Get Smart About Personal and Enterprise Vitality

Get Smart About
Personal and Enterprise Vitality

Precious Gifts from Brain Science

© The BestWork People 2012

For most of human history,
people lived and worked in
small groups

They knew each other all
their lives. They told the same
stories and did the same kind
of work Elders lived to age 35

We who value prolonged high performance are challenged to
develop a new kind of vitality for the modern age.

Table of Contents

 Brief Introduction
 A Bit of Brain Background
 Challenges for Sustained High Performance
 How to Promote Vitality
- Boosting Personal Vitality
- Boosting Enterprise Vitality
 Current Insights from NeuroScience
 Conclusion

3

This eBook is about how to work better with the
brain’s powerful wiring – instead of against it

The human brain was not designed for modern life.
Optimal functioning is disabled by:

 Prolonged physical, social or emotional stress
 Information overload
 Insufficient exercise and rest
 Multi-tasking

4

We can stay smart and vital
But it takes determination

Good news Bad news

 Humans retain Neuroplasticity as  The adult brain is programmed to
adults – we can learn conserve energy by minimizing
‘new’
 Building new neural pathways
feels good  Stress of any kind makes learning
impossible and promotes illness
 The brain gets a shot of pleasure
from new ways to contribute  We are highly vulnerable to
ambiguity and social stress
 We can actively promote brain
fitness individually and in  Working memory is small: can
organizational culture only absorb small amounts of new
information
 Nothing new can happen while
multi-tasking

5

A BIT OF BRAIN BACKGROUND

6

Cooperation – the basis of commerce - is
as old as the first human community

 Developed over more
than 200,000
generations
 The brains of early
ancestors are about 1/3
the size of
modern humans
 The brain reached it
current size about 1300
generations ago
7

It all started with a change
in the weather…

Pressure from climatic change made
increased cooperation a great adaptive
advantage: giving rise to language,
driving brain development

Humberto Maturana,
John Medina, Professor of Biology,
Professor of Bioengineering, University of Chile
University of Washington
School of Medicine

8

Society, commerce and the brain co-evolved
Brain Body Business
Lucy 500 cc Male 5’ 100# Cooperating and Coordinating
Female 4’ 50# Primitive tools
3,200,000 yrs Walking upright, arched Language?
160,000 gens foot Communities in Africa
Sloped forehead
1,000,000 years 1000 cc Heavy brow ridges Good cutting edges
50,000 gens Less sloping forehead Communities throughout Asia, Africa, maybe Europe

25,000 years 1500 cc Male 6’ 150# Trading over thousands of miles
1,250 gens Modern Female 5’5” 120# Art
PFC
Fully modern Elegant tools
Herding
Communities in Asia, Africa, Australia, and maybe the Americas
10,000 years X X Horticulture, towns, competition for resources
500 gens
5,000 years X X Cities, warfare, taxes, writing
250 gens
600 years X X Italian Renaissance, banking
30 gens Can exchange without seeing each others’ eyes
230 years X X Industrial revolution, modern cities
11 gens People become ‘pairs of hands’

9

While society and the brain were evolving

 Our hunter/gatherer ancestors walked ca. 20 miles/day (children under
four were carried;) worked about 4 hrs/day and rested a great deal
 People knew the members of their group their whole lives. Tasks and
exchanges were understood. Self-worth and belonging were not questions
 How the world works, including social requirements, was learned long
before puberty – there was little ambiguity
 Change was slow
 Stress was short-lived (predators, weather)
 Population was not dense
 Those who lived to old age were precious resources: the libraries and
universities of their time

10

We humans make our living in exchanges

Exchanging with others is
in our biology – it’s an
essential part of
being human

We’re highly sensitive
about it – a matter of
survival

11

Social animals thrive together –
not separately

12

We become ingenious when others appear
to be vulnerable

People mobilized
instantly in 18 degree
weather

The mood of the
country changed

13

Interactions with others is the basis of business
and the stuff of human life

Casual or formal,
monetized or not,
tangible or intangible

The brain is hard-wired
to keep us focused on
others, and on our role
and status

When we’re not engaged
in some kind of
exchange, we’re often
thinking about them
14

Social Pain and Social Pleasure

A broken heart is like a broken

= leg. Mentoring tastes like sex
and chocolate

Powerful brain chemicals
keep us oriented to sociality:
how we connect and
contribute is crucial to how
Matthew Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberg,
we feel UCLA Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

15

We decline quickly when excluded

© Matthew Lieberman, UCLA, 2008
16

At its best, the human brain is capable of
extraordinary feats

 To question
 To learn
 To invent
 To create
 To interpret
 To communicate
 To choose

17

© Kevin Ochsner, Columbia University, 2008

18

Questions for our time

 What puts people in shape for
ongoing learning and change?

 To thrive in a shifting
environment?

 To age gracefully and enjoy new
stages of life?

 To minimize suffering around
change, and seize opportunities
to contribute more?

19

CHALLENGES FOR SUSTAINED
HIGH PERFORMANCE

20

We ‘think’ well under optimal conditions

 Not when we feel rejected,
unappreciated or unloved
 Not when we assess risk or
experience ambiguity
 Not unless the arousal
chemicals and neuro-
modulators are “just right”
 Not when we haven’t had
enough rest and exercise
 Not when we multi-task

21

The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) – the executive
function of the brain – is fragile

22 © Amy F. T. Arnsten, PhD, Yale University, 2009

© Amy F. T. Arnsten, PhD, Yale University, 2009

23

25
24 © Amy F. T. Arnsten, PhD, Yale University, 2009

© Amy F. T. Arnsten, PhD, Yale University, 2009

25

The brain is bilateral

The corpus callosum is a large bundle
of nerves - a very important structure
that connects the two sides of the
brain

It’s exceptionally sensitive to stress.

When stressed, the two halves don’t
communicate – we lose mental
dexterity

26

Ingenuity, innovation, learning and
dexterity require both sides of the brain

Using a tool we know, like a
hammer, lights up an area
just above and behind the
left ear: Wernicke’s area

Devising a new way to use it
lights up just above and
behind the right ear

27

The uncertainty of modern life generates
constant stress

Every day, modern business demands new exchanges,
presents new people, new problems and opportunities,
new information

In our daily lives, each of us is personally challenged to
demonstrate our economic worth, establish our social status,
sort huge amounts information, learn new tools and
processes, maintain connections that fulfill our hearts and
minds, and reassure us that we make a difference, and find
ways to care for our bodies and our loved ones

28

Exchanging with others - the lifeblood of
human society – has become stressful

 We’re in frequent contact with
people and cultures we don’t
know – we don’t know what to
expect
 Our environment changes
quickly: technologically,
economically, socially, and
sometimes politically,
climatically
 Peoples’ concerns shift in
response
 New variables often call for
new exchanges

29

Ongoing stress reduces intelligence
and drives chronic illness

Organizations, schools, families, communities could learn to work
with a brain that is:

Naturally inclined to avoid uncertainty, unless it’s in the form of
play
Highly sensitive to social stress, disadvantaged working in a
world bigger than our childhood ‘tribe’
Working memory is small and easily tired
Stress reduces executive function intelligence
Multi-tasking dumbs us down
Part of a system designed for a great deal of movement

30

Thriving in a world where peoples’
concerns are continually shifting

Requires staying curious about new exchanges
That demands:
 Courage
?
- To question
- To take in ‘unwelcome’ news
- To risk something new
 Fitness
- To be nimble and responsive to
a changing world
We’re challenged to learn a new kind of vitality
for the modern age
31

HOW TO PROMOTE VITALITY

32

Vitality is systemic
The drivers are interconnected

Personal Vitality Enterprise Vitality
 Keep building new neural  Keep building new neural
pathways – be a learner, a pathways – design your culture
graceful beginner around learning and inquiry
 Spark and feed curiosity  Spark and feed curiosity
 Rest deeply and often  Encourage rest and rejuvenation
 Find pleasurable ways to move  Promote enjoyable exercise
 Love and contribute  Celebrate caring and contribution
 Laugh and play  Reward laughter and play
 Enjoy all 5 senses  Employ all 5 senses

All are required to sustain vitality

33

Boosting personal vitality

Remember that the drivers are interconnected
Use all of them

34

Get smart about your personal habits

 Keep building new neural pathways (cultivate Neuroplasticity)
- Choose something new to learn every year
- Vary your exercise; find new ways to move and play
- Use brain teasers or guided brain fitness products
 Spark and feed curiosity
- Avoid multi-tasking and information overload
 Rest deeply and often
 Move – exercise at least 3x week for 45 min – keep experimenting, find
what’s most pleasurable
 Love and Contribute
- Stay connected to people you care about; include others and be included
 Laugh and play
 Enjoy all 5 senses

35

Are you a graceful beginner?
Willing and able to enjoy learning?

36

Are you engaging with others who share
your deepest concerns?

37

Are you challenging and expanding
your abilities?

38

How often are you really resting?

39 © The BestWork People 2012

What about laughter and play?

40

It all works together

The island where people forget to die?

There’s no 24/7 on Ikaria, but unlike
a ‘modern’ island 3 miles away,
everyone socializes with local wine,
walks up and down hills to collects
wild food, and enjoys living on and
on…

Source: NY Times, October 24, 2012

41

Boosting enterprise vitality

Remember that the drivers are interconnected
Employ all of them

42

Get smart about your work environment

 Promote Neuroplasticity - Rotate the job of sparking meetings
with a kush ball exercise, a brain teaser, a challenge about
someone else’s business
 Reward learning, honor beginners
 Stimulate ingenuity by keeping stakeholder vulnerability top of
mind: fresh stories about customers, users, strategic allies…
 Take stress reduction seriously
 Make resting cool; make multi-tasking and emails between 7
pm and 7 am highly uncool
 Neutralize status with inclusive, collaborative inquiry
 Celebrate the pleasure of working together, and the many styles
of learning and working

43

High-performing enterprise cultures are
based in inquiry

 Promotes inclusion
 Neutralizes status
 Provokes curiosity
 Encourages neuroplasticity
 Cultivates learning and ?
responsiveness to change

44

Generate the experience of belonging

Create inclusion with play Create inclusion with
sincere questions

Encourage gratitude

45

Cultivate curiosity and learning

46

What makes a question powerful?

Provokes curiosity
 Introduces a new
interpretation, label,
graphic, sound…
 Focuses on genuine
vulnerability
 Opens possibilities for
contributing

A good question is a pleasure
and an opportunity

47

Change is integral to modern work

A modern productive worker is someone who does a great job in
figuring out what to do next. Seth Godin 10/15/12

Unfortunately, the imperative to
continually generate new value
sources ongoing stress

Thriving cultures ensure that
stress relief is as important as
seizing opportunity

48

Designing new value is a natural pleasure
for an unstressed PFC

 Interpreting
vulnerability

 Identifying
opportunity

 Devising ingenious
ways to use
resources

 Driving innovation

49

Environments at the forefront
of ingenuity and responsiveness

 Twitter has a rooftop garden
with turquoise couches
 Dropbox has a music room
 Skype has a pool and
foosball room
 Facebook has treadmill
desks
 Airbnb has a nap room and
communal tables where YouTube’s indoor slide
employees eat lunch
Source: The Atlantic, December 2012
together

50

Minimizing stress is a competitive move

Essential for enabling employees to respond effectively
to a changing environment

The task requires investing in innovative management
and infrastructure

The payoff is big: not only will it make people smarter
and able to learn, it will reduce your health care costs

51

Building a low-stress environment
involves some departures from tradition

 Rest – 3 naps a week optimizes
brain function and overall Check out what market
health. Create a nap room?
leaders are doing to ensure
 Social inclusion – play and people are in great shape:
questions . A play room is just a
start. Bring in juggling and clown Zappos has a gratitude board
classes?

 New forms of exercise. Make Warby Parker asks potential hires
stairwells interesting? Bring in about their favorite Halloween
Zumba, Irish dancing…? costume

 Pauses for guided breathing?

52

Smart management practices
make everyone smarter

 Neutralize status by articulating your most important
questions and challenges. Foster inclusion with open
invitations to address them
 Decrease ambiguity as much as possible. Use fresh
graphics and terms to focus challenges. Invent good
metrics to track improvement
 Be a good role model for rejuvenation. Integrate rest,
physical activity, and genuine fun into your environment
 Share your personal learning
 Reduce information overload
 Make multi-tasking a thing of the past

53

CONCLUSION

54

Whether you’re in business or not…

You’ll win by being a source of fresh, rich exchanges

What would your world be like if exchanging with you was
the richest experience of peoples’ day…week…?

Embrace the demands of vitality: when the body is rested
and PFC is not stressed, people can design and fully partner
in any challenge.. In fact, they love it, and you will too

55

Curiosity is the silver bullet

56

Connection and contribution are the lifeblood

57

Exercise, play and rest are foundational

58

Ongoing stress is the killer

59

What is possible in life and in commerce
is determined by what the brain can do

Understanding how it all works may enable us to navigate
through another big change in the weather

60

Brain fitness powers personal
and enterprise vitality

Enable with: Impair with:
 New forms of fun, exercise
and moving  Concerns for status
 Sincere questions,  Multi-tasking
genuine vulnerability  Fatigue
 Fresh labels and graphics  Stress
 Breaks and rest  Danger/risk/rejection
 Multiple senses:  Ambiguity/change
pictures, sound…  Information overload
 Experience of belonging

61

What will you do differently tomorrow?

How will you make
yourself and others
smarter - more responsive
to change and open
to learning?

62

What might be possible if you could
leverage the brain’s powerful wiring?

63

With gratitude for the thinkers, teachers,
and researchers who illuminated the path

Marsha Shenk is one of the pioneers of
Business Anthropology. Her models have
empowered business leaders for more than
three decades.

Synthesizing insights from Neuroscience,
Linguistics, Somatics, social sciences and
business, her work simplifies the complex
cultural, biological, and historical forces that
determine the success of modern enterprises.

www.BestWork.biz
http://twitter.com/marshashenk

64

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