BRAIN BASED STRATEGIES

Brain-Friendly Leadership

11/15/2018

When you interact with others (staff, clients/customers, colleagues, family), do you leave people feeling in a positive state or a negative one? Do they feel that you have their best interest at heart? While your professional knowledge and expertise are necessary ingredients to your success, how you interact with others is also a critical factor. That’s because how we make people feel directly impacts how influential we are with them. We need to focus on mitigating threat (causes people to move away) and maximizing reward (causes people to move towards). Let’s look at a model that will help you incorporate brain friendly strategies into your everyday interactions.

CONNECT™ is a brain-based model that identifies basic needs that, when met, create a reward state (through the release of feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins) and when not met, trigger a threat response (activation of the amygdala - a part of our brain that gets competes for our attention, especially when in a threat state). And when the amygdala gets more of our attention, that means that the pre-frontal cortex (the part of our brain that we use for more complex thinking and responding) gets less attention. So it is critical to work success to learn strategies that minimize threat and maximize the ability of our thinking brain. Below are the 7 elements of the model.

C = Consistency, something the brain craves. When the brain encounters something that it has predicted, feel-good chemicals are released (and that's rewarding to the brain). Change is inherently threatening and causes a threat response in the amygdala, so be mindful of providing people with adequate information and lead-time so they can be better prepared. Be clear on expectations so people know what you want and/or are asking of them.

O = Ownership. No one likes being told what to do – it triggers a negative response. But if people feel they have a choice and that they are given some autonomy, it is motivating. So find opportunities to let others feel a sense of control by, for example, letting them decide how to do something or on making a decision. Tell people more of the what than the how.

N = Novelty: While change is inherently threatening and boredom shuts down creativity and motivation, a state of curiosity is rewarding. Novelty and challenge create a reward state in the brain that causes people to feel intrinsically motivated, making it more likely that they will want to achieve their goals. Interestingly, our brains like to fill in gaps so if we provide partial positive information, such as: “Do you know that the 5 steps you can take to achieve a more balanced life?” we can help create a state of curiosity. Asking open-ended questions that get people to consider possibilities is another way. These questions often begin with “what if?”

N = Need to Know: Understanding the meaning, purpose and/or significance of one's actions is inherently rewarding. The brain searches for meaning every time we encounter something new. If you ask people to do something and they don’t understand the “why”, it can trigger a threat state. Helping them establish challenging and meaningful goals that they can then see themselves making progress towards is highly motivating. It is a critical factor affecting job satisfaction and positive affect at work.

E = Equity: Not everything is equal, but perceptions of inequity trigger the disgust center of the brain and make it difficult to focus. People want to feel that things are fair – providing explanations about how you arrive at decisions and holding everyone to the same expectations goes a long towards creating perceptions of equity. Additionally, when people feel that their social “status” is less than that of others (we frequently, and often unconsciously, compare ourselves to others), it causes a threat response. So be careful to avoid making comparisons between people (such as staff).

C = Confidence: Feeling a sense of competency and capability enhances self-esteem, which creates a reward state in the brain. Situations that cause a lowering of our self-esteem and confidence trigger a threat response. Help boost self-confidence by providing adequate training and instruction, by acknowledging what people are doing right (rather than focusing more on what they do wrong), and ask what the person needs to be successful.

T= Trust: As part of its focus on survival, the brain has evolved to quickly form in-groups (you are part of my tribe and therefore, you are safe) and out-groups (you represent a potential danger). Because it takes relatively little to form these in and out-groups, it is common to find silos in the work environment, which lead to problems with collaboration and cooperation. One of the best ways to create a greater sense of in-group (trust), is to help people connect to their common goal (such as providing the best care we can for our patients).

Learn the CONNECT™ model and put it into practice so that you can create a more brain-friendly environment for your people.

Catherine Hambley, PhD, is a consulting psychologist who offers brain-based strategies to organizations, leaders and teams to improve their effectiveness and promote greater success. She can be reached at catherine@brainbasedstrategies.com

Have Difficult Conversations and Achieve Positive Results

9/19/2018

Why should you learn about the brain?

Here are 3 main reasons:

Work requires people to think, to innovate, to problem-solve and to focus (among other important cognitive activities).
When asked where they do their best thinking, most people do not say “at work”. Rather, they indicate their best thinking happens in places like the shower, while driving, during exercise, and outdoors.
Everyone brings their brain to work.

Understanding some basic brain dynamics will allow you to optimize thinking while AT work and leverage the thinking of your people. Tap into what is likely to be your organization’s greatest asset - the brain power of your people!

Here is what you need to know to start translating neuroscience into practical skills and behaviors.

The brain’s number one job is to keep you alive - therefore, it is highly oriented towards detecting threat and keeping you safe. The brain typically responds before it thinks - emotions grab our attention. Our “threat detector” lies in the amygdala, a structure in the brain that is located in the limbic system - a relatively primitive part of our brains. The more threat we perceive, the more our amygdala is activated, which impacts another part of our brains - the prefrontal cortex (affectionately known as the PFC). The PFC is the newest part of our brains, evolutionary speaking - and is responsible for more complex cognitive processes such as planning, organizing, innovating, focusing, solving problems, and setting goals. Located in the PFC is a structure that helps avoid committing CLM’s (career limiting moves)! In other words, it is a structure that puts the brakes on our emotional responses so that we avoid saying and doing things that we regret. But here is the problem: The more our limbic system is activated (i.e., the more threat we experience), the more our PFC gets compromised. It can get so compromised that the breaking system stops working for us and we experience an “amygdala highjack”. Examples of this might be yelling at people, throwing an inanimate object, storming out of a room….you get the picture and it’s not pretty. Because of this inverse relationships between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, finding ways to mitigate threat at work becomes paramount if we want people to do their best thinking at work.
Social “pain” is real. There are many many structures in the brain that are geared towards social connections. Indeed, infants cannot survive unless they are able to bond with their caregivers. Recent research has discovered that when we experience social “pain”, such as not being included in an important meeting, or feeling that our boss is not being fair with us, our amygdala gets triggered. And so does the neural pathway that registers physical pain. Social pain is very real - at least it is in our brains - and we will react to it in a very similar way to physical pain. This means we will try to avoid situations and people that cause us pain and when we get triggered, our PFC starts to get compromised. Understanding some of the basic social needs that are common to all people is very useful when developing strategies to promote a more “brain-friendly” work culture. These needs, when met, create a reward state in the brain and when not met, trigger a threat response. I have created the CONNECT™ model as a convenient way to remember those basics. (See my CONNECT blog). Remember, work is a highly social environment, which means it has the potential to cause threat (think a compromising of our higher cognitive functions) and to create reward (think drive, motivation and engagement). There are strategies to mitigate threat (lessen the avoid response) and create a toward state where people feel engaged and motivated to be at work.
An interesting factoid about the PFC - it is an energy hog. Relative to its size, it requires more glucose (more fuel) than any other part of our body! And it gets tired pretty quickly. Ever notice that after a certain period of time of heavy concentration (somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes), you start feeling mental fatigue and/or you get hungry. Well that’s your PFC telling you that it is working hard and needs a break. So in order to preserve energy, our brains like to be in auto-pilot mode as much as possible, so it does not have to use up the limited energy resources of the pre-frontal cortex. It might surprise you to learn that much of the brain’s functioning occurs automatically and unconsciously. And that is actually often a good thing. Imagine if you had to think about which muscles to fire and which ones to relax just to take one step! We like think that we are in control and the master of our thinking and decision-making, but it is an illusion. The fact is that the brain uses lots of cognitive short-cuts or thinking errors…and most of the time we don’t even know it’s happening. There are numerous cognitive biases (mental heuristics) such as the confirmation bias (the tendency to seek and pay attention to information that confirms our believes and to discount or negate information that is contrary to what we believe). There are over 175 identified biases that the human brain uses to be efficient - this can cause us to make decisions without considering enough of the relevant facts and information. The implications of these biases is that, unless we employ strategies to minimize their impact, our decision-making may not be the most effective. Fortunately, there are some tactics that facilitate this, such as slowing down the decision-making process, including a diversity of people (and opinions) in the room, challenging assumptions, and asking questions to uncover potential thinking errors. (See my blog on cognitive biases).

4. The final brain dynamic, and perhaps the most exciting one, is that our brains continue to learn and grow throughout our lives, There is this concept, “neural plasticity”, that basically means that if we practice new behaviors or patterns of thinking and responding, the neurons in our brains can form new connections. We literally create new wiring! Rather than stopping a habit, it is much more efficient to change or form new habits to facilitate this process of developing new wiring. So, you can teach an old dog new tricks - all it takes is repetition, or as neuroscientists like to say, “neurons that fire together wire together”. Not only do we form new neural connections, but we can also practice behaviors that enhance our brain’s resiliency, making us less prone to the ill effects of stress. But that’s for another blog - stay tuned.

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Focus on the Solution to Create Real & Lasting Change

5/21/2018

You can facilitate positive, meaningful change for yourself through a few simple steps. I encourage you to direct your attention to solutions, versus an over-focus on the problem. There is a scientific basis to this approach – the more we focus on a problem, the more we can move into an emotional state that makes us feel threatened in some way.

For example, when we focus on a problem, we might feel incompetent, disliked, or unimportant. These feelings cause the limbic system to become activated, making it difficult to develop insights, which is key to creating lasting change.

Try it out right now.
Consider an area of your life where you would like to create change. An example of a dilemma would be that you want to spend more time with family, but you can't get your work done in a reasonable period of time.

I am going to ask you some questions that might allow you to develop insight into your own thinking. You can use this insight to identify what you might do differently to address the problem or challenge. These questions are useful for you to consider anytime you are faced with a dilemma which you do not know how to best resolve.

You will notice that the questions do not go into the details of the situation, but rather have you focus on your thinking. By directing attention to your thinking, you are more likely to develop useful insights. Please write your answers down or discuss them with someone who can help you clarify your thinking.

Insight-Creating Questions
How long have you been thinking about the situation?
What impact does this thinking have on you?
How often do you think about it (how many times a day)?
How clear has your thinking been?
How important is this issue to you (on a scale of 1 to 10)?
What priority have you given it (on a scale of 1 to 10)?
What priority do you think you should give it?
How would it feel to have this issue resolved?
How satisfied are you with the amount of thought you have given to the situation?
How committed are you to resolving the dilemma?
What insights are you having now about the situation?
What do you now notice about your thinking?
What are one or two things you will do differently now that you have thought about this?

Based upon the insights you have developed as a result of addressing these questions,begin to identify specific action steps that you would like to take to move from insight to action.

Catherine Hambley, PhD, is a consulting psychologist who offers brain-based strategies to organizations, leaders and teams to improve their effectiveness and promote greater success. She can be reached at catherine@brainbasedstrategies.com

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4 Tips for Giving Constructive Feedback

5/18/2018

Do you want some simple strategies to encourage others to learn — both from their successes and their mistakes? Would you like to help people arrive at their own solutions? Do you avoid giving "constructive feedback" because it rarely goes well?

Easy-to-learn communication skills will help others build upon their strengths and discover ways to improve. Here are a few strategies to employ:

1. Use the right words: If you want to help others get into a learning mode (what is referred to as a growth mindset), the language you use really matters. Avoid words like always, never, only, can't and instead, use words like learn, grow, develop, try out, and progress. The former set of words triggers the brain into a fixed mindset — a belief that one cannot change. If people believe they are really good at some things and not good at others, they are not primed for learning. In contrast, when people believe that there is room to learn and grow, their brain in in a growth mindset.

2. Leverage mistakes: It may seem oxymoronic, but often the only path to learning is through trial and error. Avoid thinking about mistakes or mishaps as failures – instead, think about them as learning opportunities. We all have witnessed babies learning to walk. What do they do? They walk then fall then walk then fall…. And their parents cheer them on. Because we know that is how they learn and develop. So the next time someone makes a mistake (including you), ask them (or yourself), what can I learn from this experience? Contrast this to getting overly critical, blaming, or angry – which does little to foster a learning environment.

3. Always start a difficult conversation by stating your intention: Prior to giving any feedback, be clear on your intention and communicate it to the person. If your intention is not positive, I suggest you do not give feedback because negative intentions are easily detected.

4. Always give feedback that helps others improve: Practice using this communication model — SBI-I (situation, behavior, impact, and inquiry) and you will find that giving constructive input is much easier than you thought. Here is how to transform one of those difficult conversations into a learning conversation. Let's use an example: Your medical assistant gave a patient incorrect information about their health situation.

Convey your intent: Monica, I would like to talk about a recent interaction you had with a patient so that you can provide the best care possible. (Your positive intention.)
SBI-I — Name the situation, describe the behavior, identify the impact and ask about next steps/lesson learned: When you were giving Mr. Smith instructions about how to use the medication (situation), you incorrectly told him that it would not cause any drowsiness (behavior), which could cause him to take it before he drives and that might lead to an accident (impact). I am wondering what thoughts you have about how you will ensure you provide accurate instructions? (Inquiry allows the person to arrive at his/her own solution).
Only give advice if the person is not able to get to the solution or lesson learned.

Practicing the SBI-I communication model will allow you to gain skill and confidence in managing difficult situations with your staff (and anyone else in your life where these conversations may arise). Avoid blaming, evaluating or judging and use open-ended questions to help the person arrive at a solution or lesson learned. You can use SBI-I to provide positive feedback as well — when you give someone specific and genuine acknowledgment of what he/she has done well, it becomes a signal to the brain to do more of that behavior. Catch people being or doing good and aim to give at least five positives to every negative. This will help to ensure that when you give constructive feedback, the person is more open to hearing it (it does not feel like one more criticism because you have given lots of positive recognition). This is how you create a learning environment where employees thrive and your practice improves.

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