Brain Hacks 4 Leadership

G. Cole, founder of Pathwaves. Pathwaves is a realization of over a decade spent mapping studying and balancing brainwave activity with more than 16,000 sessions. And over a million minutes of brainwave recordings to his credit, G is among the world's foremost brainwave experts. He's also the creator of Neuroempowerment, a pioneering science that balances the mind and body empowering people to take control of each day and live consciously in the present. G earned a certification in neurotechnology in 2008, he's trained as a psychological counselor under the direction of Dr. Francis Flynn, Doctor of Psychology, and provided lifestyle and healthy living coaching since 1997. G founded Neuroempowerment through the Pathwaves protocol. He helps you create intentional outcomes and take control by forming new empowered patterns to transform your life at Pathwaves, they spent over a decade fine-tuning, how to use your own synopsis to improve performance. It ends suffering from depression, anxiety, sleep issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, and more. G's website is https://pathwaveslife.com/

Do you care about getting more engagement from you team? Do you want to know how you can create an environment where your team works collaboratively, reduces conflict and supports each other and your organization? Are you focused on retaining and attracting talent? Are you struggling to build more inclusive teams? If so, this is the podcast for you. My guest, Jay Van Bavel, will highlight the importance of group identity in building high performing teams and share simple things that you can do right away to get your team moving in the right direction. Jay Van Bavel is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science with an affiliation at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations at New York University where he teaches one of the largest courses in the university. Jay completed his PhD at the University of Toronto. Jay conducts award-winning research on how collective concerns—group identities, moral values, and political beliefs—shape the brain and behavior. He has published over 60 academic papers on implicit bias, diversity and inclusion, group identity, team formation, cooperation, motivation, and the social brain. Jay has written about his research for the public in the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Scientific American. He has appeared on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman and NBC News, been interviewed on WNYC, Bloomberg News, and NPR, had his work profiled in international media and been cited in the US Supreme Court. Jay has given a TEDx talk at the Skoll World Forum as well as invited talks at many of the top Psychology Departments and Business Schools in the world (Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, Stanford). He has also given featured talks at international conferences and numerous organizations (e.g., Uber, Amazon, Reed Smith, Canadian Space Agency). Podcast Recap: Human nature makes it easy for us to identify with groups. Go to any culture in the world and people form groups. It is a human universal. Jay's research looks at how you activate that in people's minds - how you change that way their brain processes information once you put them in a team. Researchers have found it as simple as flipping a coin and putting people on the red team or the blue team. This gets them to automatically and quickly identify with their group. They are willing to give more to their group, engage with their group more and show them more trust. So, the first step in creating a good team is creating an 'us' an a 'them'. The hard part is identifying the right 'them'. You don't want people to be competing with other members of other groups within the organization or you can get sabotage or conflict, people retreating to silos, lack of collaboration and cooperation. There is certainly an art to it and identifying the right 'out group' is often a key element. The other element that is key is creating an element of a distinctive group. The groups that are stickiest, that they identify with the most, are ones that fulfill a sense of belonging, that make them feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves and at the same time creating a sense of distinctiveness. That they feel that there is something special about being in this group, that is hard to get into and different from other groups. This is referred to as the Velvet Robe Effect. If you run a club and there is a long line outside and a velvet rope with a bouncer, even if you get inside and no one is there, you feel from the outside looking into it that it a special club, something hard to get into …..or as Groucho Marx famously said, he would never want to be part of a club that was willing to admit him! We like to be a part of groups that are exclusive and distinctive. This is why fraternities and sororities have initiation rituals and why big corporations like Apple are able to hack the psychology. If you walk down anywhere in Manhattan and you walk by a coffee shop, 90% of the people have their MAC books open or their iPhone open, and yet most of these people feel that they are unique, and that their MAC is part of their unique distinctive identity. The reason for this is Apple has been triggering the psychology in people for decades. It started in the most famous commercial of all times in 1984 during the Superbowl, they aired an ad of someone speaking as if they were the famous book 1984, droning on and people were blindly watching it. Then this woman representing Apple came and smashed it and so the message is that you are anti-authority and anti-big brother if you use Apple. Another example with Apple is when Steve Jobs came back and started the Think Different campaign, which was about all these scientists and leaders, from Einstein to Gandhi, throughout history who stood out and were different and challenged convention. Apple is now more conventional and one of the world's most recognized brand in the world, but now when you have one, because of all the advertising over the years, it creates a feeling among it's users that there is something special or distinctive about them. So, leaders who can create this within their groups that you are part of 'us' and we are different, are the ones who are able to create the most distinctive, compelling and sticky group identities. This can directly correlate to higher engagement and discretionary effort given to the leader and the team. If you care about engagement or care about reducing absenteeism or presenteeism, this is a good strategy. When people are engaged and committed to their group, they don't want to let their team down. They don't want to fail because they actually care about the group and it's success. This is useful if you want to retain your best talent or recruit other talent to your team, to give them a sense that there is something special about them, is one powerful way of triggering this very basic psychology in the mind. As a CEO or senior leader, what should you be thinking about? One is to create a shared vision and/or common goal. Another thing that you can do is create a sense of history, and this is where distinctiveness can really be articulated. If you have this very unique story or history that everybody knows, they feel part of that connection and they feel like they are part of something bigger than them. Leaders could do more to articulate and remind people where they have come from, what their story is and finally where they are going. Finally, another thing is, and this turns out to be key to getting people to contribute, is making everybody feel like they have an important role to play, even if it is a little one, and that their role is essential. Letting them know that we can't succeed unless you do this little thing. That is something that really increases engagement and is a very helpful way to deal with diversity in teams. The teams that feel like everyone contributes are more likely to be inclusive and will choose to solicit the input and support of other team members and so you actually create the kind of situation that promotes the success of diverse groups and diverse organizations. What is going on in the brain that is causing this connection? The moment we flip a coin and put you on a team, your brain starts to process how you see in group and out group team members differently. You automatically start seeing people of your own group more positively. This activates early brain circuits like the amygdala and also changing the visual system, so it also suggests that the way you are seeing faces is changing in real time. You are starting to see people that are part of your team more as individuals and you are more likely to remember who they were. Basically, this is engaging a more careful attention and concern about who is with you. It does this amazing this because if you care about your identity, this group you belong to, and you see other in-group members get a reward, the same parts of the brain that respond when you are getting a reward get triggered. So, it is almost as if you were getting a pay increase or benefit. That is only for people who care about the group, otherwise you can get jealousy and conflict if you see others get what you wish to have. Identify solves that problem and it can reduce jealousy and conflict over things like that. This is also what is known as basking in the reflective glory. For example, this is when you go on social media and brag about a friend of yours or a colleague winning an award and you say that you are really proud of them. This means that your bragging on their behalf. You are getting part of the joy that they are getting because you care about them and feel you have a shared purpose with them. We have also found that pattern of activation in the brain when people are thinking about in-group members who are getting a reward. They don't show that same pattern when an out-group member gets a reward. Jay personally applies this to the team he leads at his research lab at NYU. Their lab is over 30 people who range from first year student volunteers to people who are post-doc and already have their PhD and are top researchers from other countries, so he cares a ton about identify. Every year he gives a talk to the whole lab about the vision, goals and their past. This meeting marks their progress and he shows graphs showing how many publications they have had over the years, and how it has grown, so they can see that they are getting better and stronger over time -- they are part of that. He also points out all the accomplishments of all the people in that lab that year – people who have graduated or won awards, became professors or had a break through with a method in the lab. He makes sure to call out all of them in front of everybody so that there is a shared identify that if you contribute to the team you are going to be celebrated as part of the team in this annual state of the union. Another thing Jay does is creating symbols of identity, doing little things like creating coffee mugs with the lab logo on them and once you start doing research with the lab you are part of the in-group and you get a mug. This year he is taking images of everyone's brain and will be creating pop-art, Andy Warhol type of art in the brain. He plans to frame it and put it around the lab – highlighting all the students who got their PhD in the lab. This is the highest and hardest level of accomplishment. He is finding ways to constantly remind them that they have a shared identity, showing a sense of history and highlighting all the individuals who came before them who have been part of this culture. The other thing is I get my student's advice before I hire anybody so they all have a voice in insuring they have a culture of people who care about the group and are cooperators who aren't just self-interested people. I take that as seriously as somebody's credentials when I am deciding who to bring into the group. I care about who is going to be a good group member. That doesn't mean just blindly going along with me or the other people. In fact, often during his meetings, when they have presentations, he tries not to speak too quickly because he doesn't want to create group-think where everyone has to agree with him. He is very conscious of not creating the negative parts of groups like group-think because there is a pathology that comes if you mis-manage a group with a strong identify. So that is also part of it, giving your team a voice so they have a feeling of commitment and shared ownership over where the group is going. What is one thing I can do right away to get the group dynamic right? The simplest thing is creating a shared vision, but I would go one step further because most people know that. First of all, your shared vision needs to be simple and you have to be able to say it all the time, so everybody knows what it is, but the second thing and the trickier thing is connecting it to your history. Showing where you came from and where you are going has everyone under the shared vision but also creates a sense of distinctiveness, so there is something special and unique about this group and about your organization. Jill works with a lot of leaders and finds that communicating a compelling vision is a challenge and often find that they don't talk about it enough to their team and their organization. They feel that everybody understands it when often that is not the case. Connecting the history is great because you will always have people coming in and out of your organization. This allows them to feel like they are joining something that is bigger than them, reminds them and keeps it fresh for them. One last thing, if you think of a team as a delicate ecosystem - if you add in one or two bad elements the team can unravel. I like the philosophy of the New Zealand men's Rugby team as they are the most successful team in any sport. They have a number of rules, but the most important rule is a simple one. They have a policy of No Dick Heads! When you think of the world's best team you think of the best talent. When you think of the best talent often you think of prima donnas, and that this is what the best talent looks like. They say no…no one is above the team and no one can put their interests above the team. As they leave the field at the end of each game, they all help to clean up the mess at the bench. They act like no one is above the team and that is the single sentence that describes the model. It helps them create a sense of tribe, family and friendship and nothing supersedes that. One of the keys to creating a good team is also not allowing anyone to put themselves above it. As leaders that rule starts with you! I hope that you have enjoyed this and can start using some of these great techniques to create more cohesive teams. Make sure to subscribe to be alerted to ongoing podcasts. I work with leaders and their teams to apply these concepts, grow themselves, their teams and their business. Schedule a free 30 minute consultation here to see if I can help you, your team or your organization. You can reach me, Jill Windelspecht, directly by email at [email protected] and visit my website at www.TalentSpecialists.net.

Have you ever wished you or your team could be more creative? Would you like your team to come up with different ways to solve problems? Do you think that only certain people have that kind of creativity? Would you like to 'turn a dial' and become more focused or creative? My Guest: Balder Onarheim, CEO of PlatoScience If so, this is the podcast for you. Balder Onarheim, CEO of PlatoScience, will break down how to tap into your creativity and the creativity of your team. The good news is that it is not magical – everyone has the ability to be creative. Balder Onarheim is a serial entrepreneur and former associate professor in creativity at the Technical University of Denmark. He is the founder of the Copenhagen Institute of NeuroCreativity and CEO at PlatoScience: making the world's first creativity boosting headset. Balder's expertise lies within a neurologically based understanding of creativity, and methods to use this understanding to make people better problem solvers. He is a popular speaker with talks at prestigious conferences and universities around the world, and more than 300k people has seen his TEDx talk "3 tools to become more creative Podcast Highlights: Balder has been working with Neurobiologists to understand what creativity is and how it works from a neuroscience perspective so that they can help all of us be more creative. We all have creativity, it is everywhere – the secret is learning how to tap into those abilities. The first step for leaders is to acknowledge the importance of creativity, as simple as that sounds. When leaders have a mindset that some employees are creative, and others are not, they treat employees differently and can miss out on the creativity of their whole team. Realizing that creativity is a basic human skill that we all have is important. It is a matter of nurturing it, training it and using it for the right purpose in the right point in time. By doing this you can make creativity part of your everyday work. After you acknowledge that creativity is a crucial skill, using it every day in small ways is important to create that habit. How many little ways can you encourage creativity? For example, setting up rules like 'we need one bad idea for every good idea'. When you use this approach across the whole organization, it can help people re-analyze the way they solve problems. There are 5 cognitive traits associated with Neurocreativity, they are: Priming Cognitive Inhibition Remote Associations Fixation Incubation The first is priming, setting the stage for what you want, on a management level it could be asking the team for alternative solutions and setting that expectation to think differently. Avoid giving your own idea first or an example of an idea because it can lead people to only think of that type of solution for the program. The key is to mix it up, keeping it random. A few ideas to get yourself to think more creatively: Go to Wikipedia and select Random Article on the navigation, which can spark creativity because you will get a piece of information you would not normally have read. (Balder explains more about this in his TedX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-YScywp6AU ) Take a different route back and forth to work. Grab a random book off your bookcase, flip to a page, have a short read and then go back to what you were doing. The information we take in shapes the ideas we will have. Shaking it up allows you to have new thoughts that allow you to think creatively. The second trait is cognitive inhibition – it is a controlling system in our brain to keep us from being overloaded with information. It works to restrict the amount of information you get access to, keeping us sane! For most of us it works overtime and the downside is that it can get rid of new information that can lead to new ideas. Remote associations is the third cognitive trait associated with neuro-creativity. The associative network is where all our thoughts and memories are stored. Think of it like the internet as a whole that can link to multiple websites, everything is connected, it is just a matter of how many steps are needed to connect it. For example, if I say 'dog', your brain will most likely bring up the concept of a cat, it is closely associated. Creativity is a lot about finding those remote associations, so the strategy is to find any method you have to get to those remote associations that can help you think more creatively about the problem you are working on. Creativity is about combining things that are normally not related. So, how can I be more creative? The more you simply understand neuro-creativity, the more you can apply and tap into it. Awareness is the key and the first step. Understanding what creativity is and how it works, then training yourself to use that knowledge through practice. Fixation is the fourth cognitive trait and we have all experienced this. For example, when you can't get your head off a certain topic or a certain word. It is the 'tip of the tongue' effect when you are trying to remember the name of someone and you get it close….but not right. Suddenly it becomes impossible to get the right word because your brain gets fixated on this other name which is close but not quite there. You are zooming in on this part of your associative network and therefore you can't see the right word. The more you associate one thought with another, the stronger connected they become. When you get fixated, the best thing to do is to stop thinking about it and think about something else, take a walk or clear your head another way. This is the last trait – incubation. Incubation – these breaks we discussed are necessary for you to tap into the remote associations that allow you to be more creative. Step away from the problem you are working on and start thinking of something else. We can't be creative all the time – the key is to be intentional about when you want to be creative and then using these concepts and acting differently to get the creativity. As a leader, as yourself 'Do we need to emphasize creativity right now?' If yes, what are the best methods for you to do so? If you are trying to be creative think about how you are setting up the environment. How often do you need these breaks? Studies range from 20 minutes to one hour before needing a break and starting to think about something else or just shifting tasks. What do you do on that break? It goes back to priming, ask yourself what sort of priming will help you get to the next stage? If you or the team is getting fixated, get up physically, go outside if you can, do some exercises. Balder does squats with his team to get some circulation going when this happens. The key is doing something or thinking about something differently. These can be social breaks where you are checking in with a spouse or talking to your peers about other outside interests. We all have the ability to be creative and as leaders we can create environments that will unleash it for our teams. Once you get started, creativity can be addicting, and your team will continue to be creative if you continue to encourage it. The key is to GET STARTED!! One thing that you could do today – acknowledge the importance of habits for yourself at home and in the workplace. We tend to be single minded about this if we are allowed to do so. Be conscious about the importance of breaking some of these habits when you want to be more creative. For example, do you always search the same websites or resources when looking for answers to a problem? Think about your team meetings, if you always have them in the same room, in the same seats, looking in the same direction with the same agenda and order of speaking, these influence you and your team. If you want to be more creative, change something up here. So, the starting point for creativity is to acknowledge the importance of random inputs and changing habits. Quick tip – the direction you look out from your desk has an impact on your creativity scores. Just by turning the chair 90 degrees and looking in a different direction can help stimulate creativity. It can be that simple. What are the technological advances you are working on? They have been working on ways to get to your brain from the outside for the last three years by sending weak electrical impulses through the brain which allows you to slightly change the brain's ability to perform a task in a certain region of the brain, essentially trying to hijack a brain function. They have over 150 products in the market today that you can use. Customers range from programmers, lawyers, students, engineers, management consultant, etc. who want to focus on being creative using one of their unique headsets. The way it works is that you use the app to pick the thinking style you would like that would be most beneficial to the task you are working on and the headset will replicate the balancing of the brain for that type of task. If you want to know more and get your own headset go to https://platoscience.com/platowork/ What are some things that leaders should do when they are planning to have these leadership off-sites focused on being creative? There are two ways that Balder and the team have worked with numerous organizations to accomplish this: Assumption Dumption – bring out all the assumptions people have about the problem you are trying to solve out in the open. Most of these are unspoken and would not be shared any other way. Discuss them and sort them by truth, relevance or those things that need to be just kept in mind. Scrap those assumptions that are outdated or just rumors. This helps to eliminate thoughts that limit their take on the problem – getting rid of the old ghosts! Negative Brainstorm – flip the problem around and ask people to come up with diverse possible solutions that they think are bad ideas. This brings some humor into the meeting and you will find most of the bad ideas can bring something useful to the table. You take the absolutely worst ideas that come up and analyze them – what makes them bad as well as what are the positive elements. Challenge people to remove the bad things and keep the good things and you end up coming up with a good idea that comes from a terrible idea. It is fun, gets people to think about the problem in different ways. It always brings out new good ideas that you would normally never dare to bring up if you were asked to come up with only good ideas. NEXT STEPS FOR YOU! I hope that you have enjoyed this and can start using some of these great techniques to become more creative and create the right environment for your team. Make sure to subscribe to be alerted to ongoing podcasts. I work with leaders and their teams to apply these concepts, grow themselves, their teams and their business. Schedule a free 30 minute consultation here to see if I can help you, your team and/or your organization. You can reach me, Jill Windelspecht, directly by email at [email protected] and visit my website at www.TalentSpecialists.net. Resources: PlatoScience - https://platoscience.com/ 3 tools to become more creative - TedX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-YScywp6AU PlatoWork Headset - https://platoscience.com/platowork/

Have you ever wished you could get that moment back when you let your emotions take over? Do you want to make better choices and better decisions in the moment? This is the podcast for you! My guest, Dr. Marcia Reynolds, MCC, is fascinated by the brain, especially what triggers feelings of connection, commitment, and possibility. She draws on her research as she helps coaches and leaders make every conversation is a difference-making experience. She has provided executive coaching and leadership training programs in 38 countries. Dr. Reynolds is a pioneer in the coaching profession. She was the 5th global president of the International Coach Federation and has returned to the board as a Global Director. She is also the training director for the Healthcare Coaching Institute at Virginia Tech, and on faculty for the International Coach Academy in Russia and Create China Coaching in China. She is recognized by the Global Gurus top 30 as the #5 coach in the world. She was one of the first to earn the designation of Master Certified Coach. Interviews and excerpts from Marcia's books Outsmart Your Brain, and The Discomfort Zone: How Leaders Turn Difficult Conversations into Breakthroughs, and Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction, have appeared in many places including Fast Company, Psychology Today, and The Wall Street Journal. Marcia's doctoral degree is in organizational psychology and she has two master's degrees in education and communications. Highlights from the Podcast: Information doesn't change behavior, just because you 'know' something it doesn't mean you will do it – there needs to be emotion involved. The first step to being aware is managing your emotions and your energy. Next you need to be curious because when you are with other people you need to think about how you are showing up with them. For example, are you partnering with them and helping them move forward OR is your intention to just get them to do what you want them to do? Emotions are just energy moving through your body and it is important information to pay attention to that tells you what is going on in the moment – notice it and accept it. Don't label it good or bad, just notice it. Where in your body do you feel anger? Notice it – it is different for everyone. One tip to start noticing your emotions is to set a reminder on your phone 2 to 3 times a day to just track what you are feeling at the moment. This can help make you more aware. This is how you can start to build Reflective Intelligence – noticing the emotions is the first step. After you notice the emotion then you can go to what you want to feel instead – but you have to feel the shift. You can't just tell yourself to be patient – you have to do something to feel more patient. For example, turn on some music or look at pictures to make you feel calmer. You have to understand what your triggers are – what are people taking from you that makes you react? For example, do you feel you are being respected, not safe or now being acknowledged? The thing about triggers, (which she goes into much more deeply in her book and you can go to www.outsmartyourbrain.com and search for emotional triggers to download the list) is that whatever has made you successful in this life is what is going to be your emotional trigger because you are protecting it. For example, if you want attention, control, order or accuracy and feel that any of those are being threatened, you will go on the defense. This happens really quickly and when you realize what is happening you have the choice of (1) asking for that or (2) letting it go. Being aware gives you more control in your response if you understand your reactions and why they are happening. If something is really important to you, the primitive brain kicks in because the brain is designed to protect you. When we get defensive, it happens pretty quickly, and we react because we feel like someone is taking something from us or not giving us something we feel we deserve like respect or credibility. It is a primitive reaction that happens quickly and we either react or shut down, we are either a flighter or fighter. Now this could happen in the primitive brain, or if it bypasses the primitive brain, then it hits your social brain. Then we have the social needs where I might feel embarrassed or disappointed or frustrated because I am not getting what I think I need. This happens in the middle brain where you get defensive, you argue, you shut down or you feel embarrassed or sad. This affects what you will say or not say and the actions you will take. It doesn't hit your logical brain until all this other stuff comes into play, which we use to give ourselves great reasons as to why we reacted that way or why we said that thing! (There is a great example of this in Chapter 1 of Outsmart your Brain). Once you start noticing these emotions – what can you do? Well, first know that these never go away, just accept that you are human, and this is who you are and they will decrease. You won't stop being triggered and there will be certain people in your life that will trigger you more than others. The more we acknowledge them the less power they have over us and we get triggered but it is not as strong. There is a 4-step formula to shift your emotions: Relax…Detach…Center….Focus. Relax – because it is biological, breathe and release the tension in your body, breathing is the quickest way to release the tension. Do a body scan and relax your muscles. Detach – clear your brain and wipe it clean. Center – Take a tip from professional athletes that are taught to shift their awareness to their center, which is at the bottom of your breath – the center of your body. You take a deep breath in and notice the bottom of your breath – that is your center, your core. When you can move your awareness there, you are more powerful. Focus – choose the one or two words that represent how you want to feel and then feel those emotions before you speak. This is how you can make better choices in the moment – which leads to better outcomes. The best part is this not only helps you at work, but it helps you at home. Great resources that you can leverage to learn more about this: www.outsmartyourbrain.com and her books Outsmart your Brain and The Discomfort Zone. Last thing, people want you to be present more than they want you to be perfect. Listen to what they have to say, this makes people feel valued and important without any words. I hope that you have enjoyed this and can start using some of these great techniques to build more self-awareness and have better conversations. Make sure to subscribe to be alerted to ongoing podcasts. You can reach me, Jill Windelspecht, directly by email at [email protected] and visit my website at www.TalentSpecialists.net.

Special Guest: Richard E. Boyatzis, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Departments of Organizational Behavior, Psychology, and Cognitive Science and H.R. Horvitz Chair of Family Business, Case Western Reserve University Creator of Intentional Change Theory (ICT) Most Influential International Thinker, HR Magazine (2014) Author of more than 175 articles and 7 books, including Primal Leadership and Resonant Leadership Highlights from the Podcast: A recent study on motivation and retention, involving 1,800 MBA grads two years into their work, found that salary & benefits were the 7th reason they stayed at their job. The first 6 all had to do with novelty and learning! Development is very important if you want people to use their talent and to stay. People are not looking at their job as a transaction anymore. Training is not typically effective, especially in high power distance cultures, so coaching is the answer. Richard defines coaching as helping other people move toward their ideal self or personal vision. Coaching in business has been around since the 60's (not a new fad as some believe) – and it is all about helping. Coaching is desired….but not always effective! His personal studies have shown that 70% - 80% of managers are not adding value in this space…..and that includes CEOs. The Coaching Research Lab at Case Western Reserve focuses on these 3 coaching client outcomes – (1) the person articulates or reframes their personal vision (2) helping someone's behavior change in the way they want to and (3) helping them build better relationships with their coach and other people so they can continue to grow, develop and innovate. If you want to know more about the research they are doing, follow this link: https://weatherhead.case.edu/departments/organizational-behavior/coaching-research/ Neuroimaging studies are showing how important personal visioning is because when someone dreams, not set goals, it activates the default mode network. It dramatically activates the visual lateral cortex, which is the part of the brain engaged when you are imagining things. These studies helped show us that problem solving coaching doesn't work if you start with that and don't get people to think about their personal vision first. If you only focus on solving a problem, you will not get behavior change. Understanding your personal vision is critical to making change last. In the Intentional Change Theory he developed, he said to sustain desired change – you have to want to change – not do it for someone else or because you think you should. It starts with you – you have to really want to change. We are dismally poor in knowing how we are coming across to others – this is where a coach can help a lot. In addition, a coach can help you set your personal vision – identifying your ideal self by pulling out your dreams. I asked Richard what his dream was and he said his purpose is to help liberate people in terms of their dreams, individually or collectively – to help them find their shared vision in a way that energizes them. What is one thing you can do today? People in organizations spend time thinking about being more effective….and that is appropriate, but you shouldn't think about it so much that you are not thinking about how to adapt and innovate. These two tasks take place in different parts of the brain. Learning to have more balance / more flexibility is one thing that is key. The more narrow you are, the worse off you are. How do you become less narrow and more innovative? Talk to people who care about you, who have comparable interests and who see the world differently from you to get the diversity you need. Build relationships that have more caring in them because that is what is going to last. Executives don't do the work, their job is to inspire others to do the work and you can't inspire others unless you are inspired yourself and care about other people. For a free copy of Richard and his team's latest paper on antagonistic neural networks and leadership in Frontiers: http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/Abstract.aspx?s=537&name=human_neuroscience&ART_DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2014.00114&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&journalName=Frontiers_in_Human_Neuroscience&id=79428 Your Host: Jill Windelspecht, President of Talent Specialists Consulting, is an executive coach, speaker and consultant who works with leaders like you, across the globe, to grow themselves, their team and their organization. It is all about People….Science….Purpose. Dedicated to helping people, leveraging neuroscience and social science to help leaders and organizations find their purpose. www.talentspecialists.net, [email protected]