Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders (34 page)

To increase insula activation, we have to target the functions of the anterior insula. One of the major functions of the insula is translating “internal sensations” into recognizable narratives that “make sense.” Oftentimes, followers will feel uncomfortable without knowing why. Managers, leaders, and coaches can encourage the expression of gut feelings and writing them down in incomplete form. Then, they can develop insula maps.
Insula mapping
is a term I use to describe the retrospective rationalization that we can develop to support intuitions. It is not that different from “rational” thinking. Most reasoning is influenced by what we have at stake emotionally anyway. We just don’t know it. After drawing an insula map, leaders can work with coaches to determine how recognizing the “truth” of this could impact their decision and then test out their hypotheses generated by their “gut instinct.”

For example, suppose that as a leader in your company, you have a hunch that laying off people is not going to be productive in the long run, even though the data shows otherwise. Here are the steps you should follow:

1. Acknowledge the gut feeling as a hypothesis.
   
2. Identify “retrospective rational reasons” (RRR). Here are some possible reasons from our sample scenario:
   

   • “This will create anxiety in other workers and decrease their productivity.”
   

   • “This will create resentment in the community and decrease sales.”
   

   • “Expenses will increase due to absenteeism from others who feel more stressed.”
   

3. Assess probabilities. Here are some sample probabilities for the reasons listed in the previous step:
   

   • “This will create anxiety in other workers and decrease their productivity: 75%.”
   

   • “This will create resentment in the community and decrease sales: 35%.”
   

   • “Expenses will increase due to absenteeism from others who feel more stressed: 55%.”
   

4. Test the hypotheses. Here are some points to keep in mind when testing your hypotheses:
   

   • Test the most likely hypothesis first; consider using written surveys.
   

   • Go out to speak the workers about the “solution”; ask for alternatives.
   

   • Go over why alternatives do or do not work.
   

   • Discuss your “mirror neuron” take on the groups you’ve spoken to.
   

5. Create an insula map. Recalculate the probabilities, taking into account new information in actual figures. How many people will be anxious? What are unavoidable elements of productivity? How can you prevent this? How much money will you lose due to this? How does this compare with the money you would lose laying people off?
   

By doing this, you give credence to your own gut feelings and serve as the accelerator of how this information reaches the cortex. This takes into account intuitive leaders who “know before they know.”

Because the insula cortex is associated with feeling of one’s own heartbeat, gastric distension, and other body sensations, leaders might consider having yoga or Pilates classes and a gym onsite. This gives people a timeout to activate the insula and train it to be more “aware.”

Conclusion

By targeting specific brain regions with the interventions discussed in this chapter, managers, leaders, and coaches can remind themselves of steps they might have missed. Not every manager, leader, or coach will want to use brain science as the predominant mode of interacting. These tools provide an additional approach to conventional tools used in coaching. Somehow, over the years, simple psychological approaches have gained the confidence of coaches because they sound “rational.” For example, SWOT analysis is widely used, but but many studies have shown that it is often not effective. Similarly, brain science sounds rational. However, the effective implementation of these targeted strategies relies on integrating them into an overall methodology. In this chapter, the methods described offer a structure for thinking about the formation and implementation of business strategies. If we ask brain questions, we may get brain answers, which may illuminate your approach to a business problem from a completely different perspective.

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Chapter 8. Coaching Brain Processes

If you have come this far in the book, then you are well equipped to understand how to manage or coach brain processes. In this chapter you will learn to identify brain processes and then work with them to create effective change in the business environment. Although we have not reached the level of sophistication needed to target identified networks, we can use our understanding of brain systems to institute interventions that create profound change in the business environment. By understanding the brain processes mentioned earlier on, we could construct approaches that will address systemic issues. For example, rather than coaching or managing “frontal networks,” we can coach or manage integrated networks such as “mirror neurons.” This would require identifying mirror neuron networks as the business-related problem. The ability to identify this network as a participating network in the business environment is as important as knowing how to use this information to make the desired changes. This is important for coaches, managers, and leaders alike—anyone involved in people development would be richer for this understanding and its application.

Once again, these interventions are a reframing of conventional coaching methodologies but they also add new insights. At a time when leaders are tiring of old concepts and are therefore not receptive to them, this reframing can be very helpful in informing the appropriate coaching, management, or leadership plan.

An Approach to Mirror Neuron Interventions

Our brains have mirror neuron systems that can pick up the intentions, actions, and emotions of others automatically. (Note that mirror neuron systems are being found to be increasingly complex and this is just one of their functions.) The idea that our brains can reflect the emotions of one another leads to the possibility of endless mirroring, where the most powerful mirror “wins.” But this winning is not always “winning”; it is sometimes distracting to have too empathic a brain, because taking in everyone else’s emotions may distract you from your own work. In the business environment, when might you encounter the need to use mirror neuron interventions?

One of the most common scenarios in these recession-threatened times is poor morale. The problem with poor morale is that it can spread like wildfire. Threatening people to not say negative things rarely helps, and providing real reassurance may not help either. When one brain mirrors another, that brain’s neural pathways are transformed—it starts to “parallel process” the other person’s intention or emotion. That is, even when you are feeling happy, you may process the anxious feelings of someone else simultaneously and mistake this for your own.

There are innumerable examples of how poor morale (anxiety, nervousness, and depression) can spread. This can happen through overexposure to the media, overemphasis on negative events, and also through a feeling of growing resentment within the company. This can occur at all levels of the company.

Mirror neuron mechanisms can account for investor sentiments too. If “Wall Street” writes a negative review of a potential blockbuster medication, and if one person decides to sell their shares in that drug company, this fear and negative assessment may spread even if the initial assessment is not warranted. In fact, the stock market is a classic example of mirror neuron mechanisms creating chaos.

Finally, mirror neuron mechanisms must be considered when people are working on teams. The team leader should be able to identify mirror neuron mechanisms that are out of control. An “out-of-control” mirror neuron mechanism is one that leads to the team deciding something because they have “caught” onto an influential emotion in the group rather than focusing on what is best for the company.

Here’s a list of mirror neuron interventions you can use:

•
Geographic control—
It is very difficult to stop mirroring unless everyone is in the same room. It is also efficient to gather everyone together, because any new brain patterns that you induce can spread and be reinforced from one person to another. This power is inherent when you send out mass e-mails or with any process where you are reaching a number of people. You can create a whole new mentality by doing this.