What is the best way to ensure
employees and teams succeed? Some executives and managers praise,
encourage, let people work at their own pace and time, let them work in their
own ways, and from time to time make gentle suggestions for improvement.
Others say this is “soft,”
“touchy-feely”. They direct people firmly, or ride them, or tell them exactly
what to do, or chastise or punish errors or falling behind, or compare people
unfavorably with colleagues, or use favoritism as carrot-and-stick.
Some use do these without realizing it.
Is the first approach soft? Do any
of the second ones work?
What we neuroscientists now know
about the brain tells us about both approaches. The brain is
hard-wired to turn off creativity and intuition if the brain senses danger of
any kind. It is the brain that interprets something as danger; we don’t decide.
Scientific studies show that a firm, chastising, criticizing management style
signals danger. A hint of disapproval turns off most of the brain. Only a small
sliver still thinks. That sliver can only function in a tight box of linear
thoughts (aà
bà c). It’s not very productive.
The same studies show the first
method is highly effective. Praise, encouragement, freedom to work how one
wishes, and gentle suggestions motivate success and do it well. They turn
on nerve cells and circuits in the brain that inspire
individuals and teams to do their best.
Why? Dr. David Rock reviewed the
science in The Neuroleadership Journal 1 (2008). He summed up
influences on traits he calls “SCARF”:
- Status,
- Certainty,
- Autonomy,
- Relatedness, and
- Fairness.
Increasing these five traits
increases productivity by increasing
comfort, creativity, and intuition. Going against any one of the traits,
just one, shuts down effectiveness and productivity. They shut down in a fraction
of a second; it takes hard work over a long time to get them back.
Status in Rock’s terms means social status, intellectual status;
or a personal sense of honor and worth within a group, a department, an
organization, or a company.
Certainty means knowing from moment to moment how an action will
influence efforts. The efforts may be to get a effect one wants or they may be
to avoid errors. Certainty is a subconscious state of the brain when planning
or carrying out complex tasks.
Autonomy means freely choosing between possibilities. Autonomy gives
a person or a group the sense they are in control of what they are doing.
Relatedness means feeling part of a group of friends. Lack of
relatedness is what someone feels when s/he has to face an enemy or believes
they are outsiders instead of members of a clique.
Fairness means feeling that authorities treat you just as they treat
others: no prejudices, no insiders, no favoritism.
All of us like these traits. Your
reports like these traits and know when the traits are gone. You as a report or
subordinate feel these traits and their absence. You as a manager probably
don’t feel them, whether you use them with your reports or avoid them.
A manager who is abrupt or uses a
carrot-and-stick may not intend to undercut the SCARF traits. S/he may not
recognize s/he is undercutting anything. What counts is how the reports feel.
How reports feel determines their effectiveness and productivity.
What is going on in the brain? Most
of the brain deals with subconscious actions and with reflexes. A
critical part of the brain is the nerve cells and connections that trigger
reflexes to get us out of danger. They make sure we avoid enemies or
threats. This is survival. It is a basic need.
Figure 1. Drawing of the Human Brain from the Left. The “cap”
of the mushroom is the forebrain or
cerebral hemisphere (it’s mirror image – almost mirror image – is the
hemisphere on the right side). Coming down as the stem of the mushroom is the
brain stem (BSTM) which will meld into the spinal cord. Under the hemisphere, overlying the lateral
aspect of the brain stem, is the
cerebellum (C). The frontal lobe (F) is divided from the parietal lobe (P) by a
major fold or fissure called the Rolandic fissure. At the back of the brain is
the occipital lobe (O). Below the frontal lobe and parietal lobe, and in front of the occipital lobe, is the temporal
lobe (T).
The need to survive is much stronger
than its opposite gratification. Gratification is wanting to be with people we
love and things we love, wanting to stay with a supportive group, enjoying what
we are doing, getting rewards. The reflexes in the brain that support survival
are much stronger than the reflexes that underlie gratification.
Fig. 2. Drawing of left side of brain colored to indicate
major areas and functions. Frontal Lobe: Motor Functions, production of
language (speech), and pre-frontal cortex. The primary motor strip codes for
movements of individual muscles. The premotor strip codes for movements of
parts of the body related to function and “purpose”. The pre-frontal cortex (mostly on the inner or
medial surface of the frontal lobe) is the thin ¼ inch strip of cortex that
codes for linear logical thinking and that is area of “thinking” turned on in “fright-or-flight”
when most of the rest of the thinking and feeling brain is turned off. Parietal
Lobe: Sensations from skin, joints, muscle. Temporal Lobe: Emotions, memory,
smell, sounds, balance, putting visual information into meaningful pictures.bOrigination
of language is in angular gyrus and planum termporale at the interface of the
parietal and temporal lobes. Occipital Lobe: Vision.
The parts of the brain that deal
with survival are small, on the front surface of the brain and low down on the
front sides. They are nerve cells in the ¼-inch-thin outer layer or cortex. The
area is what deals with linear, logical thinking. It’s called the “pre-frontal cortex”
(see Figure 3).
Fig 3. Mesial Surface of the brain (as if cut down the
middle between the hemispheres from front to back). Blue: grey matter (nerve
cells, cortex, nerve nuclei). Orange: white matter — axons connecting one part
of the nervous system to another. Grey: cerebrospinal fluid in ventricles. The
"pre-frontal cortex" is shown in brown. The limbic system which
subsumes memory and links to emotion is shown in purple (especially the
"cingulate gyrus" above and around the central white matter of the
hemisphere). The outflow from the hemisphere and the inflow from the spinal
cord go through the brain stem, from above down: the beak-like structure of the
“midbrain” or mesencephalon, the forward bulge of the pontine nuclei and the
brain stem immediately behind it called together “the pons” and the lower
portion merging below with the top of the spinal cord, “the medulla.”
The
cerebellum is behind the brain stem — a
series of “leaves of a tree” of cortical neurons whose axons are in the middle
of each leaf and connect to the central
region.
The
grey oval in the lower middle of the hemisphere and in a triangle between the
brain stem and the cerebellum is cerebrospinal fluid in the lateral ventricle
(in the hemisphere) and the third ventricle (between brain stem and
cerebellum).
Reflexes act and work in a few
thousands of a second. The subconscious brain treats anything that threatens a
SCARF trait as a danger or a threat. Danger threatens survival. Our
need to survive is much stronger than our wish to be gratified. Threats of all
kinds signal a nucleus, a collection of nerve cells, deep in the brain on each
side called the amygdala (see Figures 4, 5, and 6).
Fig 4. Drawing of the deep nuclear structures of the left
hemisphere in relation to the hemisphere as a whole. The amygdala (red) is a
nucleus or cluster of nerve cells deep in the frontal half of the temporal
lobe. It is an extension of a major set of motor cells deep in the
fronto-parietal lobes, the caudate nucleus. All these nuclei are paired -- one
in each hemisphere, as are the ones described next.
The thalamus is a deep sensory nucleus through which sensory
information of all kinds goes from the spinal cord and brain stem to the cortex
of the hemisphere on its side, again, paired with one in the other hemisphere.
The putamen and the striatum (indicated by the “poles”
extending from the upper curve of the tail of the caudate to the main body of
the caudate) are deep motor nuclei that function in conjunction with the
caudate.
When the amygdala perceive a threat,
they act instantly to put the rest of the brain into “fight-or-flight” mode.
Emotions switch to fear and anger (temporal lobe, see Figures 1, 2, 3, and
6). Bad memories come up, memories of fearful events and things that made
us angry (hippocampus, Figure 6). Part of the brain signals disgust and nausea
(the insula, see Figure 6). The intuitive functions of the brain shut down. The
only thinking part of the brain that is active is the prefrontal cortex (see
Figure 3). This thin layer works only with learned, linear, logical behaviors;
nothing else. All of this together is survival mode.
Fig. 5. Drawing of the
limbic system of the left hemisphere. Above: in relation to the hemisphere;
Below: as if the rest of the hemisphere were removed.
The drawing shows structures on the left. The limbic system
(cingulate gyrus, hippocampus of the temporal lobe, and their connections) is
mesial to (to the side of) the thalamus and extends in front and behind the
thalamus, but to the side.
The limbic system connects with the area for smell (tip of
temporal lobe, signals for scents coming in from the olfactory bulb). This
connection is the anatomical basis for the strong connection between smell on
the one hand and memory and emotions on the other hand.
All of these — limbic system and its parts and olfactory or
system for smell —have connections with the tail of the caudate and with the
amygdala.
The smaller drawing shows these systems as if the rest of
the brain were removed.
You can’t avoid the survival mode.
When we are trying to survive we cannot deal with non-linear problems. We
cannot be creative. We cannot think out of the box. We cannot be kind to
others, we cannot work out new ways of doing things, and we cannot use
intuition. Survival is every man for himself, every woman for herself. Teamwork
and social abilities disappear.
Fig. 6. Drawing of a brain sliced from top to bottom
perpendicular to the groove between the hemispheres, towards the front half of
the temporal lobe. The slice vaguely resembles a butterfly. Top is marked TOP.
Blue-purple is grey matter (nerve cells gathered together in
the cortex and in various nuclei).
Orange is white matter (axons connecting one area of the
brain with another).
The temporal lobes are the lower bulges on either side — the
lower wings of the “butterfly”.
The frontal lobes are the bulges above — the upper wings of
the “butterfly”.
The white inverted triangle in the middle is the two lateral
ventricles (full of spinal fluid) covered by the (orange) connection between
the two hemispheres (corpus callosum).
The area of the cingulate gyrus and the area of the amygdala
are labeled. So is the insula on either side. The insula is a cortical region
involved with the sense of taste and from which can originate sensations of disgust
and nausea.
Managers and executives beware: the
more often peoples’ subconscious brain structures perceive threats to
survival at their workplace, the worse the consequences. Behavior gets
worse. Efficiency and productivity go down. It takes longer and longer to
restore people’s brains to a neutral state, let alone an aligned, creative
state. And yes, simply working the wrong way with reports and teams in
your organization makes their subconscious brains interpret what is happening as a matter of survival,
not as simply being told to work a certain way!
Aren’t there exceptions —
firefighters, soldiers, emergency room doctors and nurses — people trained to
deal with emergencies and disasters? These highly-trained people are actually
hyper-focused in the survival mode of their expertise. In this mode they, too, use linear logic instead of creativity.
They are not exceptions. They’ve just been trained in many specific linear
processes the rest of us don’t know.
I only know one protection from
automatic fight-or-flight. It is to get trained in tools of consciousness that
include skills to block negative emotional responses and to discreate the unpleasant
emotions that are stirred up. How to do it is beyond the scope of this white
paper. Contact me.
What we know about the brain gives a
clear message to executives, managers, organizations and companies. Encourage
the SCARF traits.
1) Treat employees, staff,
colleagues, and teams so they feel valued.
2) Treat them so they are
certain that whatever they try to do will be appreciated whether it succeeds or
fails.
3) Treat them so they know they can
make their own decisions about what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.
4) Make them feel they are valuable
members of an organization in which superiors, peers, and people who report to
them are friends, not rivals.
5) Make sure no-one supervising them
plays favorites.
Successful executive coaching and
successful organization development follow also these rules. For example,
in his book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”, executive
coach Marshall Goldsmith considers 20 flaws in interpersonal behavior that
damage relations in a company. Let me link these flaws to SCARF
categories. I don’t minimize the deep and broad analysis Goldsmith
gives. I merely want to show that there is common ground between Goldsmith’s
approach and Rock’s.
- Problems with status seem to me to underlie Goldsmith’s flaws of
- needing to win too much,
- needing to add too much value,
- needing to tell the world how smart we are,
- needing to make excuses,
- needing to cling to the past to deflect blame,
- refusing to express regret,
- and an excessive need to be “me”.
- Undermining certainty is likely
- when a sentence begins with “no,” “but,” or “however”;
- when you “explain why that won’t work”,
- when you withhold information,
- and when you “speak when angry: using emotional volatility as a management tool.”
- Being unwilling to let people have autonomy underlies
- making destructive comments,
- sarcasm,
- cutting remarks;
- withholding information,
- and claiming credit you don’t deserve.
- Several flaws destroy the sense of relatedness:
- passing judgments,
- making destructive comments,
- speaking when angry,
- failing to give proper recognition,
- claiming credit you don’t deserve,
- making excuses,
- clinging to the past to deflect blame,
- refusing to express regret,
- failing to express gratitude,
- and passing the buck.
- Fairness is damaged by
- failing to give proper recognition,
- withholding information,
- claiming credit you don’t deserve,
- playing favorites,
- and punishing the messenger.
Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team” is about management consulting, about organization
development. Again, my intent is to show common ground. I’m not
trying to simplify or minimize Lencioni’s work.
- Absence of Trust is the bottom of Lencioni’s pyramid of dysfunctions. Absence of trust includes a lack of a sense of relatedness.
- The members of a team may be assigned together,
- but they are suspicious
- and even afraid of each other.
- They do not feel they are a group of aligned friends.
- Often, they may be juggling for a sense of status.
The absence of trust and its
underlying issues – restoring status and relatedness -- is the first problem
that needs to be solved when using Lencioni’s paradigm.
- Fear of Conflict is the second layer of the pyramid. Fear of conflict is
- a fear of an open, free-flowing discussion.
- Why? Because people on the team don’t trust each other.
- Fear of conflict is an issue of relatedness.
- Fear of conflict also means that the members of the team don’t feel autonomous
- and lack certainty about their part in a discussion.
- Lack of Commitment implies a lack of
- certainty
- and relatedness.
- Lack of commitment also means the teams’ members fear lack of autonomy
- and that their status is threatened.
- Avoidance of Accountability can come from problems with
- certainty,
- autonomy
- and relatedness.
- Avoidance of accountability is made worse
- if the team’s members sense lack of fairness.
- Inattention to Results comes from the sum of these problems. The sum can be stated in Lencioni’s paradigm or in David Rock’s:
- people on a dysfunctional team don’t pay attention
- to the results they get
- or to the results they should be getting.
- They can’t do it.
- The amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex are on.
- Much of the rest of the brain is off.
- They are in fight-or-flight mode.
The message is clear.
- Pay attention to SCARF traits and needs!
- Are you reinforcing the traits with your colleagues, reports, and subordinates,
- letting their work gratify them?
- Are you mistakenly undermining the traits,
- consciously
- or unconsciously,
- putting your colleagues and subordinates into flight-or-fright mode
- whose long term consequences prevent effectiveness and productivity?
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