NeuroLeadership in Organization Development

Neuroleadership
What Brain Science Teaches Us
About Leadership
Presented to OD Network WNY
May 15, 2014
Matilda Lorenzo, SPHR
Concentric Leadership Partners
www.concentricleadership.com
http://concentricleadership.com

Housekeeping items

Objectives
• Learn how science impacts leadership
• Understand why change resistance is
so strong and what can be done
• Gain insights that help shift from
resistance to engagement
• Gain an introduction to the SCARF
model – a communications approach
• Become more self-aware

Neural basis of leadership
and change management
practices

Why is Change So Difficult?

What is Neuroleadership?
• Decision-making and problem-solving
• Emotional regulation
• Collaborating
• Facilitating change

Dr. David Rock • Australian Author of Quiet
Leadership: Six Steps to
Transforming Performance atWork
and Your Brain atWork.
• Coined term "Neuroleadership”
• Cofounder of Neuroleadership
Institute, a global initiative
bringing together neuroscientists
and leadership experts to build a
new science for leadership
development.

6 Insights about the Brain
1. The brain is a connection machine
2. Up close, no two brains are alike
3. Hardwires everything it can
4. Hardwiring drives automatic perception
5. Practically impossible to deconstruct
our old wiring
6. We can create new wiring

Connection Machine
Focusing the mind on
identifying and creating new
leadership behavior, rather than
continuing with the same old
habits, can actually create
chemical and physical changes
in your brain.

Connection Machine
Constantly making connections -
millions per second
Seeks to understand new info by
comparing it to existing maps
Impasse happens when we can’t
reconcile the maps
Repeated until resolved

No 2 Brains Alike
• There is no clear pattern across brains
• We all think differently

Our Brains Hardwire Everything
Working Memory
Limitations
Long-Term Memory
Hard-wiring

Perception driven by
hard-wiring
Every brain sees the world differently,
based on its’ hardwiring.
Chemical response of our perceptions
– reward + dopamine, threat = cortisol
and affects behavior and thinking

Changing old wiring is difficult
The more attention we give
any connection, the more
connections are deepened in
the brain.

Creating new wiring is easy
• Constantly create new maps.
• Reconcile dilemmas by creating
new maps.This occurs in a
moment of insight – “aha”
• Can become hardwiring with
enough attention and positive
feedback.

10 x 3

120 x 5/2

Processing Capacity

Three Key Areas
Prefrontal
Cortex
Limbic
System
Basal
Ganglia

Prefrontal Cortex - thinking

Thinking Brain Limitations

Multi-tasking

Basal Ganglia - habits

The Limbic System - emotions

Detecting Threats

Moving From Resistance to
Engagement

The Incredibly Social Brain
The
human
brain is
our “social
organ”.

Brain as Operating Network

Social Pain
• Social and physical pain share same circuitry
• Social rejection = physiological pain

The Biology of Engagement
Minimize Danger
Maximize Reward
Organizing principle

Fear - Stronger than Motivation

When threatened, the increased
overall activation in the brain
inhibits people from perceiving the
more subtle signals required for
solving non-linear problems,
involved in the insight or “aha!”
experience
(Subramaniam et al, 2007).

And … with the amygdala activated,
the tendency is to generalize more,
which increases the likelihood of
accidental connections.
There is a tendency to err on the safe
side, shrinking from opportunities, as
they are perceived to be more
dangerous. People become more
likely to react defensively to stimuli.

Meeting expectations
generates an increase
in dopamine levels in
the brain, a reward
response (Schultz, 1999).
.
Going back
to a well-
known place
feels good
because the
mental maps
of the
environment
can be easily
recalled.

Away Toward
+
Status
Certainty
Autonomy
Relatedness
Fairness
Threat Reward

Status
• Relative
Importance to
Others: How
We Compare

Increasing Status
• Status can be increased
without cost to others of an
effect on relatedness
• Playing against oneself
• Changes the community
one focuses on

Reducing status threat
When threatened,
people may defend a
position that doesn’t
make sense, to avoid
the perceived pain of a
drop in status.

The human resistance to
change is really … the
human resistance to pain.

Certainty
The brain likes to be able to predict
and have a say in the future.

Even a small amount of
uncertainty generates
an ‘error’ response in
the orbital frontal
cortex (OFC).
.This takes attention away from one’s
goals, forcing attention to the error
(Hedden, Garbrielli, 2006)

Autonomy
The brain likes to be
able to predict.
A feeling of having a
choice dramatically
reduces stress levels

“Even if we have the
illusion that we are in
control, our cognitive
functions are
preserved.”
Amy Arnsten, Professor of
Neurobiology, Yale Medical School

Relatedness
Friend or foe
Trust or distrust
Connect or don’t connect
Foe is the default

Fairness

Threat = Away State
DISENGAGEMENT
• Reduction in cognitive resources
• Decrease in prefrontal cortex
capacity
• More narrow field of view
• Generalize to other areas
• Erring on the side of pessimism
• Decrease in creativity

Reward = Toward State
ENGAGEMENT
 Access to cognitive resources (Amy Arnsten)
 More creative ideas (Barbara Fredericson)
 More insights (Mark Jung-Beeman)
 Able to see more and take in more info
 Decrease in mistakes
 Increase in collaboration
 Increase in dopamine levels

What Does this Mean For Leaders?
The workplace is a social system, not just
a contract where labor is exchanged for
a paycheck.
Commitment, engagement levels and
performance are profoundly impacted
by the social context of the workplace

What Leaders Can Do
• Create shared goals
• Focus on linking rather than ranking –
connect people together
• Focus on how people are improving
• Be more transparent & over-
communicate
• Increase feeling of “being valued” and
on the same team
• Give choices
• Provide clear expectation

Effective
leaders are
relationship
architects
and social
context
engineers

Compounding Threat
Leaders can activate the
threat response in multiple
domains
Creates a powerful inability
to think differently, take a
novel perspective or stay
attuned to the vision

Counteracting Threat
Decrease the threat in
one domain by
increasing reward in a
different domain

Model the Way

What Science Tells Us Works
• A toward state … reducing threat
• Helping people come to their own insights
• Leading with the social brain in mind
• Focus on the “attention” to solutions and
new habits
• A quiet brain
• Self awareness
• Emotion regulation

Neuroplasticity
“Neurons that fire together wire together.”
~ Hebb’s Rule

“The ability to
intentionally address
the social brain in the
service of optimal
performance will be a
distinguishing
leadership capability
in the years ahead.”
- David Rock

“Brain development is the same
as leadership development.”
~ Dr. Paul McDonald ddd

NeuroLeadership in Organization Development

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