Engaged

The Neuroscience Behind Creating Productive People in Successful Organizations

Amy Brann

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137500427
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Neuroscience is revolutionizing our understanding of human psychology and behaviour. By showing how to apply this new understanding to how you recruit, manage, and develop your people, Brann is enabling you to deliver a step change in organizational performance and individual achievement.

part I

The Foundations

Part I is a series of introductions. You will meet the “Beautifully Simple Model that gets RESULTS,” encounter the “Winning Scientific Formula,” and learn how change really happens. We are laying foundations here. Ultimately you need a fundamental understanding of how people work and how the environment (internal and external) shapes how we work so you can make informed decisions. This may mean a transformational approach to your organization, or it may just mean making some tweaks.

You will learn that:

• Most organizations are just scratching the surface of what is possible

• Our brains are constantly being shaped

• You can change people’s behaviors

If you are new to the brain then some of the terminology used in the book may sound alien. You have two choices: either head over to the book’s website (www.engagedbrains.com) and take a quick crash course; alternatively replace any neuroscientific jargon with “the brain” as you read. This book is written specifically for people in organizations who are seeking a different lens that may help them experiment with looking at new and better ways forward; it isn’t written for neuroscientists, but nor will the content be watered down.

The book speaks two further languages throughout it. The language of business that is prevalent in most organizations. It tends to be concerned with productivity, return on investment, and all the terms found in most business schools. The other language is more aligned with the next evolutionary wave of organizations that recognizes, for example, that trusting individuals means really trusting them. Not enabling them to act within tightly controlled and monitored parameters – but actually trusting them.

chapter 1

The Beautifully Simple Model that Gets RESULTS

Results can be considered a consequence of behaviors. The way we behave is dependent on the internal environment of our brain and the external environment that we are in. In order to change our behaviors we can make informed changes to internal and external environments. These interactions are complex, however we can isolate and share some grounding principles taken from scientific research. For example, we know that sleep has a big impact on the internal environment of our brain. We know that a sleep-deprived person tends to behave in a different way, normally a less desirable way, and being sleep deprived makes it less likely you get the results you’re looking for. However, many professional services organizations have a culture where going without sleep is a norm (Figure 1.1).

Results

Most organizations are looking for results. Results come in a huge variety of different shapes and sizes and can be measured or assessed in lots of different ways. Many organizations have challenges putting this beautifully simple model to work to get the results they are after. There are a few things worth being aware of. The brain likes to know what is expected of it. It likes there to be congruency between the different ways it is being communicated to. If we are getting mixed messages then we can become distrustful of our organization. This can have a negative impact on many areas of business and individuals.

FIGURE 1.1 The beautifully simple model that gets RESULTS

So the first thing to do is to get crystal clear on the results you are looking to achieve. We’re talking about a high level of specificity around what “great” would look like. This is an organization-wide objective. If you have HR saying one thing, leadership saying another, PR saying yet another, and the promotion policy reflecting something else, then whatever a person does could be perceived as wrong. Let’s have a look at an area of the brain that gets activated when there are mixed messages coming through and a lack of clarity around what we’re supposed to be doing. (Whenever areas of the brain are mentioned in this book you may choose to dive in and soak up everything you can or you may choose to skim over some bits.)

THE INSULA

If we do something that we process as an error then it is useful to us to be aware of this so we can make strategic behavioral and neuronal adjustments.¹ Error awareness is our ability to perceive our own mistakes. When we fail to achieve the intended outcome from an action we detect this. Errors can be costly at the time or in the future. In neuroscience straightforward simple error detection is studied, because it gets very complex as we add more variables. The part of the brain called the insula is involved in the process of us becoming aware of errors. It is not yet clear whether we need to be consciously aware of errors in order to make post-error adjustments.² While the anterior insula appears to be the most important part of the brain for error detection the posterior medial frontal cortex and the thalamus also are of relevance. We know that the insula is also important for interoception.^{3, 4}

When errors are detected they can trigger autonomic responses such as a change in heart rate and skin conductance. This could potentially be detected by the insula. This would link interoception to error detection. As the brain processes interoceptive information it may deliver that information to support error awareness. It has been proposed that the insula could act like a relay station in regulating interactions between our brain networks that are involved in external attention and interoceptive cognition.⁵ The insula may be considered as part of an attentional network. It is involved in processing unexpected outcomes⁶ and increased necessity of effort.^{7, 8}

Our attention is a precious commodity. It is linked to our productivity, the quality of our thinking, our creativity, and much more. It is mentally tiring to have to constantly evaluate whether something is the desired result or whether we should be doing something else.

Things also get complicated when we don’t really know what the intended outcome from our action should be. Imagine an employee who is given the goal from his manager of getting as much cash in this month as possible. On the wall in front of him are the company’s values, which include honesty and trustworthiness. In addition he is incentivized to reach a certain number of appointments each week. Is his goal to maximize profit from this interaction, be honest and trustworthy, or deliver the quickest service possible? By having competing objectives he is going to fail in some respect whatever he does. His brain will register this.

Challenges

The way we communicate what we’re looking for from our employees encompasses many different approaches. Unfortunately, organizations can confuse their people about the results that they are looking for from them. They are sent mixed messages. Often individuals or whole departments work independently from each other. They may have been trained in a particular way or may have picked up common practices from other organizations. Just because you’ve been told by an accredited training company or your last employer to do something a certain way doesn’t mean it is the best way forward. (Of course it may be … but there will be other factors.)

organizations can confuse their people about the results that they are looking for

Imagine a scenario where your head of learning and development (L&D) has heard about the 70:20:10 theory.⁹ They think the idea of a reference model that values learning within the workflow and social learning¹⁰ is fantastic. They want to “implement it.” They stop investing in the traditional training sessions that have been commonplace in the organization. Instead they put up some posters encouraging people to “live and learn.” There are already many modules available on the online learning platform that people can take at their leisure.

Unfortunately, this particular organization’s culture values the billable hours people clock up. In addition, bonuses paid are linked to achieving objectives set at the start of the year. These don’t mention learning at all.

Overcoming the Challenges

Sometimes even simple models can be deceptively hard to implement. Walking into many organizations today, as we do, we would agree. Things are often not set up to make it easy for employees. The brain loves to conserve energy where it can, so we need to try to make it easy. In order to cultivate certain behaviors from people, we want to consider the environment that they exist within. In this chapter, we introduce the fundamentals so that you will notice the underlying concepts running throughout the rest of the book. We go into more depth on the internal environment in Chapter 5, The Jarring Awakening, and on the external environment in Part IV.

Behavior: Clarify, Design, Shape

Everything in this book concerns influencing behavior. There is, of course, the question of whether we should be shaping people’s behaviors. The reality is that organizations are shaping behaviors, and the question remains whether they are doing it intentionally and in alignment with who the organization is.

Often the approach is haphazard, and the end result leaves a lot to be desired. It is really important that when considering behavior change you start at the beginning and CLARIFY the results you really want. You need to be crystal clear on what you are actually looking for, and the level of detail you need here is far greater than most people realize. Next, you need to identify the behaviors that will generate those results. The following step is to DESIGN, ideally based on existing research data, the internal and external environments that will help those behaviors be most likely. The final implementation stage is to SHAPE those environments to do their job. It is a simple, but thorough approach. It takes time to do it properly and is in some ways a lifelong project.

Environment

When I ask you what environment your colleagues are making decisions in, what normally springs to mind? Most people’s thoughts go straight to their external environment, their office perhaps. This is a powerful environment, but one could argue that the internal environment – the brain and mind – are even more persuasive.

External Environment

It is in Part IV where we really explore the potential for our different environments and the effects they can have on how we work. While writing this book I was privileged to explore lots of different workplaces. Most organizations have spaces that they believe are practical. I would challenge what the purpose of the space is. If you could increase one person’s productivity by 10 percent, what impact would that have? Would it be worth losing space for three people? Before you dismiss any changes as unrealistic or not for you wait until Part IV, where we explore the impact the spaces we work in can have on us. In this section, let us just start to see what others have done.

Many organizations are thinking outside the box:

At Pixar they have a little row of huts, like beach huts crossed with really nice sheds, each of which is an office. There are balls of fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, giving it an outdoor feel. The walls are blue, and there are comfy sofas for waiting or thinking on. In another area, there are structures that could...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• About the Author
• Thanks
• Introduction
• Part I The Foundations
• Part II How Do We Engage People?
• Part III How Do We Motivate People?
• Part IV How Do We Manage People?
• References
• Index