our biology – we’re made for it

Social animals thrive together – not separately © The BestWork People 2009

We become ingenious when ‘our people’ are vulnerable
People mobilized instantly in 18 degree weather
The mood of the whole country changed

But the vulnerability we face in modern life is not what the brain is built for
Wild predators present short intense moments of stress
For most of human history, people faced little ambiguity – the rules of living were clear
They knew their trading partners all their lives
The pace of change was slow

“… human cognition, even in its most abstract and sophisticated form, is deeply embodied, deeply dependent on the processes and representations underlying perception and motor action.
“ We invent all kinds of complex abstract ideas, but we have to do it with old hardware: machinery that evolved for moving around, eating, and mating, not for playing chess, composing symphonies, inventing particle colliders, or engaging in epistemology for that matter.
“ Being able to re-use this old machinery for new purposes has allowed us to build tremendously rich knowledge repertoires. But it also means that the evolutionary adaptations made for basic perception and motor action have inadvertently shaped and constrained even our most sophisticated mental efforts.”
Lera Boroditsky Assistant Professor of Psychology,
Neuroscience, and Symbolic Systems, Stanford University
(c) The BestWork People 2009

Whatever business you may be in…
You’re in the business of generating rich exchanges
What would your world be like if exchanging with you was the richest experience of peoples’ day…week…?
When your PFC is not stressed, you can design
When clients’ and employees’ PFCs are not stressed, they can fully partner
Our brains are plastic; you can learn to make it happen.

At it’s best, the PFC is capable of extraordinary feats
To question
To invent
To create
To interpret
To communicate
To choose

Be aware: brain fitness
Exercise and moving
Focus on an interesting question
Labels and patterns
Breaks and rest
Pictures
Concerns for status
Multitasking
Fatigue
Stress
Danger/risk/rejection
Ambiguity/change
© The BestWork People 2009 Enables Impairs PFC function

Want a brain fit for any economy?
Optimize PFC function
Remove stress from your brain and body:
Choose a regular practice to ‘empty’ your mind: 3-5 minutes of guided breathing will de-stress the corpus collosum and allow the two sides of the brain to inter-function
Choose enjoyable moving exercise 3 – 4x/week
Learn to deeply stretch your body at least 2x/week

At its best the PFC generates powerful interpretations
Interpreting vulnerability
Identifying opportunity
Devising ingenious ways to use resources
Driving innovation

Leaders can optimize PFC function
Reduce perception of risk
Labeling gives the feeling of being in control
Reduce ambiguity with clear outcomes, roles, & measures
Be inclusive; minimize concern for status
Reduce Stress
Make it hip to rest and take breaks
Make it un-hip to multi-task
Use the body (slide 32)
Provide focus and meaning
The brain’s primary orientation is social; focus on others’ needs
Introduce novelty: new questions and challenges
Especially about others’ vulnerabilities
Encourage play that stimulates the brain
Encourage Exercise and Moving

Curiosity is the silver bullet
What does it take to operate in curiosity – no matter what?
Courage
- To question
- To see/hear/feel ‘unwelcome’ news
Fitness
- Limber body
- Full breathing

What makes a question powerful?
Provokes curiosity by:
Introducing a new interpretation, label, or distinction (Novelty drives up dopamine activity)
Focusing on others’ vulnerability
Opening possibilities for contributing

With gratitude for the teachers and researchers who illuminated the path Marsha Shenk is a veteran consultant, one of the pioneers of Business Anthropology. Her syntheses of the cultural, biological, and historical influences that impact modern commerce have empowered business leaders for 3 decades. www.BestWork.biz http://twitter.com/marshashenk © The BestWork People 2009 39

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Brain, Body, And Business

by marsha shenk on Dec 17, 2009

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