Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders (26 page)

The human brain is made up of brain cells called “neurons.” Each neuron has an axon and a cell body. Within the cell body are a nucleus and numerous other organelles that metabolize nutrients so that the brain cells can survive. Projecting from the cell body are numerous dendrites that make connections with neighboring cells. Through these multiple connections, called “synapses,” is where many changes occur.

Figure 6.3. Schematic representation of a synapse

Evidence that Brain Change Is Possible in Adulthood

Brain plasticity
(or neuroplasticity) refers to the brain’s ability to change structure and function. Whereas it used to be believed that the brain had done all of its changing early on in life, we now know (and can see through brain-imaging studies) that the brain can change in adulthood.
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Experience is a major stimulant of brain plasticity. It is now clear that experience produces multiple, dissociable changes in the brain. These include the following:
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• Increases in dendritic length. (Dendrites are projections from the cell body.)

• Increases (or decreases) in dendritic spine density.

• Synapse formation. (Synapses are where one cell literally connects with another.)

• Increased glial activity. (Glia are the supporting cells between neurons.)

• Altered metabolic activity.

Evidence of brain change comes from different types of studies:

• Post-mortem studies

• Brain imaging studies (especially fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging)

• EEG studies (brain waves studies)

• Animal studies

Although brain change is possible, not all parts of the brain change equally easily, and not all thought or experience is powerful enough to create lasting change. We are now in the position to understand the brain’s response to change as well as some of the subtleties that affect how and whether we change.

In this chapter we will focus on four aspects involved in the change process:

• The neurobiology of task switching

• The neurobiology of memory as it relates to change

• The neurobiology of action as it relates to change

• The neurobiology of emotion as it relates to change

Task Switching and the Brain: Relevance to Change

The concept:
Actions determine productivity in organizations. One of the biggest costs to organizations is not converting intention to action. Often, many meetings are held where people articulate an intention that ends up satisfying all people that a change was considered. This is different from a change being instituted or maintained. The dissociation between intention and action cannot be understated, and brain researchers are discovering the underlying processes that may help us understand this dissociation more productively.

Even as early as four decades ago, mismatches in intention and action were shown to be associated with frontal lobe lesions, where some people even recognized this mismatch but could not do anything about it.
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In healthy people, this has been called “goal-neglect.”
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The brain starts “firing” long before we know about what our intentions are.
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These implicit intentions start the path toward action. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC), which is the brain’s navigator, communicates with the frontal lobe to coordinate transformation from intention to action.
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One possible model of change is illustrated in
Figure 6.4
.

Figure 6.4. Model of change

Task switching is an important component of change and a useful way to study cognitive control functions.
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When people change, they are effectively changing the way they think and act. Change brings about a new perspective and, along with that, a new terrain for exploration. At a simplified level, to go from Situation A to Situation B, a person must necessarily be willing and able to switch tasks. Switching
tasks is not as simple as it sounds. Most people feel the pull back to performing old tasks, even after they start out on new ones.

When we have intentions, they may be unconscious at first,
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and they may arise due to multiple motivating factors. Subsequently, intentions may become conscious. However, the intent to act is prone to competing influences from the past, present, and future, and this requires decoding by the brain (usually done by the temporal and parietal lobes).
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Intention and action must be coupled in the brain at all times for the action to be successful. For example, if you intend to speak with a calmer and more empathic emotional tone to a labor force, this intention has to become a part of you (and your brain) and coupled with that action at all times. The brain uses different systems for processing self-initiated intentions coupled with action (e.g., remembering that you must speak this way before you see someone) versus cued (remembering that you must speak this way only when you see someone).
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Thus, when one is changing behavior, the demands on the brain for self-initiated intention-action matching are considerable.

Switch-cost:
Switching between tasks is associated with a decrement in performance, or “switch-cost,” relative to repeating the same task.
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This is the reason why so many people are resistant to change. The various costs of switching (time delay, threat of unfamiliarity, disorientation, inaccuracy) often prohibit immediate change. Switch-cost only matters if one is switching from performing one task to performing another; changing only our intended performance does not elicit the same performance deficit.
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That is why people may be more inclined (consciously or unconsciously) to remain in the intention phase rather than moving into the action phase. It is also the reason why people stay in the phase of “inspiration” over “action.” The feeling of inspiration is always very pleasant to people, at a biological level, because there is no switch-cost. Acting on that inspiration is much less pleasant, because it involves new learning, and the switch-cost comes into effect. Humans tend to see their function as learners early on, and repeaters later on. This occurs because we all enjoy a sense of mastery. Task-switching thwarts a previously held sense of mastery. The person switching tasks is most likely to succeed if he or she views the task-switching as an opportunity for new mastery. To have this view, individuals need to be rewarded for new learning rather than mastery at old practices. This change can affect the very foundation of an institution.

John X. was a project manager turned unsuccessful serial entrepreneur. He would often come up with an idea, make the product, and repeatedly “lose interest” in following through with his actions. This may be understood partly as his being unwilling to pay the switch-cost of the brain demands involved in sustaining the intention-action coupling.

The brain and switch-cost:
The underlying brain-mechanism reason for “switch-cost” has been referred to as “backward inhibition.”
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That is, in order to move into a new task (change), a person has to inhibit attention to an old task. In other words, switching tasks involves choosing among many alternatives that the brain has registered and inhibiting the unchosen tasks from taking center stage, not just attending to the new task. (Later on we will address how this inhibition may occur.)

Using event-related potentials (ERPs) that are brain-wave responses to specific stimuli, one group of researchers found two distinct brain regions reacting differently during task switching.
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They found that switching tasks requires participation of the frontal and parietal cortex, which have also been implicated in attention, and that the frontal cortex only is extremely important with regard to performing the actions that result in the switch-costs. Each of these regions showed different patterns of brain waves upon being examined.

This is good news, because we have tremendous control over our frontal lobes, and any exercises that promote frontal function will likely promote coping with switch-costs. In fact, one study found that it is possible to engage cognitive control in advance, such that the new behavior is as efficient as if the subject were to have repeated the old behavior by encouraging greater cognitive control or frontal involvement.
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This control may occur with repeated practice that engages the fronto-parietal cortex.
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Dissecting the components of change into gradual small components may help the posterior parietal cortex (the brain’s navigator) process the change information, because this region has been shown to be instrumental in processing a limited number of items held in working (short-term) memory brain systems, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).
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Notably, practice affects different brain regions differently. Practicing in a “primary” area (one that is responsible for the eventual execution of a function) is not likely to lead to brain changes or plasticity because the primary motor and sensory systems of the brain are less amenable to change. Instead, the association areas or multimodal regions that process multiple inputs simultaneously (the Renaissance regions of the brain!) are prone to greater plasticity.
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One important component of change is that it is likely to be faster if people conceive of this as being “of their own” and not imposed from the outside. A recent experiment showed that when people are primed to identify themselves as distinct from others, they are likely to process images of themselves much faster. This correlates with brain activation in the right middle frontal gyrus.
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The application:
When working with someone like John X., who appears to be busy doing nothing, a manager or coach may turn to brain science to understand and communicate what is happening. A manager could say, for example, that John’s brain was not willing to pay the “switch-cost” of maintaining a different path of action. Even after action was initiated, something in John’s ability to sustain the intention-action coupling was compromised. In terms of brain science, a manager could explore the following possibilities: (1) Did John have competing unconscious intentions? (2) At some point, was John feeding his brain’s navigator too much information so that it malfunctioned and did not communicate with the brain’s action center? (3) Was John too slow and therefore boring himself because he was observing himself rather than involving himself and owning his actions? (4) What was jamming up the fronto-parietal cortex that needs to process the intention and bring John to action? Were his intentions “deep” enough to activate these brain regions?

In general, what can a coach, leader, or manager think about or do to apply the switch-cost paradigm? In addition to emphasizing why the new change is important, a coach or manager could
show
why the old ways did not work. This will enhance the backward inhibition that is necessary to perform task switching. Use graphs or encourage interactions with people in the field to help show how certain actions by themselves do not work. For example, hospitals are no longer open to discussing drugs at length with drug reps. If a marketing manager ignores this fact, he or she may still attach significance to the number of places visited or number of hours on the road. This will be inefficient if the actual contact is not made. New methods of contact that are in keeping with the hospital’s mission need to be devised. The change will be a new focus on alliance rather than inciting the paranoia of doctors or hospital executives around conflicts of interest. Managers or coaches can also devise a method for accountability. If people use old methods of change, help them understand the practical problems with this by connecting the old action with an old outcome that is no longer desired. Also, you should encourage practicing a new task. Set up check-in points related to the new practice. Practice will enhance frontal function and promote the actions that are necessary to develop mastery in the new task. In addition, emphasize that roadblocks are a sign that change is occurring. This is part of the switch-cost. No roadblocks means no switch-cost, which means that no real action-oriented change is occurring. Finally, explore methods for the change-agent to feel in control from the beginning. This will enhance frontal function. Instructions about change are the worst method for creating change. Help people understand that change is painful, and if there is no pain, there is likely to be no
change. They are not weaker for feeling the pain. They are human, and this pain is merely a sign that their frontal lobes are being activated by the new changes. Coaches can recognize that multimodal brain regions are more plastic than primary regions. One practical significance of this is that rewards, when used, should target more than just one brain region. That may explain why a jar of M&M’s is on the table of a university professor, or why Google provides food free of charge to its employees. The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, probably one of the leading hotels in the country, has a signature scent when you enter the lobby. You see and smell at the same time. Your brain is more likely to change in this environment. Managers and coaches can say the following to leaders: “‘No pain, no gain’ has a basis in the brain. When we want to change, the brain has to work harder to change its circuits and the connections. Also, it has to inhibit going back to familiar ways.”