TRAINING YOUR BRAIN TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS

In the last few years there has been a growing trend to know more about how the brain works.  The challenge is relevant findings of brain-science don’t always trickle down to the professional world, and so there tends to be a disconnect between what brain science knows and what people do.

One of the tougher challenges my clients face is the ability to remain reflective and objective in a demanding situation.  They understand that being in a distressed state of mind serves no value and can even worsen a situation.  By understanding some of the fundamentals of the brain’s inner-workings and being able to translate that knowledge into useful tools can mean the difference between succeeding and failing.

THE BRAIN’S PRIME DIRECTIVE

The brain’s prime directive is to keep you safe by being constantly vigilant to any potential threats.  The curious thing is the brain is not just a single system trying to keep you from harm.  Rather it consists of a number of systems that are constantly competing against each other for dominance and control of finite resources.  Each system follows the prime directive, but has different ways of achieving it.

The two main systems are the Reactive Mindset (RMS) and the Thinking Mindset (TMS).

THE MINDSETS

The RMS is a state of mind where you are reactive, subjective, indecisive and problem-oriented.  You tend to get lost in the details and lose site of the bigger picture.  It is when your brain ruminates on a thought and can’t seem to shift focus.  It is when automatic thoughts trigger negative emotions, which in turn fuel more unproductive thoughts creating a mental tail-spin.

The TMS is a state of mind where you are reflective, objective, decisive, and solution-oriented.  You are able to think about your thinking and keep the bigger picture in mind.  You are aware of your emotions and take them into account when making a decision.

It is important to note that the RMS and TMS are not simply psychological states of mind.  Each has it’s own dedicated neural anatomy and corresponding function, which significantly influences your cognitive abilities for better or for worse.

PLAYING THE GAME

In the diagram the RMS sits on the left end and the TMS on the right.  In between the two mindsets are three states of awareness.  Playing the game means being able to shift awareness from the RMS to the TMS under demanding situations.  In doing so you trigger the neural anatomy that keeps you reflective, objective and solution-oriented. 

One of the most effective methods I use comes from cognitive-behavioural psychology and is supported by findings in neuroscience.  It has proven to be highly effective under a range of conditions. It requires you to articulate abstract thoughts and emotions into concrete words.  This mental task requires higher thinking and reasoning, which literally fire-up the neural circuits of the TMS while quieting down those of the RMS.

Step 1:  Be aware of the automatic thoughts/emotions you’re experiencing to a stressful situation in the here & now.

• What am I thinking & feeling at this moment?

Step 2:  Experience shows that writing down the reasons why you are having a particular thought/emotion can significantly weaken them.

• What are the reasons behind my thoughts & feelings?

Step 3.  Automatic thought/emotion tend to be based on lessons learned to past events.  Where once they may have served you, they may now be working against you.  Weed out those that are hindering you.

• Are they based on fact or assumption?
• Are these thoughts & emotions helping me or hindering me with my current challenge?

Taking the needed time to answer the questions in the steps helps you to psychological and neurologically shift to the TMS, becoming solution-oriented and emotionally objective instead of problem-focused and emotionally hijacked. 

There is more to explore in this area, but these 3-steps are a good place to start when you need a clear head to handle a challenge.  I encourage you to keep the brain in mind!

We encourage you to share your questions, opinions and comments.  

Thanks again for taking the time to read our blog.

________ 

Interested in applying brain-science in your professional life?

Please visit us at www.MINDtalk.no 

Made to Stick

Hey folks! I've just recently finished a great book Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get their ideas to stick in people's heads. Definitely a brilliant resource for managers and entrepreneurs.

Below is a succinct review of the book from The Washington Post. Below you will find a link to the author's website. Good reading!

Here is the link... http://www.madetostick.com/

If you sign up for their newsletter you can also grab some very useful goodies.

In 'Sticky' Ideas, More Is Less

By Barry Schwartz,
a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less"
Wednesday, January 17, 2007; C08

MADE TO STICK

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Random House. 291 pp. $24.95

"If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." So said Mother Teresa, and she was right. For a variety of reasons, some of them recently documented in laboratory studies by research psychologists, people who are either left cold or are overwhelmed when confronted with the suffering of thousands will rush into action when they are presented with a way to save one starving child.

"Made to Stick," by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, is an attempt to explain this peculiar fact and many others like it. Why is it that some ideas "stick," remaining vivid in memory and calling on people to act, whereas others just fade away? Is it in the nature of the ideas themselves, or does it have something to do with how they are "packaged"? And if the latter, are there lessons to be learned about packaging that will help people who are trying to influence public opinion and action?

The brothers Heath are in a good position to write such a book. Chip, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, has actually done research on what makes ideas "sticky." Dan is co-founder of Thinkwell, a textbook company whose aim, of course, is to find a way to present information to students in a way that "sticks." And they have written a fine, "sticky" book -- one that lays out the determinants of stickiness; illustrates them with vivid examples from disparate settings (e.g., business, education and effective social movements); warns us of obstacles that must be negotiated if ideas are to be sticky; and provides a set of "idea clinics," examples of good ideas presented in not so good ways, along with steps to make them better.

The reader also learns some important principles of modern psychology: about how memory is organized, about how emotion affects action, about how knowing too much can get in the way of effective communication and about the power of stories. Anyone interested in influencing others -- to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution -- can learn from this book.

The Heaths identify six core ingredients of stickiness, organized by the acronym "SUCCES." To stick, ideas should be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion-evoking and embedded in Stories. Each of these key features is illustrated with several examples. "It's the economy, stupid," James Carville's famous guide to Bill Clinton's campaign for president, embodies simplicity: "If you say three things, you say nothing" was Carville's point.

The willingness of Nordstrom employees to gift-wrap items purchased elsewhere is an example of the unexpected -- the extraordinary service Nordstrom offers its customers. So was JFK's promise, out of the blue, to get a man on the moon.

Teacher Jane Elliott of Riceville, Iowa, made racism concrete to her white, third-grade students on the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination by dividing up the class by eye color and making the division matter. Scientist Barry Marshall made credible to a disbelieving audience of his peers that ulcers are caused by bacteria by ingesting said bacteria and developing the symptoms of ulcers.

A charity called World Vision applied Mother Teresa's lesson by inviting First World people to "adopt" specific Third World children, each with a name, a face and a story. And TV producer Roone Arledge got people who didn't know the shape of a football to become sports fans by having his sportscasters tell one triumph-over-adversity story after another about the players, just as Subway, thanks to TV commercials dramatizing the weight loss of Jared Fogle, got Americans to think about fast food as diet food.

I find the Heaths' analysis convincing and their recommendations quite helpful. I think I will be a better teacher if I keep SUCCES in mind when preparing materials for my classes. But at the same time, the very power of their story is troubling. For there are three other features of ideas that, to my mind, ought to be affecting their stickiness: Ideas should be socially beneficial, or Worthwhile; they should be Important; and, above all, they should be True (which is not the same as credible). SUCCES needs to be modified by WIT. Most of the examples discussed in the book have WIT, but this, I think, is the product of well-chosen examples.

The tools of SUCCES in the hands of WITty people will serve us well, but these same tools, in the hands of mean-spirited people or charlatans, will do us in. We will be misled, misinformed and steered off course. In addition, as more people become SUCCESful, it will grow increasingly difficult for the WITty successful people to rise above water in a sea of bad, trivial, sticky ideas.

The Heaths are mindful of this problem, though they don't address it directly. First, one of the things that initially piqued their interest in sticky ideas was "urban legends," pretty much all of which are sticky but false. It isn't the stickiness of "ulcers are bacterial" that distinguishes it from urban legends; it's the truth value. Second, the Heaths acknowledge that their advice may cheapen the currency when they point out how it isn't enough to say that something is "unusual" anymore; it has to be "unique." To put it another way, "unusual" just isn't unusual enough to cut it anymore. And when everyone around you is applying SUCCES, you will have to exaggerate, distort or even lie to be noticed.

What can we do to make the idea of global warming stick? I thought that in "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore (unlike "Brownie") really did a heck of a job. Was it good enough? I have my doubts. And if not, is it because the thought of one-tenth of the world's people under water wasn't sticky enough or because we've already got too many ideas stuck to us already? Without some WIT to modulate SUCCES, I'm afraid we'll all end up drowning.