Business and The Brain

Business and the Brain Are You Fit to Thrive in Any Economy? © The BestWork People 2010

Commerce and the human brain evolved together
The brain reached its current configuration 25,000 years ago – around the time of the famous Lascaux cave paintings
People were herding, carving elaborate tools, trading raw materials over thousands of miles; their competition brought about the extinction of the saber-toothed cat
© The BestWork People 2010

Our brains evolved in the stone age
Our ancestors did not have resumes or sales conversations; they did not endure jet lag, face prolonged ambiguity, or fear layoffs
They experienced very little change or ambiguity
The stresses in their lives were fast and short: predators , weather, game
They knew the people with whom they ‘worked’ and traded their entire lives – they were part of a community – did not exchange with strangers

We humans make our living in exchanges
Exchanging with others is in our biology – it’s an essential part of being human
Some of the demands of modern business are ‘natural’ to the brain © The BestWork People 2010

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

Social animals thrive together – not separately © The BestWork People 2010

The brain responds to social pleasure and pain as powerfully as to sex and chocolate
The pain of a broken heart is just like the pain of a broken leg – both respond to Tylenol
Contributing to others fires the same part of the brain as sex and chocolate

The exchanges that make up commerce are social experiences
Because we are social mammals, some of the brain’s powerful wiring around sociality is very old; we share it with dolphins, elephants, dogs…
Some of our brains’ wiring around exchanges evolved with human communities, over approximately 3 million years
Recent neuroscience is illuminating how we can best work with our brains, and those of our customers and employees, rather than against them.

Many aspects of modern life conflict with the brain’s wiring
The pace of change continues to increase, creating uncertainty; most adults experience ambiguity as risk
We constantly meet new people doing business; strangers provoke anxiety
Multitasking ‘dumbs us down’; it requires ‘autopilot’, thus blinding us to new input
Constant new information is over the capacity of working memory; tires the brain

Some of the demands of modern business are not ‘natural’ for the brain
We’re often required to design important exchanges – a rare event in tribal life
Worse, the Industrial Revolution – and the educational systems it spawned, in which we grew up – discouraged individual ingenuity and curiosity
Our brains are stressed with constant new ‘stuff’: global information bombarding

Some aspects of living and working are the same as they’ve always been
In some ways our brains are very well-adapted to exchanging with others

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 became essential

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

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

But the vulnerability we face in modern life is not what the brain is built for
Wild predators presented 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

The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) – the brain’s executive function - is highly sensitive
At it’s best, it’s capable of extraordinary feats
To question
To invent
To create
To interpret
To communicate
To choose

(c) Kevin Ochsner, Columbia, 2008

How can we best use the brain’s natural functions in modern business?
What do we have to do?
What might we avoid?
What is unavoidable?
What can we learn to do better?

What do we have to do?
Understand ‘belonging’ as the brain’s key driver
The human way of belonging grew over 3 million years, from primate roots, under selective pressure to cooperate
Our brains are exquisitely attuned to status, sincerity, and whether their concerns are known and respected

(c) Matthew Lieberman, UCLA, 2008

What might we avoid doing?
Inhibiting Neuroplasticity and PFC function by:
Multitasking
Provoking status anxiety
Exhausting working memory

What is unavoidable?
Living in an uncertain, fast-changing world: we are all vulnerable
Designing new exchanges to meet shifting concerns
Learning to ‘trade’ with people we don’t know

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

New challenges invariably demand new exchanges © The BestWork People 2010

What might we learn to do better?
Embrace shared vulnerability as the basis of commerce
Remove stress from the corpus callosum
- Exercise and mindful breathing
- Rest
Cultivate Neuroplasticity
Pleasure the brain’s sociality drivers
- Focus on inclusion; neutralize concerns for status
- Create opportunities to contribute
- Spark curiosity with compelling questions and new terms
- Fuel ingenuity with focus on others’ vulnerability

Whatever business you may be in…
You’re competing in the business of generating pleasurable exchanges
Increasing the pleasure of exchanging with you will greatly increase your success

Pleasure the brain - Provoke curiosity
Ask sincere, compelling questions
Introduce new interpretations, labels, or distinctions (Novelty drives up dopamine activity)
Focus on others’ vulnerability
Open possibilities for contributing

Compelling questions fuel intelligence
Reduce status anxiety by including people
Generate focus required for Neuroplasticity
Reduce the experience of ambiguity and risk
When focused on others’ well-being, reduce fear
Require both sides of the brain
Provocative questions hinder multitasking and are hindered by it

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
Actively manage stress

Optimize Neuroplasticity and PFC function
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
Find enjoyable moving/exercise 3-4x/week, and change it frequently
Deeply stretch your body at least 2x/week
Build new neural pathways – enjoy ‘baby’s mind’: embrace new tasks, exercises, and brain teasers

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

At its best the PFC is powerful and generative
‘ Executive’ PFC function manages emotions and we can enjoy:
Interpreting vulnerability
Building relationships
Identifying opportunity
Devising ingenious ways to use resources
Driving innovation

Train to be fit for any economy
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
Mindful breathing, eg yoga
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 to stimulates the brain
Explore exercise and Moving

Brain fitness increases value and contribution: yours and those around you
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 2010 Enables fitness Impairs fitness

“… 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

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 2010 39

Business and The Brain

by marsha shenk on Feb 23, 2010

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Business and The Brain — Presentation Transcript