Professional Skills

Posts Tagged ‘Brain works’

The field of leadership has invested in services and skill building areas such as mentoring, coaching, team building, role modelling, and didactic exercises to enable people to repeat and paraphrase conversations in order to replicate significant information or actions in the hopes of understanding others. The business world uses these various services and skill sets to further enhance skill development, relationship building, doing things the “right” way, and being effective communicators. This entire suite of services and training rely on the support of the brain’s mirror neuron system in order to work effectively.

Mirror neurons are important for understanding the actions of other people, and for learning new skills by imitation. Recent research published in Spring 2010, confirmed the presence of mirror neurons in the human brain.

The brain’s mirror neuron system plays a critical role for effective leadership as it provides people with the blueprint to follow desired norms or preferred behavior within their organizations. The body language, the method of speaking, the norms on dress and time management, the implied expectation to work 10 or 12 hours a day all fall under “follow the leader” in modeling key norms for an organization. Key norms are further observed and demonstrated through the healthy activity of the brain’s mirror neuron systems in people throughout the organization.

Whenever there is power in the room in the form of leadership at any level, people pay attention. Every action and behavior is noticed and assessed. It is then replicated, because the “leader” did it, it must be okay! Cultural norms are demonstrated and mimicked to set direction in organizations. The mirror neuron systems in the people that make up an organization serve to propagate observed behavior.

When leaders communicate, there may be a specific style they use in one-on-one dialogue or when addressing an all-hands meeting to share information. What people throughout the organization notice is whether or not the leader is a great speaker and demonstrates phenomenal skills in articulating the direction of the business. The very act of observing the speaker helps the audience capture the actions in the mirror neuron system. Then they associate the message with the behaviors demonstrated while standing in front of the group. As other leaders who’ve observed the speaker move to the front of the room located in other areas of the business, their mirror neuron systems replicate the demonstrated and desired skills seen from the original speaker. This will spread throughout the organization like a ripple in a pond. Mimicking the observed behavior in lower level staff meetings may strengthen communication skills.

You can take that scenario and apply it to facilitating an important stakeholder meeting or delivering a performance appraisal. Any professional skills that leaders use as part of doing the work or working on the business, are subject to activating the mirror neuron system and influencing the business. Leaders have to be accountable for their actions, as they will influence anyone and everyone by their highly visible actions.

Leadership modeling exemplary behavior in the organization, or on the flip side, unethical behavior will set a standard for which the mirror neurons will follow. Poor behavior is often tagged with the phrase, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, really isn’t true! What happens in Vegas will be replicated in the brain’s mirror neuron system by everyone who observed it and or participated in it! In the same vein, what happens in the conference room, good or bad, doesn’t only stay in the conference room! The mirror neuron system replicators are watching! Therefore, the behavior will show up somewhere in the organization, somehow when you least expect it!

As a leadership consultant, executive coach, and trainer, I am constantly engaging in learning from situations that arise day-to-day, personally and professionally. I self-reflect and notice things about how I show up and how that impacts a situation. I was traveling to a client location and was unfamiliar with the train station and where I needed to go to catch my train. We’ll come back to this in a minute…

Flash back to sitting at home watching a talk show a few days earlier. The guest, Jerry Seinfeld and the host of his program, Marriage Ref were promoting their show. As comedians, they’re always ready with material that will garner laughter, so they generally have something humorous to offer the audience. What they were talking about was less humorous and more accurate in terms of people practicing courtesy when they interact with others.

As celebrities, they are often bombarded with autograph seekers and people wanting their photographs. “Look, I’m standing with Jerry Seinfeld!” Their status goes up and they have an interesting story to tell people the rest of their lives about how they “know” Jerry Seinfeld! These ordinary people tend to trespass on the celebrities’ personal space and invite themselves into conversations or impede the celebrity from walking any further as they shout out to sign an autograph. Jerry Seinfeld talked about his rules for signing autographs or posing with a fan for a photo. He said, “I will not sign an autograph or pose for a photo if the person does not ask me properly or say excuse me. Where has courtesy gone?” Of course his comedic delivery manifested laughter from the audience.

When people do offer the simple courtesy to ask permission, regardless of their position or status in society, they are sending a message. They are telling you that they will be extending civility, respect, validation that the person you want to interact with is important, and therefore, you SEE them and honor their contributions’ to meet a need you have.

Back to the train station – I was confused about where I needed to be. I had four pieces of luggage and was having a rough time of it. I couldn’t make sense of the signs and was seeking help. I saw a couple of older gentlemen standing near some gates for trains. They were Red Caps, and worked at the station. I approached them struggling with my luggage (most of it was material that couldn’t be shipped in time to meet the client’s delivery timeline for an unusual location. That’s another blog in the making!). I said, “Excuse me, could you wise men help me? I am not sure where to go and would really appreciate the benefit of your wisdom to point me in the right direction.” Do you know how they responded? “Well, you’ve said all of the right things! (with a smile), We’d be happy to help you. Here, let me give you a hand.”

They relieved me of my struggles with the bags, walked me over to a red cap that could take care of my bags, and then pointed me in the direction of my gate. They asked me if I needed any other help and then wished me happy travels. I felt like I was well taken care of and had peace of mind that I would make my train with a sense of certainty that my travels would improve and the challenge I was having with my luggage was solved.

The Red Caps could have pointed to the gate and left me with my bags to continue on my own power, struggling the whole time. I had already dropped two bags three times from the parking garage to the gate area. They could have continued their conversation and easily ignored me…but they didn’t. It is all about connecting with people.

The point of demonstrating courtesy and connecting with people as a leader is to know that no matter your position, status, or power…courtesy and valuing people creates a relationship that builds followership, loyalty and credibility. People will move in your direction if they feel a sense of reward in working with you. The reward here is being seen and validated for your contributions. When was the last time you truly took the time to acknowledge a staff member and offer the courtesy they deserve?

The amygdala is often thought of as the emotional center of our brains but is actually made up of several regions in the brain – the amygdala (regulates emotion), hippocampus (is important for attaching emotional significance to experiences), hypothalamus (regulates biological needs such as regulating body temperature, breathing, sex and other bodily functions), and the frontal cortex (responsible for thinking, making judgments, planning, decision-making and conscious emotion). It takes in environmental stimuli and assesses whether it is a threat or reward.

The limbic system is basically an emotional thermometer that is highly sensitive to threat and reward in our environment. It is triggered very quickly when danger is present and warns us to ensure our survival. When over aroused we act first then think later. The fight or flight reaction is an essential function of the limbic system and is quick to respond to threat with the onset of fear. No matter how small the threat, fear will spark arousal in the limbic system in milliseconds. Cortisol and adrenaline, the stress hormones are secreted into the blood stream and begin accumulating in the amygdala. Too much of these stress hormones in the system can initiate an uncontrollable hijack of the amygdala and will drive us to demonstrate uncontrollable behaviours with complete lack of intellectual reasoning or rational thinking to handle the situation. An amygdala hijack demonstrated in the work place very often leads to disciplinary action up to and including termination. Therefore it is important to understand what influences our limbic system and how we can control it.

A sad yet common occurrence is when people are constantly exposed to stress and threat in the workplace. The accumulation of stress hormones caused by emotionally challenging tasks and fear based experiences will drive people to the edge until they reach a point of saturation, the point of no return and can explode with rage and do something that sabotages their work, career, or others health and safety. Our impulse control is regulated and controlled by a refreshed, rested, and fully functioning prefrontal cortex. If we constantly saturate the prefrontal cortex by overloading it with information, demanding constant complex decisions that fatigue the most brilliant minds, create situations that lack time for decompressing after stressful interactions, and put people in position to meet unrealistic deadlines to complete assignments we are actually bombarding them with stress inducing situations that limit our ability to maintain impulse control and reduces their capacity to meet the demands of the tasks at hand.

The more people operate in a state of high stress and threat the more sensitive the limbic system becomes to threat in the workplace. This sensitivity and lowered response time to arousal can dissuade key contributors from moving forward on risky projects. The detection of threat related to a project or change initiative will more than likely be perceived as negative. People perceiving a state of threat linked to a project or activity will want to remain safe and will be less inclined to support it or demonstrate the higher level thinking required to complete their portion of the project tasks. The tendency will be to look at the downside of the project and offer less than supportive ideas or reasons why it won’t work. People feeling this state of threat will take fewer risks on projects. They’ll be less likely to have creative insights and offer innovative solutions to move the needle in a positive direction.

When the limbic system is aroused because of perceived threat in a work setting we lose the ability to draw on needed resources to think quickly and intelligently to handle hard, challenging questions from leaders, managers or key stakeholders in meetings or presentations. The perceived threat forces us to rely on deeply embedded functions or ideas housed in long term memory or more recent events that caught our attention yet may not have importance to answering the questions or relevance to furthering the project. Important details will be forgotten at the critical moment and will not be recalled until later when we are in a calm and relaxed state in a non-threatening environment. At that time the PFC is able to access the resources to recall the appropriate information through higher level thinking.

When the limbic system is aroused it limits good decision making in the work place because we are limited in our ability to focus and maintain attention. We get easily distracted as we react to salient objects (loud, shiny, and bright) or stimuli in our environment that is less detailed and more general. We are responding to them as we are influenced by emotion rather than rational thinking. We do not focus on important details and information that is required to make key decisions. Complex thinking is a challenge when the thinking region of the brain is impaired and influenced by the onset of stress (threat) in the workplace.

When in brainstorming meetings to generate new ideas and possible solutions for an important issue an aroused limbic system will influence our ability to contribute ideas. Brainstorming generally requires us to be open and creative to allow brain stimulation to access remote regions of our brains to offer ideas to the group. The aroused limbic system will impact our ability to have insights. Insights require a quiet brain to access multiple regions and tap into the network of memory and brain maps…the aroused brain doesn’t allow this process to occur as it is creating distracting emotional noise and gearing up to fight or flight or freeze. The aroused limbic system would limit the flood of insights we desire and we would likely be silent and perceived as disengaged or a non-contributor by others in the meeting. To allow the brain to fully engage in the brainstorming process we need to create an environment that restricts stress, creates calm and comfort and frees the brain up to access remote regions of the brain to recall tacit information appropriate for the purpose of the meeting.

The limbic system reacts to threat. In the workplace that threat is easily felt through stress. The onset of stress can be triggered by any number of things throughout a typical day. Think about what stresses you and how you perform after you are in this state of stress for prolonged periods of time. Are you at your peak performance level? Do you have the necessary clarity and alertness required to respond to requests or make complex decisions? The bottom line is for all of us to be aware of how we react to threat and stress and how well we engage our impulse control to regulate emotion in the workplace. An over aroused limbic system will impair our ability to fully function in the workplace.