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Best of 2024: Leadership
Brain science can help organizations make the most of their investment in current and future leaders.
December 17, 2024
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Brain science can help organizations make the most of their investment in current and future leaders.
Discover key leadership trends for 2025 in Dr. David Rock’s latest Fast Company article. From reframing DEI to navigating hybrid work, AI, and workplace civility, stay ahead with these insights from the NeuroLeadership Institute’s Co-Founder & CEO.
Managing performance in a hybrid working world is no easy feat. Fortunately, brain science can demystify the process.
Accountability became a major topic in 2024. Here’s how leaders can build a healthy, high-performing culture.
Neuroscience offers helpful tips to reclaim control over a negative mental state.
Christy Pruitt-Haynes of the NeuroLeadership Institute offers advice on how employers can support employees’ mental health after the divisive 2024 election. Learn strategies for flexibility, empathy, and maintaining workplace stability during a stressful time.
Christy Pruitt-Haynes of the NeuroLeadership Institute shares tips on navigating a divided office after the 2024 election, focusing on civility, mental health, and supporting productivity in a politically charged environment.
As election day nears, emotions are heightened among American workers. Christy Pruitt-Haynes, Distinguished Faculty at the NeuroLeadership Institute, emphasizes the need for employers to support their teams through potential post-election uncertainty.
In their insightful exploration, NeuroLeadership Institute’s Rahul Swali, Dr. Emma Sarro, and Dr. Laura Cassiday argue that finance leaders must evolve from mere scorekeepers to collaborative partners by fostering shared accountability across teams.
A “pathway” approach to learning brings all employees together to shift behaviors at the same time and through a common language.
AI can open doors toward creative thinking, but it’s not yet a match for human imagination.
If you want your feedback to make a difference, focus on reducing feelings of threat.
Political conversations at work are on the rise, but they can be tricky to navigate. Christy Pruitt-Haynes of the NeuroLeadership Institute offers tips on setting clear boundaries to maintain team cohesion in this CNN Business article exploring the complexities of politics in the workplace.
Leaders everywhere are thinking about artificial intelligence, leadership development, and building cultures of high performance.
In this WorkLife article, Christy Pruitt-Haynes, leadership expert at the NeuroLeadership Institute, warns against the rising trend of ‘demure’ behavior in the workplace, emphasizing its potential to hinder women’s career advancement.
Covid positivity rates have surged past 40% for the second time, leading to increased sick days among employees, with the summer peak attributed to waning immunity and more time spent indoors. However, NLI’s Christy Pruitt-Haynes notes that companies are now more adept at quickly adapting to rising cases, reducing panic and leveraging remote work capabilities.
AI is revolutionizing how organizations operate by transforming data into actionable insights, but true AI transformation requires a deep understanding of human behavior to drive meaningful change. Read this VentureBeat article by NLI’s Dr. David Rock and Dr. Laura Cassiday to learn more!
Hybrid work has changed the workplace dramatically — and performance management must change with it.
If you’ve been sneaking in some Olympics watching during your workday, you’re not alone. Christy Pruitt-Haynes from the NeuroLeadership Institute suggests companies embrace this reality and even leverage the Olympics for team-building, as lost productivity could amount to $2.6 billion according to a MarketWatch analysis.
A new study provides compelling evidence that hybrid work improves employee satisfaction and retention without damaging performance.
HR metrics provide essential data for HR professionals to enhance engagement, optimize hiring, and improve efficiency. Christy Pruitt-Haynes, Distinguished Faculty at the NeuroLeadership Institute, highlights their connection to business goals in this article from Built In.
In this article from WorkLife, Christy Pruitt-Haynes from the Neuroleadership Institute highlights the cognitive toll of concealing one’s true self at work, as demonstrated by a TikTok trend where users humorously contrast their professional personas with their authentic selves outside of work.
As Covid-19 cases rise in the U.S., businesses are leveraging pandemic lessons to minimize disruptions. NeuroLeadership expert Christy Pruitt-Haynes explains how companies quickly adapt to remote work. Learn more in this Inc. publication.
Effective leadership requires thinking ahead, owning commitments, and anchoring on solutions.
Why are some teams more successful than others when it comes to meeting deadlines, hitting targets, and growing revenues? Researchers at the NeuroLeadership Institute looked at the cognitive processes associated with leaders who cultivate accountability on their teams. They identified three distinct habits practiced by these leaders: They think ahead, obsess about commitments, and anchor on solutions.
The concepts of growth mindset, psychological safety, and accountability define an effective new type of leadership.
In this article from CNN Business, learn how to maintain workplace civility amid polarized views with advice from HR expert Christy Pruitt-Haynes from the NeuroLeadership Institute.
This SHRM article discusses the mental health challenges faced by HR professionals, with Christy Pruitt-Haynes (NLI’s Distinguished Faculty) emphasizing that overwhelmed HR leaders struggle to support their teams effectively, underscoring the importance of prioritizing their own well-being to model healthy behaviors and maintain a supportive work environment.
This article from WorkLife explores how employees believe the actions of their direct managers lead to the toxicity of the workplace, including insight from NLI’s Distinguished Faculty, Christy Pruitt-Haynes.
In today’s changing world of work, it’s more important than ever to know how to give and receive feedback.
After the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to ban non-compete agreements, EBN provides insight from NLI’s Distinguished Faculty, Christy Pruitt-Haynes, on how this will effect the workforce.
Christy Pruitt-Haynes (NLI’s Distinguished Faculty of Leadership and Performance) weighs in on today’s TikTok trend on micro-feminism at work.
Join Dr. Amy Edmondson (Novartis Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School) and Dr. David Rock (CEO and Co-Founder, NLI) in the last of our 3-part series. They’ll lead the NLI community in an exploration of how psych safety has the power to boost accountability and engagement, thereby driving sustainable business results over time.
Understanding neuroscience can help leaders be more effective at the individual, team, and organizational levels.
In the pursuit of results, leaders don’t have to choose between kid gloves or command-and-control.
Leaders often feel overwhelmed with training options. Here’s how to really scale learning, according to neuroscience.
The right hybrid work model can maximize both individual and organizational productivity.
These best articles from 2023 explore how humans can find ways to work alongside AI rather than fear it.
The five biggest leadership trends for 2024, according to NLI founder and CEO David Rock.
When bias mixes with exploitative business practices, the result is performance punishment. Learn how to avoid giving all your hard tasks to one person.
Contrary to popular belief, group brainstorming doesn’t actually produce more or better ideas. Here’s what to do instead.
Awe-inspiring dreams can enhance resilience and goal progress at work, research finds.
Having a friend help you reappraise a negative situation is more beneficial than reappraising it alone, according to recent studies.
By following a few key practices, it’s possible — and deeply beneficial — to create teams of high performers.
The way our brains evolve challenges our ability to excel in a leadership role.
Researchers have developed a tool to alert office workers when it may be time to take a break.
We can learn how to become more resilient through lessons from emergency department nurses.
Growth mindset shows up in nearly all aspects of life and work. But what exactly is a growth mindset, and how can we use it to get better?
Understanding how stress impacts cognitive capacity can help you manage it.
With a leadership gap looming, organizations need to challenge assumptions about what makes a good leader.
Can personality tests help you choose the best job applicant?
Workplace conflict doesn’t have to be negative. Here’s how to help your team have a good fight.
Not sure what psychological safety is? We break down the basics — and how teams can achieve it.
For innovation to happen, you first need to increase the quantity and quality of your insights.
AI is great at saving time on tedious work but not so great at replicating abstract or creative tasks.
Conventional wisdom says sacrificing sleep to work longer hours is a path to success, but studies show missing sleep backfires.
Honing only one skill set can lead to a fixed mindset and the inability to think creatively about a new problem.
Focusing on a single task saves time, improves accuracy, and reduces stress.
In this HR Future article, Co-Founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute explains the obstacles involved when taking time off work, and what organizations can do to improve company culture.
Recent research shows we could be acting responsibly when we forget things.
Human beings struggle with a variety of cognitive biases that interfere with our ability to manage time, but brain science can help us improve.
This Fast Company article provides neuroscience-backed tips to keep talent motivated, including guidance on safety from NeuroLeadership Institute’s Global Head of Talent and Performance Practice, Christy-Pruitt Haynes.
Understanding why the way we learn and the way others learn matters.
In this article from SHRM, Christy Pruitt-Haynes (Global Head of Talent & Performance at the NeuroLeadership Institute) discusses how organizations should think about handling social media backlash to protect their public image, culture, and climate.
Achieving a psychologically safe workplace is possible, but first, here’s what you need to know.
This article from GlobeSt. explores how organizations can focus on location strategies to increase retention. Global Head of Talent & Performance at NeuroLeadership Institute, Christy Pruitt-Haynes, provides her thoughts on the importance of workplace flexibility.
By embracing a growth mindset, teams can absorb and act on feedback rather than dreading it and avoiding opportunities out of fear of failure.
One way leaders can foster a growth mindset is by rewarding improvement over time.
This article from SHRM includes insight from Christy Pruitt-Haynes (Global Head of Talent & Performance at NeuroLeadership Institute) on how organizations can better manage layoffs and set employees up for future success.
Nearly a decade ago, the NeuroLeadership Institute published an influential article titled “Kill Your Performance Ratings.” Here’s an update on what we’ve learned since.
NLI’s “Ask an Expert” debut dives into those aha eureka moments — and the neuroscience behind them.
Being authentic means being vulnerable, taking risks, and talking openly about your weaknesses.
Anyone can develop mindfulness by focusing on direct sensory experiences — instead of thinking about the past, future, other people, or themselves.
Here’s why we should push ourselves out of our comfort zone at work.
Organizations are systematically undervaluing critical aspects of employees’ work by measuring only what’s easy to quantify.
Is exercising during work a solution for burnout?
Teamwork achieved through collaboration leads to greater innovation, higher engagement, and increased levels of empathy.
Three ways organizations can foster social connections despite the obstacles presented by remote operations.
With people changing jobs more often, leaders are seeing multigenerational ageism as an opportunity to rethink talent practices.
Get closer to work-life symbiosis — a relationship that is regenerative to both employees and an organization — by following these three steps.
Taking a puzzle break could be just what the brain needs to refresh and refocus amid stressful, difficult, or monotonous tasks.
If you think you need to focus #change or #DEI efforts on the people who disagree, you’re missing out on the power of the middle.
As we celebrate Pride month and Juneteenth and look to other national awareness months and holidays, set your sights on goals that show your company’s authentic activism.
Although most people would never admit to following the crowd, social norms are a surprisingly powerful impetus for behavior change.
Studies show that power leads managers to focus on goals, not people. Here’s how to make employees feel cared for in a time of disconnection.
Companies are finding it hard to bring people back to the office, despite luring them with everything from free lunch to free concerts with Lizzo. Here’s how to bring people back, in a brain-friendly manner.
Leaders can spend a slew of time and money on organizational change initiatives. But many of them often fail. Here’s why and how to get them right.
There are many benefits to giving workers more autonomy. But you must plan carefully, or things can backfire.
It’s not your imagination that rudeness is rising in the workplace. Here’s how to tackle incivility and get to a more polite and productive state.
Have a look at some of our most popular content this year in performance management.
If you’re trying to differentiate some of our learning and habit activation products based on your current needs, here’s (almost) all of our product explainer videos in one place.
NLI has worked for years to develop “sticky” acronyms to help people understand the brain science behind performance, learning, motivation, feedback, and dealing with bias. Here’s a brief summation of that work.
We want to believe all managers are now “resilience coaches”, but we have to clear a few hurdles before we get there. Here’s how.
We’ve all had to become practitioners of resilience in the past year. In that time, some myths and misconceptions have arisen. Here’s what the science says.
Let’s Start a Conversation Read the Full Case Study KEY INDUSTRY Healthcare PRACTICE AREA Performance PRODUCT Trusted as the Bias Mitigation Partner To Some of the World’s Most Impactful Organizations Case Studies by Practice Area Across industries, we make organizations more human and higher performing through science. These case studies show the change we can co-create. Diversity, Equity & InclusionTake inspiration from firms that mitigate bias and create equitable cultures.Accelerate Inclusion Culture & LeadershipExplore how organizations transform their culture, and shift mindsets at scale.Transform Leadership Talent & PerformanceLearn how companies harness feedback to improve employee retention, engagement and development.Optimize Performance Want to Find the best solution for you today? Commit to Change Connect with NeuroLeadership experts to explore how you can transform your organization at impact, speed, and scale. Scroll To Top
Let’s Start a Conversation Read the Full Case Study KEY INDUSTRY Financial Services PRACTICE AREA Talent & Performance PRODUCT Trusted as the CULTURE TRANSFORMATION Partner To Some of the World’s Most Impactful Organizations Case Studies by Practice Area Across industries, we make organizations more human and higher performing through science. These case studies show the change we can co-create. Diversity, Equity & InclusionTake inspiration from firms that mitigate bias and create equitable cultures.Accelerate Inclusion Culture & LeadershipExplore how organizations transform their culture, and shift mindsets at scale.Transform Leadership Talent & PerformanceLearn how companies harness feedback to improve employee retention, engagement and development.Optimize Performance Want to Find the best solution for you today? Commit to Change Connect with NeuroLeadership experts to explore how you can transform your organization at impact, speed, and scale. Scroll To Top
The pandemic has played havoc with our mental health, and a significant factor in our malaise is that we’re missing our people—terribly. We long for friends, family and colleagues. We are hardwired for connection, and with the need for social distancing and the reality of being away from the workplace—and everything else—for such a long period of time, we are struggling.
At NLI we believe that now is perfect time to build a more flexible, continuous, and people-focused performance management system. Here’s how.
We’re busier than ever, but less able to get our own work done. Here’s how science says we can make the most of our days.
Here we are — eight months into our COVID-19 pandemic. So many changes have taken place in our outer world. Yet, it’s our inner worlds that face the task of processing all of this….
If they want workers to be more vigilant, fear doesn’t work. Fortunately, there are alternatives.
Heightened uncertainty can have a devastating impact on the performance and mental health of employees, triggering a threat response in the brain that interferes with rational thinking, collaborating and solving problems. By understanding the core psychological needs of employees, leaders can focus their efforts on the strategies that will have the greatest impact on engagement and performance.
Experts say that times of great change should be seen as opportunities to help organizations form new habits.
Giving and receiving better feedback requires us to kick some old habits and adopt a new mindset. Here’s how science can help.
So, you’ve come to the conclusion that we need to modify our approach to performance management. Luckily, we have the science to show you how.
It’s hard to be cognitively effective during a crisis. Research shows that a few key shifts in mindset can help us stay focused and productive.
Performance reviews are loaded with cognitive biases that cloud the reviewer’s judgment and possibly put employees on the wrong career path.
Only about a third of US employees qualify as “engaged.” It’s up to management to create the habits that can boost that figure.
High levels of stress and anxiety can affect your ability to focus. Science shows us how can you manage stress, maintain focus, and stay productive.
This crisis’ effects are physical and psychological. Here are the everyday psychological habits to keep your mind healthy and stay productive.
Here’s how organizations can be more actionable and purposeful about helping employees grow, through feedback, while the world works from home.
Growth mindset isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” It’s a business imperative for helping employees thrive through change and disruption.
As we learn what change initiatives actually look and feel like, we want to share the themes and questions from our research to help you work through them.
Performance conversations are a critical moment for leaders to help their team members feel supported and keep engagement steady.
High levels of stress and anxiety can affect your ability to focus. Science shows us how you can manage the threat, maintain focus, and stay productive.
Working remotely may be the new normal for the foreseeable future. Learn how you can make working remotely more brain-friendly, productive, and inclusive.
Ann Schulte is encouraging mindset and learning agility at Procter & Gamble to tackle challenges and disruption.
How do you bring your organization’s purpose to life? By relying on the science of memory and motivation to go essential, rather than exhaustive.
A major concept discussed at this year’s NeuroLeadership Summit was growth mindset, a critical tool for boosting teams’ performance.
Cigna, a global leader in healthcare services, has embraced growth mindset to transform both its agility and its approach to performance management.
Performance management can drum up some pretty intense emotions. Fortunately, leaders can use neuroscience to make it more effective.
Performance management has been in flux for the last decade, and now NLI wants to hear from you about your experiences with the PM process.
The growing wisdom to “kill performance ratings” actually follows from an even larger observation about traditional performance management.
Deb Bubb, IBM’s Chief Leadership and Learning Officer, believes the AI revolution doesn’t necessarily mean job loss, just a great need for reskilling.
Dean Carter, CHRO at Patagonia, discusses how taking a “regenerative” approach to performance management truly gets the best out of people.
By using growth mindset, we can give performance reviews that are more accurate, less threatening, and support our team members to develop and succeed.
A recent poll suggests that HR leaders may see manager capabilities as a major obstacle in performance management, but they say the solution lies elsewhere.
Research has shown that leaders can improve multiple aspects of performance management by helping their teams to build a growth mindset.
Meaningful learning can’t occur when our brains are flooded with information. That’s why creating coherence in corporate learning content is so important.
Growth mindset is instrumental for creating the right performance management, as it builds resilience in people and helps them embrace challenges.
When leaders create the “conditions for insight,” as NLI calls them, they’re able to unlock the greatest creative potential from their teams.
In many organizations, performance management conversations happen maybe four times a year. NLI knows how to make them a regular part of work life.
The AGES Model helps organizations take a new approach to learning efforts, turning mandatory events into meaningful experiences.
Scientific research suggests there are three key habits around quality conversations that leaders can build to improve employee engagement and retention.
Emails, texts, chats, and spur-of-the-moment conversations are all common distractions at work. Research suggests it’s hurting organizations’ bottom lines.
Insights, those eureka moments where you suddenly see the world totally different, don’t happen when most people may expect them.
Conventional wisdom says leaders must prepare for specific change events. The reality is change is constant, so adaptability is key.
The research has made it clear: Creating a culture of feedback is the most critical driver of positive organizational and financial outcomes.
Management transparency has been shown to boost employee engagement, performance, and creativity. But how does transparency drive employee experience?
Change is the only constant, the old adage goes, which might explain why today’s organizations are so focused on adaptation. After spending several months interviewing 20 global organizations about growth mindset, the NeuroLeadership Institute has identified six business reasons an org might look to put the concept to use, which we’ve summarized below. (Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.) [action hash=”7b17478f-7c52-499f-9fd4-7a4d4b69cfa1″] 1. Digital transformation (38% of sample) The most popular reason an org might focus on growth mindset was to stay agile in the face of technological uncertainty. Big data and artificial intelligence are rapidly becoming commonplace, and organizations of all kinds — mid-tier companies and corporations alike — are looking to keep talent ready to change on a dime. 2. Business improvement (19% of sample) Some organizations used growth mindset to introduce leaner methodologies into their work streams, restructure teams, or implement new business strategies. These orgs wanted to be more agile, too, but focused more on improving internal operations than adapting to market forces. 3. Growing up (13% of sample) Growth mindset meant just that to some organizations: growth. Maturity stood out as a major reason for organizations that were smaller and looking to expand quickly and sustainably. Financial pressures, internal turmoil, and other setbacks often accompanied these efforts. 4. Reinvention (13% of sample) Organizations focused more on pivoting in some form used growth mindset to change their culture, rebound from financial troubles, and shift gears after a shakeup in leadership. Among these organizations, especially, growth mindset represented a way to see challenges as opportunities, not threats. 5. Performance management transformation (13% of sample) For some organizations, growth mindset was instrumental in overhauling the way they interviewed and hired candidates, and evaluated employees. Instead of asking employees to prove their worth, orgs can use growth mindset to see the value in improvement over time. 6. Quality enhancement (6% of sample) The university in our sample was the lone organization to use growth mindset for accreditation. It saw the concept as the means to enhance the quality of its program for the benefit of current and future students. Parting shots Why one organization might embrace digital transformation over reinvention is a product of the industry and size of each enterprise. A major takeaway from our research is that organizations mold growth-mindset efforts to fit their needs. What works for one might not always work for all, so look for the process in your org that may need growth mindset the most. This article is the third installment in NLI’s new series, Growth Mindset: The Master Class, a 12-week campaign to help leaders see how the world’s largest organizations are putting growth mindset to use. [action hash=”7b17478f-7c52-499f-9fd4-7a4d4b69cfa1″]
Employees that have their social needs met are more likely to feel engaged in their jobs and less likely to look for greener pastures elsewhere.
The future is coming, and getting ready for it isn’t just a matter of more refined thinking, but broadened experiences. This how the US Army War College helps service people prepare for the future, explained Major General John S. Kem at this year’s NeuroLeadership Summit. “What are the gaps for you to be more ready for uncertainty in five to ten years?” he asked. In a military context, according to Kem, it’s partly a matter of taking a tank commander and teaching them to bring diplomacy and economics into their decision-making. In organizations, it means that if you want to become a CEO but you’ve spent your career in marketing, you’re going to have to move into operations or another role to round out your perspective. In other words, it’s all about curing blind spots. At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we put this in terms of experience bias, or the assumption that if you believe something or an experience happened to you, then that must be the only way it could be. But if you go out and seek new experiences, then you’ll work toward escaping that bias. As Kem explains, however, it’s not just a matter of being able to “project into your next job,” but gathering the experiences that will expand our perspectives — and, in turn, be more prepared for uncertainty. That’s a major lesson for managing your own career or designing a talent strategy. It also, we must say, smells a lot like growth mindset: knowing that you can’t possibly know what you need to know from where you are, take the steps to address your blind spots, especially by embracing other disciplines. For more, watch the NeuroLeadership Summit livestream, broadcasting Thursday and Friday.
Facts are facts — except that they’re not. In a session on idea propagation and influence at this year’s NeuroLeadership Summit, Wil Cunningham, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, explained that getting through to people is about more than simply getting things right. What we really need to focus on, he says, are assumptions about the world that they have about how things work. “We treat the world as facts,” he said, “without understanding the structure of belief system the fact operates in.” If we want to reach someone, the research indicates that there are different conceptual gatekeepers to get by. You can convince someone if they think a fact will better their wellbeing. That’s step one. Next, you have to satisfy what’s technically called “the expressive function,” or how a new fact fits within their sense of self and existing web of knowledge. That’s because Cunningham says a lot of the “facts” that we’re trying to impress upon one another are social facts, a concept identified by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim a century ago. Social facts are true to the extent that everybody in a group agrees that they’re true, like that cash has a monetary value rather than being illustrated scraps of paper. “We sometimes hold beliefs to signify the groups we belong to,” Cunningham said. So if you’re pitching someone on a social fact — like that your product solves a common pain point — and it doesn’t blend with their sense of self and group identity, there’s a good chance they’ll reject it. The whole latticework of facts, preferences, and assumptions they’ve long internalized won’t mesh with the new information or argument. If you pass that self-belief test, then you can actually add new fact to their personal web of knowledge, Cunningham says. The takeaway: Get to know your audience — and what they believe about the world — and describe things in those terms, not necessarily your own. That way, you can actually influence people and add insight to their lives. For more, watch the NeuroLeadership Summit livestream, broadcasting Thursday and Friday.
Due to the effects of bias, managers may be conducting performance reviews in such a way that sets employees on unwanted career paths for years.
Art Markman is a renaissance man of psychological science: He holds a professorship at the University of Texas-Austin, where he’s also the director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He co-hosts the podcast Two Guys On Your Head. He’s authored many books, including Smart Change: Five Tools to Create New and Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others. And he’s also a panelist on the Networking and Building Alliances session at this year’s NeuroLeadership Summit in October. We recently spoke with Art to learn about how immersing himself in motivation and decision science has shaped his life, and came away with some practice advice on how to get more good stuff done in our own lives. NeuroLeadership Institute: How has being in this field change the way you make decisions in your everyday life? Art Markman: There’s a lot of things I’ve done as a result of knowing more. Some of them have been pretty straight-forward. So for example, in my mid-30s I took up the saxophone because there’s all this data that suggests if you look at people’s regrets, the thing that old people regret more than anything else is not the dumb things they did but the important things they didn’t do. And so, I always recommend to people, periodically project yourself mentally to the end of your life and look back and ask yourself, is there anything I wish I would’ve done? And at some point, I thought, “Gosh I always wanted to learn to play a saxophone and I didn’t.” So about a week after that, I went out and found a teacher and bought a saxophone and learned to play. I think I also am better at seeing different sides of situations that I’m involved in. For example, there are broad tendencies to look at other people’s behaviors and assume that it’s being driven by their characteristics, their traits, and individual goals rather than the situation that they’re in. Whereas with our own life, we pay a lot of attention to, “Oh I was forced to do this in this situation.” So I think I’ve become more tolerant of things other people have done by routinely asking myself, “Well, what’s the situation? Did they do this just because they didn’t have a choice? As a result, should I be trying to focus on how to help, how to make that situation better rather than chastising them for some kind of fundamental limitation that they themselves have?” I spend a lot of time writing about behavior change. And so in my own life, like if I want to lose weight, I’m more effective at that because I understand how motivation works. I run this program. I have a staff of 6 people. I have 35 faculty who I work with and I feel like I can work more effectively with people because I have a better understanding of what factors influence behavior change and so we can set up what we do in ways that get people to do things a little bit different, not a manipulative way, but sharing a vision people can get on board with and also structuring a plan where people not only think this is a vision they can be a part of but also something that they can accomplish. NLI: I read somewhere that you lost 40 pounds — how did you do that, and how did your study on motivation help you achieve your goal? When it comes to weight loss, people think to themselves, “I don’t feel right. I don’t look right.” For me, I didn’t like the way I looked and felt anymore. I think that, for one thing, the formula for weight loss is not a carefully guarded secret. Everyone wants some special diet, but at the end of the day, if you’re going to engage in some kind of weight loss activity, you’ve got to burn more calories than you take in and you have to do that consistently. Then the question is, how do you structure your world to facilitate getting more exercise and eating less? It turns out the eating less is probably more important than the exercise. Because you can work really hard, but if you eat too much, you will overwhelm any amount of calories that you burned. There’s a great quote from Jack LaLanne that I love to use, and it’s “The best exercise is pushing yourself away from the table.” But I think what’s important is to structure that environment. One of the things I did was that I became a vegetarian when I wanted to lose weight in part because I figured, rather than just trying to do less than what I was already doing, I thought, “If I completely change the diet that I’m eating, then I have a chance to institute a new set of behaviors.” NLI: You broke the frame, so you’d have to keep paying attention. AM: That was one piece of it. One piece of it was planning a little bit better. If I cooked too much food, then putting the rest away in advance. Some of it was figuring out what to do when I’m faced with a buffet where you want to throw everything onto your plate. It’s really helpful sometime to find dessert plates that are lying around somewhere. They’re smaller plates so you put less stuff on your plate, and then you eat less. So I think there are a lot of ways of messing around with your environment that can help. When I made the decision to lose weight, I let everybody know. People don’t like to do that, because if they fail, it’s embarrassing. But actually when you let everybody know, then they help you. Maybe they choose not to have an ice cream right in front of you. Or they’re a little more sensitive to how they dole food out in front of you if you’re having lunch with them or something. You
Think back to your last feedback conversation at work — how did it go? Chances are, you and your partner felt uneasy, maybe even threatened. The reason is hardly a mystery. Feedback conversations as they exist today activate a deep-seated threat response in the human brain. Even if it’s just a chat, our brains want us to flee. According to a recent article in the NeuroLeadership Journal, research may be able to fix this broken aspect of professional life. In a study led by NYU psychologist and NLI senior scientist Tessa West, 62 participants at a major consultancy engaged in a mock one-on-one negotiation over the price of a biotechnology plant. Then they gave each other feedback on the other’s performance. Heart rate monitors listened all the while. In follow-up analyses, West and her colleague, fellow NYU psychologist Kate Thorson, discovered that giving feedback and receiving feedback were equally anxiety-producing. This was big news: It signaled managers, too, feel the pain of criticism. Even bigger news, however, was that people who responded to a request for feedback — rather than give feedback unprompted, as per typical conversations — experienced significantly lower heart rate reactivity and reported feeling much less anxious. According to West, asking for feedback is better for long-term improvement because it gives people more control over the conversation and certainty in what will be discussed. If people can start small, she says, the initial pain of inviting criticism will eventually lose its sting. “When you ask for feedback, you’re licensing people to be critical of you,” West recently told NLI for Strategy+Business. “It may feel a little more uncomfortable, but you’re going to get honest, more constructive feedback.” Leaders can use the new study as a tool to create more of a growth mindset at work. If everyone begins seeking out ways to improve, instead of shying away from them, entire organizations can adapt more quickly and edge out the competition.
Feedback is essential for organizational (and organismal) growth, but what’s the best way to give it? Typical feedback conversations are painful and extremely stress-producing. Managers who try to avoid offending their employees risk over-correcting, giving feedback that is polite, but ultimately unhelpful. Billions are spent each year in an attempt to solve these feedback problems. A recent feature story in strategy+business could hold the key insight: Asking for feedback, rather than giving it unprompted, may be the smartest way to develop a growth-oriented culture. “We’re not promising it’s going to feel good right away, but it will be better for you in the long term,” says NYU psychologist and NLI senior scientist Tessa West. Putting the brain in the right state West and her colleague Katherine Thorson, also of NYU, recently ran a study at a major consultancy that tracked people’s heart rates during mock negotiations. Afterwards, each participant took turns giving and receiving feedback. Certain groups were instructed to ask for feedback, while others gave it unprompted. The findings showed giving feedback was just as anxiety-producing as receiving feedback. However, when people received feedback that wasn’t asked for, their heart rates jumped around erratically. (Equivalent spikes have been found during some of the most stressful events, such as public speaking.) Our brains suffer in these moments of duress. Stress causes a decline in cognitive function and a narrowing of the senses, limiting our ability to think critically or learn. To serve their crucial function of helping employees improve and grow, feedback conversations should avoid this threat response. Based on her recent study, West believes asking for feedback could hold the power to make discussions less painful. When people know to ask for feedback, they feel in control, West says. They feel psychological rewards of autonomy and certainty. They can steer the conversation wherever they choose and feel confident about which topics will get discussed. Givers also feel more certainty, because they no longer have to guess what kind of information will be most useful. Creating the habit of asking To make an asker-led culture a reality, West says to start small. “It’s like going on a diet,” she says. “You don’t want to cut out everything that’s delicious. You have to gradually replace the unhealthy with the healthy.” Leaders can take the first steps by asking for feedback themselves — perhaps about the temperature in the last meeting. Gradually, West says, people will feel safer asking for feedback if they know the resulting discussion will be productive, not threatening. Over time, organizations that take up the strategy should expect to have regular feedback conversations more often, which means avoiding errors earlier and innovating more rapidly. SEE ALSO: How Microsoft Transformed Its Approach to Feedback
Microsoft turned to the NeuroLeadership Institute to enlist our help in designing a new approach to feedback — one grounded in the neuroscience.
Does work in your organization get done in teams? Does your performance management approach reflect this reality of interdependent work contributions? If so, we’d like to hear from you. In the coming weeks, the Neuroleadership Institute’s industry research team will interview human resources, talent, and business leaders who manage performance in team settings. If this applies to you and you are available for a 60-minute research interview, we would love to hear from you! Please email us and we will be in touch! What are we trying to learn? Increasingly, work gets done in teams, and teams of teams. Unfortunately, performance management still tends to focus on the individual, often ignoring people’s contributions to the larger group. With this qualitative research project, we want to learn if and how organizations have begun to adapt their performance management process to teams. Why participate? Your participation in this research project will be deeply appreciated, and sharing your experiences will inform others who are embarking on a similar journey. It is also an opportunity to showcase progressive human capital practices for your organization — serving recruiting, branding, and other business objectives. As a thank you for your time and effort, you will receive an exclusive report of our findings when available. We look forward to hearing from you! SEE ALSO: The Biggest Myth About Growth Mindset
Featuring STACY PICKLESIMER (Time Warner Cable) How a neuroscience-driven distributed learning solution helped Time Warner Cable scale to impact over 2500 managers and create a high-performance culture.
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In 2007, David and Lisa Rock and their team had been working in leadership development and executive coaching for ten years, when David coined the term “NeuroLeadership.”ef
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