Tag: Learning

With our opportunities for face-to-face interaction virtually nil, organizations have to rethink learning—and that’s a good thing.

By understanding and employing the science of spacing, we can tweak programs to make a dramatic difference in the impact of learning.

As coronavirus cases and deaths spiked around the world, so did an equally pervasive, but less observable ailment—anxiety. The effects of anxiety—reduced productivity and a lack of focus to name just two—have been felt widely among the global workforce, causing leaders to rightly ask, What can be done to stem the tide and restore calm to employees? We asked the same question. Specifically, we asked a host of questions of 688 survey participants and reviewed the relevant scientific literature. Through our research, we sought to understand the extent of the pandemic’s rippling cognitive and emotional effects and what leaders can do to alleviate them, cultivate well being, and instill confidence in their workforces. Our findings are compiled in our recent Idea Report, “The Mind in Crisis: Understanding employees’ needs in a changed workplace.” Among the most interesting and important findings is that employees who felt they were part of a team were significantly less anxious than those who didn’t. Moreover, there are things leaders can do to cultivate that camaraderie and reduce anxiety. Here’s how. The science and power of relatedness To feel a part of a team is to feel valued and heard, or in a word, included. At NLI, we use the SCARF® model, which defines five key domains of social threat and reward (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness), to understand how we can intentionally include others on a daily basis. Specifically, we can understand the feeling of being part of a team through the lens of relatedness. Relatedness is our innate need to belong to groups that offer us safety, shelter, and acceptance, and it’s been shown to be an important factor of a person’s ability to thrive, both in general and in the workplace, especially in times of crisis. We all know this intuitively from experience—humans have a natural reflex action to come together in a crisis. When we gather with friends and family in the wake of a crisis, we balance out the lack of certainty and feelings of having no control with the reward of being with others we trust. We create relatedness. We face a crisis now, but our physical isolation from other people may threaten our basic need for belonging and companionship, depriving us of our relatedness and exacerbating our anxiety. Therefore, cultivating a sense of organizational and interpersonal connectedness is crucial to helping your remote employees feel less isolated and less anxious. Organizations can cultivate relatedness by holding online all-hands meetings, or regular virtual morning coffee breaks or happy hours, where people stop work and just chat for 30 minutes. At a firm NLI partners with, people are creating relatedness by encouraging folks to change their backgrounds when on video, and then sharing what their background means to them—perhaps a photo from a vacation, or just a beautiful scene. Try this at 4:45 pm every day: Invite your team to a virtual group hangout to share what they have made progress on. Learn more This is just one of the findings of our latest research on the effects of the pandemic. Read about the other insights from NLI’s Idea Report, “The Mind in Crisis: Understanding employees’ needs in a changed workplace,” by clicking the link below and grabbing your copy today. [action hash= “638a5f77-c66e-49e6-b610-592c6dc17ae6”]

The beloved author H.P. Lovecraft has been famously quoted as saying that “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Lovecraft was no neuroscientist or business expert, but in this era of constant change, his sentiment rings true. Organizations face technological advances like never before, creating an ever-growing gap between existing and required skills. At NLI, we believe even the most fearful leader can take solace in the science of perspective-taking, insight, and effective execution, in order to lead a transformation in their organization. Here are three brain-based strategies all leaders can employ. [action hash=”1c967ecd-f614-4b3d-a6f1-a14c6ec523bc”] 1) Use SCARF® to practice perspective-taking Taking others’ perspectives offers many benefits, including seeing new possibilities with clients, colleagues, and even competitors. Perspective-taking facilitates social understanding and increases willingness to engage with others, build relationships, increases perceived leadership capability, and decreases stereotyping. Perspective-taking hinges on three processes: understanding that others possess mental states, realizing those mental states are not identical to our own, and overcoming the self-focused bias of our own perspective. Leaders can use the SCARF® Model — a way of grouping five domains of social threat and reward — to facilitate understanding of others’ motivation and social behavior. Specifically, they should explicitly ask for others’ perspectives, consciously take the perspective of those they seek to understand, and purposefully set aside time to practice. 2) Accelerate breakthroughs by creating the conditions for insight Innovation requires creative thinking, which neuroscience research suggests often derives from moments of insight. Research also shows that there is a reliable series of events that precede emergence of an insight — meaning that it’s not random; it follows a process. Threat and noise reduce the likelihood of insight generation, while a positive mood and relaxed state increase the chance of insight. Leaders can approach team processes with insight in mind by noticing when people tend to have the deepest insights and creating those conditions in daily processes. For example, leaving mornings — when people tend to have the most insights — free for private, quiet work. And allow people to have a few quiet minutes to reflect during a meeting rather than all working aloud. 3) Create extreme clarity for faster execution Uncertainty creates threat, flatlines creativity, impairs decision making, and ultimately diminishes productivity. When people feel threatened, their instinct is to be as careful as possible, often to the point of excess. For instance, role uncertainty breeds indecision and a pathological need for consensus to ensure that everyone is in agreement, which impedes swift progress. To mitigate threat and promote efficiency, leaders should create extreme clarity and set clear expectations in the areas that matter most. These include roles, process, and determining what “good” looks like. Creating extreme clarity in all five SCARFⓇ domains generates a sense of perceived control, which is fundamentally rewarding. Individuals and teams are more motivated to work together and accomplish goals with alacrity through transformation. Indeed, approaching transformation with the right strategies is like folding a paper airplane. Done right, you can make that flat piece of paper soar. [action hash=”1c967ecd-f614-4b3d-a6f1-a14c6ec523bc”]

Chris Pirie isn’t putting the future of organizational learning in the hands of gut feelings. He’s relying on hard brain science. In a recent interview with Singularity Hub’s Lisa Kay Solomon, Pirie, the general manager of worldwide learning at Microsoft, explained how companies will begin infusing research into their development processes. “We’ll start to know what it looks and feels like to pay full attention and which social and physical conditions can accelerate or throttle the learning process,” Pirie said. “Organizations like NeuroLeadership Institute are codifying the research into workable models that help [learning] designers to leverage those brain chemistry process and biases.” In addition to neuroscience, Pirie speculated that data science and social science will also inform how learning experience designers create their internal programs. “The learning scientists are coming!” he said. “Within corporations, we’re going to see a fundamental rethink of the role and responsibility of learning in organizations and the creation of a new type of learning organization.” Pirie has plenty of experience applying research to organizational habits: For the past two years, Microsoft has partnered with NLI to change its culture with the help of brain science. In mid-2016, the tech giant debuted its three leadership principles company-wide: Generate energy, Create clarity, and Deliver success. Simple as they may seem, a great deal of research suggests they put Microsoft in the best position to achieve its goals. For instance, as Pirie points out in his interview, scientists are making great strides in understanding how knowledge moves from short- to long-term memory. Specifically, we have seen the benefits time and again of making learning “sticky,” or memorable, by chunking bits of information into easily digestible pieces. We also minimize the amount of work required of the brain, since humans can’t juggle more than four or five ideas at a time. Microsoft’s leadership principles rely on that set of insights. Each principle is easy to remember, but so is the trio as a whole. We call this “coherence,” as it’s near impossible to remember one leadership principle without thinking of the other two. These strategies don’t just get people excited about making a change; they actually change behavior. As Pirie explains, this is one of the hallmarks of neuroscience-based learning initiatives, and what will propel the field into the future of learning. “I believe we will soon see diagnostic tools to help evaluate costly corporate learning programs against such standards,” he said, “and tools to help learning experience designers design for maximum impact.” SEE ALSO: The Smartest Teams Embrace the ‘Diversity Paradox’