This document discusses applying insights from neuroscience to drive change and promote learning. It notes that the human brain is hardwired to focus on interactions and exchanges with others. While the brain retains neuroplasticity as adults, it is also programmed to conserve energy and minimize new information. The prefrontal cortex thinks best when stress and ambiguity are low. However, modern life often conflicts with how the brain is wired, exposing it to more stress, uncertainty, and information overload. To promote brain fitness and learning, organizations should minimize stress, foster inclusion and curiosity through questions, and leverage what engages the brain like pictures, patterns, and a sense of belonging.

1. The NeuroBiology of Change
Working with the brain instead of against it
Change and Performance Management Conference
New Orleans, November 13, 2012
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2. Applying insights from Neuroscience
Good news and bad
news for those of us
looking to drive change
Sneak preview:
You can’t do anything
new while muti-tasking
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3. At its best, the human brain is capable of
extraordinary feats
 To question
 To learn
 To invent
 To create
 To interpret
 To communicate
 To choose
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4. © Kevin Ochsner, Columbia University, 2008
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5. Our task today
 What puts people in
shape for ongoing
learning and change?
 To thrive in a shifting
environment?
 To minimize the suffering
around change, and seize
the opportunity to
contribute more?
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6. Good news and bad news
 Humans retain  The adult brain is
Neuroplasticity as adults – programmed to conserve
we can learn energy by minimizing ‘new’
 Neuroplasticity feels good  Stress of any kind makes
 The brain gets a shot of learning impossible
pleasure from new ways to  We are highly vulnerable to
contribute ambiguity and social stress
 We can actively promote  Working memory is small:
brain fitness in corporate can only absorb small
culture amounts of new info
 Nothing new can happen
while multi-tasking
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7. A BIT OF BACKGROUND
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8. Commerce is as old as
the first human community
 Developed over more
than 200,000
generations
 The brains of early
ancestors are about 1/3
the size of
modern humans
 The brain reached it
current size about 1300
generations ago
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9. It all started with a change
in the weather…
Pressure from climatic change
made increased cooperation a
great adaptive advantage:
giving rise to language,
driving brain development
Humberto Maturana,
John Medina, Professor of Biology,
Professor of Bioengineering, University of Chile
University of Washington
School of Medicine
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10. Commerce and the brain co-evolved
Brain Body Business
Lucy 500 cc Male 5’ 100# Cooperating and Coordinating
Female 4’ 50# Primitive tools
3,200,000 yrs Walking upright, arched Language?
160,000 gens foot Communities in Africa
Sloped forehead
1,000,000 years 1000 cc Heavy brow ridges Good cutting edges
50,000 gens Less sloping forehead Communities throughout Asia, Africa, maybe Europe
25,000 years 1500 cc Male 6’ 150# Trading over thousands of miles
1,250 gens Modern Female 5’5” 120# Art
PFC
Fully modern Elegant tools
Herding
Communities in Asia, Africa, Australia, and maybe the Americas
10,000 years X X Horticulture, towns
500 gens
5,000 years X X Cities, warfare, taxes, writing
250 gens
600 years X X Italian Renaissance, banking
30 gens Can exchange without seeing each others’ eyes
230 years X X Industrial revolution, modern cities
11 gens People become ‘pairs of hands’
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11. Commerce is based in vulnerability
The roots go back more
than 3 million years:
walking upright made
birthing increasingly
difficult; babies were born
increasingly immature
Cooperation was essential
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12. We humans make our living in exchanges
Exchanging with others
is in our biology – it’s an
essential part of
being human
We’re highly sensitive
about it – a matter of
survival
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13. How is a Broken Heart
Like a Broken Leg?
=
© Matthew Lieberman, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, UCLA, 2008
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14. An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion
Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003, Science
© Matthew Lieberman, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, UCLA, 2008
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15. We’re easily triggered in any kind of
interactions with others
© Matthew Lieberman, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, UCLA, 2008
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16. Social animals thrive together –
not separately
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17. We become ingenious when others appear
to be vulnerable
People mobilized
instantly in 18
degree weather
The mood of the
country changed
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18. Interactions with others is the basis of business
and the stuff of human life
Casual or formal,
monetized or not,
tangible or intangible
The brain is hard-wired
to keep us focused on
them, and on our role
and status
When we’re not engaged
in some kind of
exchange, we’re often
thinking about them
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19. Mirroring Emotions
Mirror Limbic
Insula
Neurons System
Stimulate the Feel the
facial expression emotion
Carr et al PNAS 2003
I live in the facial expression of the
other, as I feel him living in mine.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
© Marco Iacoboni, Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA School of Medicine, 2009
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20. THE CHALLENGE
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21. The vulnerability we face in modern life
is not what the brain is built for
 Wild predators present short intense moments of
stress
 For most of human history, people faced little
ambiguity – rules and roles were clear
 They were accepted members of a cooperative group,
knew their trading partners all their lives - social
stress was minimal
 The pace of change was very slow
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27. 27

28. The brain is bilateral
The corpus callosum is a large
bundle of nerves - a very important
structure that connects the two
sides of the brain
It’s exceptionally sensitive to stress.
When stressed, the two halves
don’t communicate – we lose
mental dexterity
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29. Ingenuity, innovation, learning and
dexterity require both sides of the brain
Using a tool we know, like
a hammer, lights up an area
just above and behind the
left ear: Wernicke’s area
Devising a new way to use
it lights up just above and
behind the right ear
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30. The PFC ‘thinks’ well under optimal conditions
 Not when we feel rejected,
unappreciated or unloved
 Not when we assess risk or
experience ambiguity
 Not unless the arousal
chemicals and neuro-
modulators are “just right”
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31. Many aspects of modern life conflict with
brain ‘wiring’
 Naturally inclined to avoid uncertainty, unless it’s in
the form of play
 Highly sensitive to social stress, disadvantaged
working in a world bigger than our childhood ‘tribe’
 Working memory is small and easily tired
 Stress reduces executive function intelligence
 Multi-tasking dumbs us down
Every day, modern business demands new exchanges,
new people, new information
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32. Peoples’ concerns are continually shifting
Invariably requiring new exchanges
What does it take to sustain
curiosity?
 Courage
- To question
- To take in
‘unwelcome’ news
 Fitness
- To be nimble and
responsive
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33. Curiosity is the silver bullet
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34. Whatever business you may be in…
You’re in the business of generating rich exchanges
What would your world be like if exchanging with your
team and your business was the richest experience of
peoples’ day…week…?
When the PFC is not stressed, people can design and
fully partner in any challenge. In fact, they love it
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35. APPLYING THE INSIGHTS
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36. In our era, delivering value
often requires design
Change is an integral part of modern work
A modern productive worker is someone who does a great job in
figuring out what to do next. Seth Godin 10/15/12
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37. Designing new value is a natural pleasure
for an unstressed PFC
 Interpreting
vulnerability
 Identifying opportunity
 Devising ingenious
ways to use resources
 Driving innovation
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38. Orient your culture to brain fitness
 Start meetings by sparking neuroplasticity - a kush ball, a
brain teaser, energizing music…
 Rotate the job of sparking meetings…
 Celebrate methods of stress reduction
 Keep stakeholder vulnerability top of mind: refresh stories
about customers, users, suppliers…
 Make multi-tasking and emails between 7 pm and
7 am uncool
 Neutralize status with inclusive, collaborative inquiry
 Include many styles of learning as part of the pleasure of
working together
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39. Minimize stress
 Articulate new questions and challenges, with open
invitations to address them
 Decrease ambiguity with simple terms to describe
challenges and clear metrics to track them
 Role model pauses and breaks, integrating fun and
physical activity
 Reduce information overload; when you share info,
use patterns, visuals
Not only will it make people smarter and ready
to learn, it will reduce your health care costs
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40. Cultivating a low-stress environment
involves some departures from tradition
 Rest – 3 naps a week optimizes brain function and
overall health – create a nap room?
 Social inclusion – play and questions - create a play
room! Bring in juggling and clown classes?
 New forms of exercise – make stairwells interesting –
bring in Zumba, Irish dancing…?
 Pauses for guided breathing?
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41. Generate the experience of belonging
Create inclusion with Create inclusion with
play sincere questions
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42. What makes a question powerful?
Provokes curiosity:
 Introduces a new
interpretation, label,
or distinction
 Focuses on others’
vulnerability
 Opens possibilities
for contributing
Potential for a shot of dopamine
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43. A culture of inquiry powers brain fitness,
and supports learning and change
 Promotes inclusion
 Neutralizes status
 Provokes curiosity
 Encourages neuroplasticity
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44. Summary: promoting brain fitness
Enable with: Impair with:
 New forms of fun, exercise
and moving  Concerns for status
 Sincere questions,  Multi-tasking
genuine vulnerability  Fatigue
 Labels and patterns,  Stress
repetition  Danger/risk/rejection
 Breaks and rest  Ambiguity/change
 Multiple senses:  Information overload
pictures, sound…
 Experience of belonging
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45. What will you do differently tomorrow?
How will you make
people smarter - more
responsive to change
and open to learning?
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46. What is possible in commerce is
determined by what the brain can do
Understanding how it all works may enable us to
navigate through another big change in the weather
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47. Remember what the brain likes
 Pictures  Opportunity to
 Patterns contribute to others
 The feeling of  Fairness
belonging  Novelty
 Labels  Feeling in control
 Questions:  Faces
invitation to
invent/play
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48. Remember what shuts down PFC function
 Fatigue
 Multi-tasking
 Perception of
danger/
ambiguity/
being out of control
 Concern for status
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49. What might be possible if you could
leverage the brain’s powerful wiring?
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50. With gratitude for the thinkers, teachers,
and researchers who illuminated the path
Marsha Shenk is one of the pioneers of
Business Anthropology. Her models have
empowered business leaders for more than
three decades.
Synthesizing insights from Neuroscience,
Linguistics, Somatics, social sciences and
business, her work simplifies the complex
cultural, biological, and historical forces that
determine the success of modern enterprises.
www.BestWork.biz
http://twitter.com/marshashenk
© The BestWork® People 2012
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