Ed Batista

Neuroscience, Joyful Learning and the SCARF Model

What conditions best support learning and personal growth?

1. Judy Willis on "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education"

Stephanie West Allen points to a thought-provoking and compelling answer to the question above in the work of Judy Willis, a former neurologist who obtained her teaching credential after a 15-year career in medicine and now teaches at Santa Barbara Middle School and blogs at Psychology Today.

Willis brings an unusual and highly valuable combination of hands-on experience as an educator and a deep understanding of neuroscience to her writing, and her article in the Summer 2007 issue of Educational Leadership, "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education," is one of the most helpful pieces I've read on the subject of understanding the practical relevance of neuroscientific research.

Willis's article is focused on formal education in a classroom setting, but I believe that the findings she discusses have relevance for any experience in which we're trying to impart knowledge, stimulate understanding and foster growth, from a group workshop to an executive coaching session to an impromptu feedback conversation.  I take the liberty of quoting Willis at length here (interspersed with my comments), but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing:

[W]hen we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged...

My own experience as a neurologist and classroom teacher has shown me the benefits of joy in the classroom. Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain (Thanos et al., 1999). When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience "aha" moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery (Kohn, 2004).

"An atmosphere of exuberant discovery."  I LOVE that phrase!  It perfectly describes my most fulfilling learning experiences.  If I can help to evoke that feeling--in myself and in others--in a workshop or a class or a coaching session, then I know we're on the right path.  I'm reminded of my recent post on being an infectious agent of enthusiasm.  Like enthusiasm, "exuberant discovery" is a contagious state. 

Willis continues:

The Brain-Based Research

Neuroimaging and neurochemical research support an education model in which stress and anxiety are not pervasive (Chugani, 1998; Pawlak, Magarinos, Melchor, McEwan, & Strickland, 2003). This research suggests that superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are enjoyable and relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences.

Many education theorists (Dulay & Burt, 1977; Krashen, 1982) have proposed that students retain what they learn when the learning is associated with strong positive emotion. Cognitive psychology studies provide clinical evidence that stress, boredom, confusion, low motivation, and anxiety can individually, and more profoundly in combination, interfere with learning (Christianson, 1992).

Neuroimaging and measurement of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) show us what happens in the brain during stressful emotional states. By reading glucose or oxygen use and blood flow, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicate activity in identifiable regions of the brain. These scans demonstrate that under stressful conditions information is blocked from entering the brain's areas of higher cognitive memory consolidation and storage. In other words, when stress activates the brain's affective filters, information flow to the higher cognitive networks is limited and the learning process grinds to a halt.

Simply put, stress kills learning--and yet so many settings intended to support learning are needlessly stressful.  I'm reminded of Hans Selye's concept of eustress and the resulting awareness that some level of stress--which differs for each of us in different situations--supports optimal performance, but above that level performance declines.  The curve below may not be accurate--I suspect that in reality it's quite a bit steeper for most of us, but it serves to illustrate the concept:

Willis's work is an important reminder to pay close attention to the profile of this curve and to insure that we don't push ourselves and others beyond that point of optimal performance where learning ceases.  Willis continues:

Neuroimaging and electroencephalography (EEG) brain mapping of subjects in the process of learning new information reveal that the most active areas of the brain when new sensory information is received are the somatosensory cortex areas. Input from each individual sense (hearing, touch, taste, vision, smell) is delivered to these areas and then matched with previously stored related memories...

I'm struck here by the potential importance of all the senses in the learning process and the way in which most learning environments fail to make effective use of any but hearing and vision (and even then rely heavily on monotonous lectures and boring lists of bullet points.)  It suggests to me that learning is enhanced when all the senses are stimulated more thoroughly, through movement, vivid imagery and language, and perhaps even taste and smell.

Willis's website is www.RADteach.com, an acronym that stands for "Reach And Discover" but that also has a more specific neurological meaning:

RAD Lessons for the Classroom

A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive input to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students. Lessons that are stimulating and challenging are more likely to pass through the reticular activating system (a filter in the lower brain that focuses attention on novel changes perceived in the environment). Classroom experiences that are free of intimidation may help information pass through the amygdala's affective filter. In addition, when classroom activities are pleasurable, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.

The acronym RAD can remind educators of three important neuroscience concepts to consider when preparing lessons:

• Novelty promotes information transmission through the Reticular activating system.
• Stress-free classrooms propel data through the Amygdala's affective filter.
• Pleasurable associations linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine...

Planning for the Ideal Emotional Atmosphere

Although it is valuable for teachers to be familiar with neuroscientific research and pass relevant findings along to education stakeholders, it is crucial that educators use classroom strategies that reflect what we know about the brain and learning. So how can teachers create environments where anxiety is low while providing enough challenge and novelty for suitable brain stimulation?

Make it relevant.

When stress in the classroom is getting high, it is often because a lesson is overly abstract or seems irrelevant to students. Teachers can reduce this type of stress by making the lesson more personally interesting and motivating. Ideally, students should be able to answer the question, "Why are we learning about this?" at any point in a lesson...

Give them a break.

...[T]eachers can give students a three-minute vacation to reduce stress. Any pleasurable activity used as a brief break can give the amygdala a chance to cool down and the neurotransmitters time to rebuild.

Create positive associations.

Eliminating all stress from students' lives is impossible. However, even if previous classroom experiences have led to associations that link certain activities, such as memorizing multiplication tables, to a stress response from the amygdala, students can benefit from revisiting the activity without something negative happening. By avoiding stressful practices like calling on students who have not raised their hands, teachers can dampen the stress association...

Prioritize information.

It is helpful for teachers to guide students in learning how to prioritize information—how to decide what facts are worthy of writing down and reviewing when studying. When teachers demonstrate and explain how they determine which facts are important, students see how to make those judgments for themselves as they read texts and study. Helping students learn how to prioritize and therefore reduce the amount of information they need to deal with is a valuable stress-buster.

Allow independent discovery learning.

Thanks to dopamine release and the consolidation of relational memories, students are more likely to remember and understand what they learn if they find it compelling or have a part in figuring it out for themselves. In addition, when students have some choices in the way they will study or report on something, their motivation will increase and stress will diminish. They will be more accepting of their errors, motivated to try again, and less self-conscious about asking questions.

Whenever we're helping people learn, whether it's in a workshop, a coaching relationship, or just a supportive conversation, we can feel tempted to tell, to advise, to provide answers.  My experience as a coach has taught me the importance of resisting this temptation, and Willis's final point above helps to explain the neuroscientific basis for this dynamic.  Our brains are wired to learn more effectively when we figure things out for ourselves.  (There's a connection here to the value of experiential learning and its emphasis on the "perceptual order" of our direct experience rather than the "conceptual order" stressed in most learning, in William James's language.)  This isn't to say that we should never tell or advise or provide answers--there are times when that's what's needed.  But when we take those shortcuts, we need to be mindful of their potential to undermine learning.

2. Joyful Learning and David Rock's SCARF Model

Willis's perspective on "joyful learning" is embedded in David Rock's SCARF Model, which provides a useful framework for understanding how our brains respond to social threats and rewards.  Rock's acronym stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness, five domains of social experience within which we regularly encounter threats and rewards that trigger responses in the brain similar to those triggered by physical threats, such as pain and hunger, and physical rewards, such as relief and satiation.

Rock writes in "SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others," (available as a PDF on the Resources page of the site promoting Rock's new book, "Your Brain at Work"):

[M]uch of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000)...[and] several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008). In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water.

The SCARF model summarizes these two themes within a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations. This model can be applied (and tested) in any situation where people collaborate in groups, including all types of workplaces, educational environments, family settings and general social events.

Willis's work provides an vivid example of the SCARF Model in action.  As Willis describes the neurology of learning, it's easy to envision specific aspects of stressful learning environments that trigger social threats: Authoritarian teachers and intimidating leaders who diminish others' status.  Unclear lessons and irrelevant exercises that fail to provide certainty around learning goals (or the likelihood of achieving them.)  Excessive structure and a lack of choice that rob people of their autonomy.  A heightened power distance preventing teachers or leaders from developing a sense of connection and relatedness with others.  And favoritism or arbitrary rules that undermine fairness.

Rock's model describes a set of neurological dynamics at work in every social setting, but Willis makes clear their vital importance in learning environments.  Whenever we're seeking to promote learning, it's essential that we structure the environment to minimize these social threats and cultivate that "atmosphere of exuberant discovery" Willis describes above by promoting social rewards.

As teachers and leaders, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to raise the status of those around us.  We need to provide sufficient certainty without stifling creativity, and we need to provide sufficient autonomy without leaving others feeling lost or alone.  We need to foster a feeling of connection and relatedness among the diverse members of a group.  And we must always be fair.

3. Safety, Trust, Intimacy and Learning

Finally, Willis's essay reminds me of my own belief in the importance of safety, trust and intimacy in any learning environment.  As I wrote recently:

The foundational qualities that define every group are the levels of safety, trust and intimacy: Safety =  A belief that we won't get hurt.  Trust = We mean what we say and we say what we mean.  Intimacy = A willingness to make the private public.

When safety, trust and intimacy are established, these qualities support the actions that lead to greater success as a group: experimentation, risk-taking and a willingness to be vulnerable.

When we feel able to experiment, take risks and make ourselves vulnerable, our ability to learn, to increase our self-awareness (and our awareness of others) and to change our behavior in order to achieve our goals more effectively increases dramatically.

Photo by Phineas H.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Self-Coaching Guides, One Year Later

Next month marks the first anniversary of the publication of my Self-Coaching Guides, six compilations of posts on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.

The Guides have been well-received--hey, they're currently in the top 10 when you search for "self coaching"--and I'm glad people have found them useful.  That said, they're due for an update, and there's plenty of room for improvement--a project I'm planning to tackle this Summer.  The main changes I hope to make include:

• Integrating my increased understanding of neuroscience and its implications for coaching.
• Making more effective use of of the framework that links these topics together.
• And transforming the Guides from compilations into more independent narratives on each topic.

If you have any feedback on how the Guides could be made more useful, please take a look and let me know--I'd be grateful for your input.

A final thought: ALL coaching is ultimately "self-coaching."  No matter how closely I work with my clients and students, and no matter what useful insights may emerge during our sessions, they do the heavy lifting of understanding themselves, tapping into their strengths, and, when necessary, changing their behavior on their own.

Photo by Theresa Thompson. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Attitude, Behavior, Cognitive Dissonance and Authenticity

I recently had this Twitter exchange with Tom Peters:

I refer to that quote from St. Ignatius quite often because I believe it illustrates an important truth about human behavior.  We assume that our attitude causes our behavior, and that we act as we do because we think or feel a certain way:

But rather than being a one-way causal relationship, it's really a two-way street.  Attitude can certainly inform and shape our behavior, but it's a cyclical process, and behavior can also inform and shape our attitude:

This process is rooted in the dynamics of cognitive dissonance--when our attitude and our behavior are inconsistent, we experience discomfort and even distress, and we modify either our attitude or our behavior to reduce the inconsistency.  But as St. Ingnatius and Tom Peters remind us, we don't have to let our original attitude govern our behavior.  We can choose to act differently, and this new behavior can in turn modify our attitude.  "Perform the acts of faith, and faith will come."

These concepts are deeply embedded in the work of Sonia Lyubomirsky and other "happiness researchers," but psychologists and neuroscientists have long observed them at work in other settings as well.  As UC Berkeley neuroscientist Vincent van Veen and his colleagues wrote in 2009:

It has consistently been found that [study] participants [who are behaving in ways that are in conflict with their attitudes] change their attitudes to be more consistent with the counter-attitudinal behavior.  Dissonance has been shown to be a negative emotional state accompanied by autonomic arousal; it has been shown that people change their attitudes and restore consonance to specifically reduce the negative affect.

(Researchers like van Veen are beginning to explore the neuroscientific basis for this process.  The passage quoted above is from a paper by van Veen et al, "Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance."  Here's a direct link to the paper [PDF, 443 KB]  And another forthcoming paper from Harvard Business School professor Amy J.C. Cuddy entitled "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance" apparently explores similar territory, although I've only read the abstract.)

It's noteworthy that choice and free will are essential to the process of altering attitude through behavior.  The passage above continues:

When participants in control groups are able to attribute their counter-attitudinal behavior to payment or coercion, or when the counter-attitudinal behavior has no real-world consequences, conflict between behavior and prior attitudes is reduced, and participants experience less cognitive dissonance and do not change their attitudes.

Some futher thoughts on authenticity in light of Peters' original advice to "fake a good mood": While intentionally counter-attitudinal behavior may have the desired effect on our attitude, beyond a certain point it may also have negative consequences if others experience us as insincere or manipulative, and it's clearly important to be aware of the line that distinguishes "intentional" from "phony."  In addition, there are many good reasons to express our negative feelings and to build safety and trust through candor.  I'm not in the least suggesting that we should repress or hide negative feelings reflexively.

That said, in my experience as a coach, particularly with people who may be experimenting with more intentional behaviors for the first time, we can get hung up on concerns about authenticity and use that as an excuse to justify our choices, no matter how ineffective or unfulfilling they might be.  ("I'm just being honest!" we say, or "I have to be myself.")  But as the dynamic described above illustrates, authenticity is more complex than is commonly understood.

In Managing Authenticity (from the December 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review), Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones make the case that authenticity actually requires intentional behavior and, rather than being an innate quality we possess (or lack) on our own, grows out of our relationships with others and our desire to be more effective in those relationships.  Goffee and Jones focus on leaders' effectiveness, but their work is relevant to all our relationships and interpersonal interactions:

[W]hile the expression of an authentic self is necessary for great leadership, the concept of authenticity is often misunderstood, not least by leaders themselves. They often assume that authenticity is an innate quality--that a person is either authentic or not. In fact, authenticity is a quality that others must attribute to you. No leader can look into a mirror and say, "I am authentic." A person cannot be authentic on his or her own. Authenticity is largely defined by what other people see in you and, as such, can to a great extent be controlled by you. If authenticity were purely an innate quality, there would be little you could do to manage it and, therefore, little you could do to make yourself more effective as a leader...

Let us be absolutely clear: Authenticity is not the product of pure manipulation. It accurately reflects aspects of the leader’s inner self, so it can't be an act. But great leaders seem to know which personality traits they should reveal to whom and when. They are like chameleons, capable of adapting to the demands of the situations they face and the people they lead, yet they do not lose their identities in the process. [My emphasis]

Viewing our initial attitude as "authentic" and using that to rationalize any subsequent behavior makes no sense when we see how readily our attitude can be modified by choosing different behavior.  By the same logic, behavior chosen for the express purpose of modifying our attitude isn't automatically "inauthentic."  Looking through Goffee and Jones' framework, we see authenticity as a quality that we cultivate through lived experience and that we (and those around us) sense subjectively, not the result of a behavioral algorithm that disappears when we act intentionally.

I recognize that these complexities can make it difficult to know what's "right" in a given situation (which, of course, is why we have executive coaches.)  But my larger point is that we have much more power than we typically realize to choose behavior that will affect our attitude, and that we can be more effective and feel more fulfilled as a result.

Peter Drucker on Excellence, Careers and Planning

Most of my clients and students are seeking to be more effective and fulfilled as professionals or are in the midst of a career transition--or both.  A resource to which I've referred people for years is Peter Drucker's brilliant essay Managing Oneself, and it's time to do so again.  Here are a few key excerpts and the questions that they inspire in me:

On Excellence

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.  It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.  And yet most people--especially most teachers and most organizations--concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones.  Energy, resources, and time should go instead into making a competent person into a star performer.

So ask yourself, What are my strengths?  Where could I improve from first-rate performance to excellence?  Where should I be focusing my energy, resources and time?  Just as important, where am I wasting effort trying to improve from incompetence to mediocrity?  (I'm reminded of the value of Seth Godin's concept of strategic quitting.)

On Careers

[M]ost people, especially highly gifted people, do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.  By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths?  How do I perform?  and, What are my values?  And then they can and should decide where they belong.

Or rather, they should be able to decide where they do not belong...

Equally important, knowing the answers to these questions enables a person to say to an opportunity, an offer, or an assignment, "Yes, I will do that.  But this is the way I should be doing it.  This is the way it should be structured.  This is the way the relationships should be.  These are the kind of results you should expect from me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am."

Having assessed your strengths, the next questions to ask are: Under what conditions do I do my best work?  What do I require in a work environment to perform at my best?  What structures, what relationships, what expectations allow me to deliver excellence?  Conversely, what conditions make it more difficult for me to deliver excellence?  (I find David Rock's SCARF model a very helpful tool in understanding why some conditions support my own ability to deliver excellence while others have the opposite effect.)

Continuing with Drucker's framework, the logical next question is: What are my values?  But what do we really mean by that?  The definition of any given "value" is inherently subjective--and even if we arrive at one that works for us, what does it mean to put that value into practice?  Here's a process to reach an actionable definition of your values in this context:

• Draw up a list of terms that you define as "values."
• Specify the meaning of each value by telling a story that demonstrates that value in action, preferably an actual event from your own or an observed experience.
• Having illustrated each value this way, ask yourself:

What intrinsic rewards are the result of this value?  In what ways does it fulfill me?

What extrinsic rewards--what forms of status or compensation--am I willing to sacrifice on behalf of this value?

How important is this value to my self-identity?  How different would my life have to be for me to abandon this value?

• Use the answers to these questions to narrow your original list of terms down to no more than five--and preferably three.  The results are your core values.

On Planning

Successful careers are not planned.  They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values...

A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific.  So the question in most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?  The answer must balance several things.  First, the results should be hard to achieve--they should require "stretching," to use the current buzzword.  But also, they should be within reach.  To aim at results that cannot be achieved--or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances--is not being ambitious, it is being foolish.  Second, the results should be meaningful.  They should make a difference.  Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable.  From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.

The answers to your questions above don't constitute a plan, but they're certainly an important form of preparation.  Even if don't yet know what you want to do or what opportunities you'll say "Yes" to, these answers should help you begin closing doors and should allow you to start saying "No" to opportunities that aren't aligned with your strengths, your methods of working, or your values.

So now, whether you're seeking to make a transition or simply to be more effective or fulfilled in your current field, look out over the next 18 months, and ask yourself: What can I accomplish in that timeframe?  Will these goals require me to truly stretch?  Will they truly make a difference?  And how will my results be visible and measurable?

As always when it comes to planning, I find comfort in the (reputed) wisdom of Gen. George Patton: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan next week."

Acknowledgments

I encourage you to read Managing Oneself in its entirety, available as a PDF from Harvard Business Review or as the closing chapter in Drucker's Management Challenges for the 21st Century.

Thanks to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras's Building Your Company's Vision for their essential framework on identifying core values.

Thanks to Thaler Pekar for her thoughts on The Trouble with Values and the importance of stories.

Blogs I Read

Here are several lists of blogs, ranging from Management to Miscellaneous, written by people whose work I admire and from which I draw inspiration on a regular basis.  (I'll keep a link to this post on my Resources page.)

Photo by Matti Mattila.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

David Rock on Neuroscience, Leadership and the SCARF Model

Shortly before taking a break from writing last Fall, I began digging more deeply into the work of David Rock, who for many years has been exploring the field of neuroscience and its implications for management, coaching, and organizational life.  (This resulted in my November 2009 post David Rock on Neuroscience, Coaching and Leadership.)  Having begun writing again, I continue to find inspiration in Rock's work.

The SCARF Model

Much of Rock's current thinking is distilled in Managing with the Brain in Mind, published in August 2009 in strategy+business, Booz & Company's quarterly magazine (free registration required) and in "SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others," a paper originally published in 2008 in Issue #1 of the NeuroLeadership Journal (co-founded by Rock) and available as a PDF on the Resources page of the site promoting Rock's new book, "Your Brain at Work."

The SCARF model referenced in both pieces (and briefly touched on in my previous post) refers to Rock's framework for understanding the five primary social dimensions within which our brains respond to perceived threats and rewards.  From Rock's "SCARF..." paper:

[T]wo themes are emerging from social neuroscience. Firstly, that much of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000). Secondly, that several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008). In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water.

The SCARF model summarizes these two themes within a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations. This model can be applied (and tested) in any situation where people collaborate in groups, including all types of workplaces, educational environments, family settings and general social events.

The SCARF model involves five domains of human social experience: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

Status is about relative importance to others. Certainty concerns being able to predict the future. Autonomy provides a sense of control over events. Relatedness is a sense of safety with others, of friend rather than foe. And fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people.

These five domains activate either the 'primary reward' or 'primary threat' circuitry (and associated networks) of the brain. For example, a perceived threat to one's status activates similar brain networks to a threat to one's life. In the same way, a perceived increase in fairness activates the same reward circuitry as receiving a monetary reward.

I've taken the liberty of adapting Rock's graphic version of the SCARF model, with an increased emphasis on the disproportionate ability of threat responses to drive us away relative to reward responses' ability to pull us closer:

Some further comments on each of the five dimensions of the SCARF model:

Status

Status is "about relative importance, 'pecking order' and seniority," Rock writes in "SCARF..."  He cites the work of epidemiologist Michael Marmot, whose research suggests that status is "the most significant determinant of human longevity and health, even when controlling for education and income."

Two key aspects of our brain's perception of status are: 1) how easily a threat response can be triggered by such conventional workplace practices as performance reviews and "feedback" conversations, and 2) the fact that threat and reward responses related to changes in status can be triggered "even when the stakes are meaningless," as Rock writes in strategy+business.  These dynamics imply not only that extreme care must be taken to conduct reviews and provide feedback in ways designed to boost, rather than threaten, the recipient's status, but also that attention must be paid to all the little, everyday ways in which interpersonal status can be built up and torn down.

Certainty

The importance of certainty can be seen as a result of the brain's effort to conserve energy, which derives from the limited capacity of the prefrontal cortex, the seat of executive function.  As I wrote last November, "we resist mental effort around decision-making and impulse control because we're preserving resources in case we need them more urgently in the next moment," and the same dynamic contributes to our resistance to uncertainty.  When we're acting with sufficient certainty, our brain senses patterns, successfully predicts next steps, and operates much more efficiently.  But when we lack certainty and can't predict what will happen next, "the brain must use dramatically more resources, involving the more energy-intensive prefrontal cortex, to process moment-to-moment experience," as Rock writes in "SCARF..."

That said, it's useful to distinguish mild uncertainty from excessive uncertainty.  The former triggers a mild threat response, generating just enough adrenalin and dopamine "to spark curiosity and energize people to solve problems, Rock writes in strategy+business.  However, he continues, "when perceived uncertainty gets out of hand, people panic and make bad decisions."

Autonomy

Our perception of our ability to exert control over our environment has a substantial effect on our response to stress factors in our life.  When we feel more autonomous, we're much more resistant to stress--and when we feel less autonomous, we can perceive the same set of circumstances as much more stressful.

Two aspects of autonomy worth nothing are: 1) autonomy and certainty are intertwined--more autonomy yields a greater sense of certainty about the future; and 2) similar to status, "even a subtle perception of autonomy can help," Rock writes in "SCARF..." suggesting that even where autonomy is substantially limited by organizational constraints, meaningful perceptions of autonomy can be generated by small gestures.

Relatedness

"[I]n the brain," Rock writes in strategy+business, "the ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same social group... When [a] new person is perceived as different, the information travels along neural pathways that are associated with uncomfortable feelings (different from the neural pathways triggered by people who are perceived as similar to oneself.)... Once people begin to make a stronger social connection, their brains begin to secrete a hormone called oxytocin in one another's presence.  This chemical, which has been linked with affection, maternal behavior, sexual arousal and generosity, disarms the threat response and further activates the neural networks that permit us to perceive someone as 'just like us.'"

So in an interpersonal setting it's important to interact in ways that will surface points of similarity, strengthen social connections and increase a sense of relatedness.  From a neuroscientific perspective, this process generates oxytocin, allows our brains to classify the other person as "friend" rather than "foe," and contributes to feelings of trust and empathy.  Of course, this begs the question of how to address dimensions of diversity.  I'm certainly not suggesting that such differences be ignored, but Rock's theory (and my empirical experience with a wide range of clients and students) implies that differences are much more effectively addressed only after a sense of relatedness has been established.

Fairness

"The perception that an event has been unfair," Rock writes in strategy+business, "generates a strong response in the [brain], stirring hostility and undermining trust... In organizations, the perception of unfairness creates an environment in which trust and collaboration cannot flourish."  Rock notes in his "SCARF..." paper that "unfair exchanges generate a strong threat response [that] sometimes includes activation of the insular, a part of the brain involved in intense emotions such as disgust... People who perceive others as unfair don't feel empathy for their pain, and in some instances, will feel rewarded when unfair others are punished."

And like status, perceptions of fairness are relative.  I'm reminded of a recent experience with some colleagues in which I acted in a manner that I felt was fair and justified, while several others had the opposite perception.  At the time I was surprised not only by the difference in our perceptions, but also by the difficulty we experienced in resolving the issue under discussion.  However, in hindsight it's easy to see that the relative nature of fairness implied that there was no absolute truth to be discovered, and the logical arguments of either side were bound to be fruitless.  It was only after we stopped trying to convince the other side of our rightness and simply accepted our relative perceptions that we made any progress toward resolving our differences.

Conclusions

The implications of the SCARF model (and the neurological processes it describes) for the workplace are made clear in Rock's strategy+business article:

Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction, in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system...

Leaders who understand this dynamic can more effectively engage their employees' best talents, support collaborative teams, and create an environment that fosters productive change. Indeed, the ability to intentionally address the social brain in the service of optimal performance will be a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead...

The impact of this neural dynamic is often visible in organizations.  For example, when leaders trigger a threat response, employees' brains become much less efficient.  But when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people's efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response.  Others in the organization become more effective, more open to ideas and more creative.  They notice the kind of information that passes them by when fear or resentment makes it difficult to focus their attention.  They are less susceptible to burnout because they are able to manage their stress.  The feel intrinsically rewarded...

If you are a leader, every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness in your enterprise.  In fact, this is why leading is so difficult.

More specifically, as Rock writes in his "SCARF..." paper...

[K]nowing the drivers that can cause a threat response enables people to design interactions to minimize threats. For example, knowing that a lack of autonomy activates a genuine threat response, a leader or educator may consciously avoid micromanaging their employees or students. Secondly, knowing about the drivers that can activate a reward response enables people to motivate others more effectively by tapping into internal rewards, thereby reducing the reliance on external rewards such as money.

Looming in the background are several key factors Rock mentioned in his talk at Oracle last November: First, as made clear in the graphic above, threat responses are usually much more powerful than reward responses, and thus we move away from threats more quickly and more vigorously than we move toward rewards.  So it's not enough to give equal emphasis to rewards in our leadership and management practices--our brains' disproportionate response to perceived social threats implies that we need to put a much greater weight on efforts intended to generate a reward response, and take great pains to avoid triggering a threat response.  (I'm reminded of psychologist John Gottman's research indicating that the ratio of positive to negative interactions in good relationships is 5:1, even in times of conflict.)

Second, our typical reaction to the strong negative emotions generated by a threat response is to suppress them, particularly in the workplace.  But this response has many undesirable consequences, from reducing our own memory function to raising the blood pressure of people around us.  So the cost of a threat response isn't borne solely by the person experiencing it, but by anyone who interacts with them or depends on their effectiveness.  It's a shared--one might even say contagious--social experience, and this highlights the importance of group dynamics, perhaps most significantly the extent to which it's safe (or unsafe) in a given group to express negative or difficult emotions.  (I'm reminded of my post last year on crying at work.)

Finally, we have very little time--approximately 1/3 of a second--after the perception of a potential threat before a neurological threat response is triggered.  So on an individual basis, it's essential to cultivate our ability to recognize the conditions that might trigger a threat response and proactively reappraise the situation.  And at the group or interpersonal level, it's important to be aware of the speed and ease with which a threat response can be triggered in someone else, to understand how such a response is likely to undermine effective communication, and to take steps that support the other person's reappraisal of the situation without creating defensiveness.  (The importance of reappraisal is a topic I'll be returning to in the future.)

As I noted last November, I see Rock as a (and perhaps the) leading figure in the process of helping practitioners such as myself understand current neuroscience research and apply its findings responsibly.  Rock's SCARF model is a great example of his ability to translate the science into language appropriate for a lay business audience, and I expect to refer to it regularly in my work with coaching clients and MBA students.  Many thanks, David.

Photo by Vato Bob. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

David Rock on Neuroscience, Coaching and Leadership

My interest in neuroscience and its implications for executive coaching, leadership development and other processes that involve behavioral change led me to a talk by David Rock at Oracle last week, sponsored by the South Bay Organizational Development Network (SBODN).

I first came across Rock in mid-2006, when he and Jeffrey Schwartz co-authored "The Neuroscience of Leadership" (free registration required), which, as I wrote in response, "builds on recent findings in brain research to explain why much of the conventional wisdom in the organizational development field is wrong and to suggest alternative approaches that are better suited to how our brains actually work."  I found Rock and Schwartz's vision compelling, although I took issue with their assertion that "humanism is overrated":

This is the one section of Rock and Schwartz's otherwise outstanding article that rings false for me.  It's not an effective critique of humanism, although it is a highly effective critique of various misunderstandings and poorly implemented management practices.

I'd be less critical if Rock and Schwartz had said, "Humanism is difficult to execute, can't be faked, and sometimes devolves into thinly veiled and patronizing efforts at persuasion," or, more concisely, "Pseudo-humanism is overrated."

In fact, I actually associate many of Rock and Schwartz's other recommendations to managers with a range of humanistic disciplines, from coaching to positive psychology:

• Be aware that change is difficult because it causes pain.
• Recognize that people in different functions process in different ways.
• Cultivate "moments of insight" to facilitate change.
• Leave "problem behaviors in the past; focus on identifying and creating new behaviors."

I'm fully convinced by Rock and Schwartz's overall thesis--a better understanding of how our brains function will allow organizations to embrace change and tackle new initiatives much more effectively.

Over the past three years Rock has continued to build upon this thesis in a series of books and articles with a particular focus on executive coaching and the process of personal development.  In 2006 he also published A Brain Based Approach to Coaching (PDF) and Quiet Leadership.  And this year he published Coaching with the Brain in Mind, aimed at coaches and consultants, and Your Brain at Work and Managing with the Brain in Mind (free registration required), both aimed at a general business readership.

Rock's talk at Oracle last week was a stop on his book tour for "Your Brain at Work" and provided a high-level overview of his thinking on neuroscience, coaching and leadership.  I'm not going to attempt a comprehensive assessment of Rock's work here, although I make some more general comments in the Note below.  Rather, these are simply the key points that jumped out at me and seemed most relevant to my own work with coaching corporate clients and MBA students at Stanford (much as I did in my recent review of "The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness."  (A note on quotes: I took hand-written notes during Rock's talk, but didn't make an audio recording.  Where I'm confident that my notes captured his language accurately, I quote the relevant passage, but where I'm not, I paraphrase and cite passages from his written work to convey my understanding of his intent.)

Why Neuroscience?

Rock began coaching in 1996 with no prior exposure to neuroscience.  As his coaching practice grew, he encountered prospective clients who wanted to know more about how and why the process worked.  He found that he could cobble together an explanation by drawing upon such disciplines as positive psychology, cognitive therapy, and various theories of change, learning and systems development, but this patchwork was ultimately unsatisfying (to Rock and presumably to his questioning clients as well.)

But in the early 2000s Rock found that contemporary neuroscience offered a more coherent and useful explanation for the efficacy of the coaching process.  As he wrote in A Brain Based Approach to Coaching (PDF) in 2006...

In 2003, together with a colleague, Elizabeth Guilday, I began helping New York University build a series of certificate programs in coaching. As educators, we both had explored all the underpinning theories of coaching, running classes that covered change theory, systems theory, learning theory, positive psychology, philosophy and other fields. Every time we explored the scientific foundations of coaching, recent findings in neuroscience kept jumping out like a flashing red light to me and to many of my students. Neuroscience was helping me make sense of coaching and opening up great possibilities for research. This inspired me to rethink my whole approach to coaching and explore the neuroscience of the field...

Rock believes that relying upon a neuroscience-based understanding of coaching has several key benefits.  First, "neuroscience gives leaders a language they're comfortable using to understand their experience," and that level of comfort may itself have a neurological basis; Rock notes that tangible concepts (such as the heightened understanding of brain function provided by neuroscience) are actually easier and faster for the brain to recall than intangible concepts.  Another aspect of this dynamic is that neuroscience is a conceptually convenient way for us to understand ourselves; Rock says that "neuroscience provides a data-processing frame for self-awareness," a bit of jargon I find quite catchy.

Second, coupling new skills (such as those developed by coaching clients) with a theory that helps the client understand how and why they're developing those skills makes the skill-development process itself more effective.  According to Rock, the union of skill and theory taps into "a richer brain network to help people understand" the process they're immersed in.

Finally, Rock recognizes that "people pay attention" when we use "hard science" to help explain "soft skills," and his work has obviously capitalized on this dynamic quite effectively.  (For a lengthy but important digression on this point, see the Note below.)

Four Big Surprises

Rock's central thesis is that neuroscience research has revealed four big (and surprising) truths with implications for coaching and personal development:

1) How limited our attention is.
2) How wrong we get emotions.
3) How important the social world is.
4) How attention changes the brain.

In order to better explain these concepts, Rock drew a very simple diagram of the brain showing three key elements:

- The prefrontal cortex, a small region over the forehead.
- The limbic system, a relatively large region in the center of the brain.
- The basal ganglia, a smaller region below the limbic system.

In his talk Rock assumed that his audience understood the primary functions of these brain regions.  To provide a little more context for readers here, the prefrontal cortex...

...has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior.  The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.

The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes).

And the basal ganglia...

...are associated with a variety of functions, including motor control and learning. Currently popular theories implicate the basal ganglia primarily in action selection, that is, the decision of which of several possible behaviors to execute at a given time.

But note that although neuroscience has advanced substantially in recent years, there's still controversy about basic brain structures and their function.  Thus the limbic system can be described at an elemental level as...

...a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex, which support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction.

But anything more specific seems to be speculative.  That said, it's sufficient for my purposes here to view the limbic system as a constellation of related brain features that collectively affect our emotions, particularly our responses to perceived threats and rewards.

Rock noted that if we define the capacity of the prefrontal cortex as equivalent to a single cubic foot, the rest of the brain's capacity would be the equivalent of the Milky Way galaxy.  I have questions about the science that underpins this assertion--Is it simply a matter of counting neurons?--but I accept the larger point Rock is making with the metaphor: The portion of our brain that we believe to be responsible for such functions as complex thought, decision-making, moderating social behavior and other aspects of executive function is quite small relative to the rest of the brain, and that has significant implications for how we interact with others.

To emphasize that point, Rock quoted Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister: "We have limited resources for activities like decision-making and impulse control, and when we use these up we have less available for the next activity."  (An important implication of the resource constraint referred to by Baumeister is that we resist mental effort around decision-making and impulse control because we're preserving resources in case we need them more urgently in the next moment.)

First Surprise: How limited our attention is.

Our attention is a finite resource.  Rock stated that people typically average just 1-2 hours of focused attention per day because the prefrontal cortex tires easily.  (Rock asked us what we would do differently, knowing that our attention is so limited.  I realized that I generally fail to appreciate the value of focused attention time, and thus fail to acknowledge the dangers posed by distractions.  Things that sap our attention or cause us to lose focus aren't merely annoyances--they're serious productivity-killers, and I could certainly act more decisively to resist them and keep them at bay.)

Rock also noted that our ability to learn is affected by the levels of certain brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters.  Specifically, relatively high levels of dopamine and sufficient levels of norepinephrine are required for optimal learning conditions.  Difficulty in learning--which could be characterized as insufficient attention--can be eased by increasing the levels of dopamine, which will increase our ability to focus.  One way to accomplish this is by doing something novel, which typically raises dopamine levels significantly.  For example, we can experience humor as novel, particularly when it's unexpected, and thus when teachers use humor effectively it can often enhance their students' ability to pay attention and allow them to learn more.

An important aspect of brain chemistry is that it's relatively hard to raise dopamine levels and relatively easy to raise levels of brain chemicals triggered by a threat response--specifically adrenaline and cortisol.  And increasing the amount of adrenaline in the brain actually serves to decrease the amount of dopamine, further hampering the learning process--thus the importance of minimizing and/or reassessing threat responses when learning is the goal.

An implication of the limits of our attention (and, more specifically, the capacity of our prefrontal cortex) relates to the Cubic Foot/Milky Way metaphor discussed above.  Rock noted that complex problems are rarely solved via working memory in the prefrontal cortex; studies indicate that we solve 60% of the problems we face without knowing how we solved them, i.e. "the answer simply occurred to me."  This is particularly important when we're trying to innovate.  Intense, active cognitive thought involves focusing the prefrontal cortex--the Cubic Foot--but this can often cause us to "prime" our brain with the wrong answer, according to Rock.  The solution is to "deprime" the brain in order to solve the problem.  In Rock's words, "Use the Milky Way and not the Cubic Foot... Innovation happens when you shut the heck up and stop trying to solve the problems and let your unconscious [i.e. the Milky Way] solve it."  (As Steve Jobs has said, "Sometimes when you're almost asleep, you realize something you wouldn't otherwise have noted.")

Another point Rock sought to make in this discussion was the importance of metacognition, thinking about thinking.  This occurs not only at a cognitive, conceptual level--how do I think?--but also at a more visceral, immediate level--what am I thinking (and feeling) at this moment, and is it useful, or would I be better served by thinking (and feeling) differently?  As Rock said, "the more metacognition you do, the more adaptive you are."

Rock concluded this section of his talk with a discussion of the ways in which our limited attention can be diverted by less useful types of brain activity.  Intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions activate relatively few neurons and generate small amounts of electrical activity in the brain.  In contrast, cognitive thought activates large numbers of neurons and generates more electrical activity, and a threat response activates even more neurons and generates even more electrical activity.  But, as noted above, intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions play an important role in complex problem-solving and innovation, so at times when we're focused on those tasks, it's important to be able to lower the level of electrical activity in the brain--not only by avoiding threat responses, but also by avoiding getting trapped in intense (yet unproductive) conscious thought--in order for us to notice and act upon those intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions.  Paradoxically, the ability to stop or minimize active conscious thinking and "quiet our minds" is an important problem-solving skill.  (Rock didn't touch on practices to develop this skill, but I suspect that that meditation and activities that generate "flow states" would be useful here.)

Second Surprise: How wrong we get emotions.

Negative emotions are extremely powerful, and according to Rock, we move away from threats much more quickly and vigorously than we move toward rewards.  Strong negative emotions also significantly reduce prefrontal cortex function, so a threat response diminishes our problem-solving abilities and other executive functions governed by that region of the brain.

Many factors in the workplace create a threat response--a topic Rock explores in greater depth in "Your Brain at Work"--which means that we often experience strong negative emotions there (and far more frequently than we realize.)  But our typical response to negative emotions in that context is to suppress them, because they're "not appropriate" for the workplace, according to many organizational cultures (and our own training.)  Unfortunately, suppressing negative emotions has a number of undesirable consequences, from reducing memory function to raising the blood pressure of other people around us (presumably via "mirror neurons", which fire when we observe behaviors in others.)

A useful alternative to suppressing negative emotions is to simply talk about them.  As I've discussed before, research by Matt Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberger et al has "demonstrated that linguistic processing of the emotional aspects of an emotional image produces less amygdala activity than perceptual processing of the emotional aspects of the same image."  In lay terms, talking about negative emotions helps us manage them more effectively than merely thinking about them.

This process, known as affect labeling, is part of a larger dynamic related to how we respond to negative emotions.  We can't control the negative emotions we feel, but we can exert more control over how we respond to them, and perhaps the most significant distinction is whether we suppress or reappraise negative emotions.  Here Rock cited the work of James Gross, a Stanford professor of psychology known as "the father of emotional regulation," and Kevin Ochsner, who directs the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Columbia.  Studies have shown a substantial difference in a number of quality-of-life and effectiveness indicators based on our tendency to suppress or reappraise negative emotions, and reappraisal inevitably leads to better outcomes.  In response to a question of mine, Rock said that there is some evidence that we can retrain ourselves to reappraise rather than suppress negative emotions, but given the importance of this factor for so many forms of personal development and behavioral change, I'll be looking into Gross's and Ochsner's research further in the coming weeks, and I hope to meet with Gross at Stanford next month.

If we think of the strong emotions and other responses generated by the limbic system as the brain's "accelerator," then we might think of the opposing forces that cause us to reappraise a situation before a full-blown threat response kicks in, which are generated by the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, as the brain's "braking system."  A dilemma related to the Cubic Foot/Milky Way metaphor discussed above is that the resources available for acceleration, i.e. the capacity of the limbic system, are far greater than the resources available for braking, i.e. the capacity of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.  Accordingly, we have very little time--something on the order of 1/3 of a second--to "put on the brakes" and intervene to reappraise a situation and our response to it.

At this point in his talk Rock noted that we have two ways of experiencing the world around us that tap into two separate neural networks in the brain: 1) A "narrative circuit," consisting of the limbic system and the thinking/planning regions of the prefrontal cortex, in which active, conscious thought allows us to make meaning of the world in an ongoing, logical narrative, and 2) "direct experience," a state of mindfulness in which we're not engaged in conscious thought but rather activating our sensory systems and taking in increased amounts of sensory data which we don't consciously analyze but simply experience.  (I'm reminded of Jill Bolte Taylor's discussion [video] of her experience as a brain researcher in the midst of having a stroke, which allowed her to access these two ways of being in sharp and vivid contrast.)  Rock added that the networks these systems make use of actually switch each other off, so when we focus on one, activity in the other diminishes.  Unsurprisingly, we tend to focus on the "narrative circuit," which switches off the "direct experience" network, reducing the amount of sensory data available and increasing the amount of conscious thought, which, as noted above, increases the level of electrical activity in the brain and potentially "drowns out" intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions.

Given the limited time and resources available for us to make use of the brain's "braking system," Rock believes it's essential to enhance our ability to operate in "direct experience" mode, increasing the available sensory data and allowing us greater access to intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions that might otherwise be ignored.  To be clear, this doesn't mean being mindful all the time, but rather being more adaptive, so we can choose to be more mindful, activating the direct experience network and increasing the flow of sensory data when it would be useful to do so.

Third Surprise: The deeply social brain.

Returning to the idea that we move away from threats more powerfully than we move toward rewards, Rock noted that there are five social dimensions within which we can perceive threats and rewards: Status, our position relative to others; Certainty, our ability to predict future outcomes; Autonomy, the feeling that we have choices and are in control; Relatedness, the feeling that we are connected to others; and Fairness, the sense that people will act ethically and justly.

Our brain responds to social threats in these dimensions just as it does to the threat of physical pain, a finding that has substantial implications for leadership practices.  The power of our threat response means that leaders can use social threats--those related to Status, Certainly, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness--to dramatic effect.  I'm reminded of a recent Stanford Daily article on the research of university biologist and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, which noted that our threat response evolved in a very specific context:

In the wild, 99 percent of stress responses never exceed three minutes, after which Sapolsky said, "either it's over with or you're over with."  In humans, the response is often mounted in anticipation of an assault on homeostasis rather than an actual perturbation.  "We’re having these anticipatory psychological stressors, [and] we turn on the exact same stress response as every other beast out there, and we use it for all the wrong reasons," said Sapolsky. "If you do it chronically, you’re going to get sick, because that’s not what the stress response evolved for."

So leaders who rely on threat responses may see results in the short term, but they and their colleagues will likely pay a substantial price in the long term.  Rock believes that it's more sustainable and ultimately more effective for leaders to rely on social rewards rather than threats.  I agree, but Rock's own assertion that the reward response is weaker and slower to develop than the threat response implies that it will take more skill, effort and possibly restraint on the part of a leader to emphasize rewards rather than threats.

(A additional comment on Relatedness: Rock said that at a fundamental level our brains see the world as populated by an In-Group, to which we're connected, and an Out-Group, to which we're not--Friends and Foes, in other words.  Strangers are automatically classified by our brains as Foes until we share some sort of bonding experience with them that generates oxytocin, which allows our brains to re-classify them as Friends.)

Fourth Surprise: How attention changes the brain

The good news is that Rock was quick to respond to questions from the audience throughout his talk; the bad news is that this left us short of time, and he wasn't able to address the fourth point of his thesis in detail.  Based on my understanding of his work, I assume he would have discussed the concept of neuroplasticity, which I touch on briefly below.

Rock closed with a short list of resources where his work is available (in addition to the books and articles I cite above):
- Blog at Psychology Today
- Neuroleadership Institute
- Neuroleadership Summit in Boston, October 2010
- Results Coaching Systems, Rock's coaches training firm

In summary, I learned a great deal and found Rock's interpretation of current neuroscience research compelling.  I even bought a copy of "Your Mind at Work," which I've skimmed in the course of writing this review, and I expect to dig more deeply into his work going forward.

A Note on Credibility

Rock's role as a populizer of complex and experimental scientific research has exposed him to criticism, such as a thorough (but unfortunately anonymous) critical review of "Quiet Leadership" on Amazon that calls the book "psuedo-scientific mumbo-jumbo."  Rock has clearly made an effort to associate himself with reputable scientists, many from UCLA's School of Medicine, including Daniel Siegel, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry who wrote the foreward to "Your Brain at Work," and numerous speakers at the Neuroleadership Summit (which Rock founded and organizes), including Matt Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberg, clinical neuroscientists at UCLA whose work I've cited before.  So despite any shortcomings in specific passages of Rock's work, I trust that he's engaged in a good faith effort to understand the science and represent it accurately for a lay audience.  That said, I have two caveats.

First, in addition to the many neuroscientists speaking at the 2009 Neuroleadership Summit, Werner Erhard spoke on "How Language Shapes the World."  Erhard, who founded est and the Forum, and whose work formed the basis of the subsequent Landmark Forum programs, clearly has a unique perspective on personal growth and development.  And I know people who've attended and benefited from Landmark seminars (and I'm aware that some well-known management thinkers have been associated with Landmark over the years, including Warren Bennis--another 2009 Neuroleadership Summit speaker--and Michael Jansen.)  But I've also read a number of articles that raise serious concerns about est and Landmark, particularly related to methods that participants experienced as coercive and the pressure placed on participants to sign up for additional workshops and to recruit their family and friends.  So while I'm sure Erhard is a compelling and thought-provoking speaker, his credibility is diminished by those criticisms.

Second, while much of Rock's work with Jeffrey Schwartz is grounded in neuroscience that seems amply documented (at least to a layperson such as myself), in at least one instance they stray far into experimental territory and reach conclusions that seem unsupported by research.  For example, in "A Brain-Based Approach to Coaching," Rock and Schwartz assert that the brain is a "quantum environment," by which they mean that it changes in response to observation, just as particles do in quantum physics (in contrast to the more predictable and invariable movements of particles in conventional Newtonian physics.)  The implication, according to Schwartz, is "what has been termed self-directed neuroplasticity, or the ability of an individual to alter his or her own brain activity through the active practice of focusing attention in constructive ways."  This is a complex concept, but it's certainly one that I find credible, and describing the brain as a quantum environment helps me to understand it.

But asked by Rock to explain this process how and why this process occurs, Schwartz takes a big (and problematic) leap:

An important and well-verified law in quantum mechanics called the Quantum Zeno Effect turns out to be the key to understanding how focused attention can systematically re-wire the brain. Quantum Zeno Effect was first described nearly 30 years ago and has been extensively studied many times since then. One classic example of it is the fact that rapidly repeated observation of a molecule will hold the molecule in a stable state. It does this by markedly slowing the rate of fluctuation the molecule demonstrates when not observed in a repetitive fashion. This is a basic principle of quantum physics -- the rate of observation has marked measurable effects on the phenomenon being observed. The Quantum Zeno Effect for neuroscience application states that the mental act of focusing attention holds in place brain circuits associated with what is being focused on. If you pay enough attention to a certain set of brain connections, it keeps this relevant circuitry stable, open and dynamically alive, enabling it to eventually becoming a part of the brain’s hard wiring. [My emphasis]

The problem is that the existence of a "Quantum Zeno Effect for neuroscience research" appears to be theoretical.  In 2004 Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State, published a paper titled "Does quantum mechanics play a non-trivial role in life?" (PDF), and his conclusion was essentially "We don't know":

The case for quantum biology remains one of "not proven." There are many suggestive experiments and lines of argument indicating that some biological functions operate close to, or within, the quantum regime, but as yet no clear-cut example has been presented of non-trivial quantum effects at work in a key biological process.

This suggests to me that while Schwartz may be accurately describing an aspect of brain function that we can observe empirically through fMRI images and other neuroscientific tools (i.e. that "focusing attention holds in place brain circuits associated with what is being focused on"), the idea that this process is caused by a "Quantum Zeno effect for neuroscience application" is unproven.  It might be a great metaphor and a useful teaching tool, and it might fit well with other aspects of Schwartz's or Rock's thought, but asserting it as a proven fact seems to undermine, rather than bolster, the scientific credibility of Rock's work.

As I mention above, I do trust Rock's interpretation of current neuroscience research, and I believe his application of its findings to coaching offers a compelling explanation for how and why the coaching process actually works.  At the same time, it's clear that the field of neuroscience attracts thinkers from a wide range of backgrounds and extends into highly experimental territory.  Coaches with an interest in applying the principles of neuroscience would do well to maintain an open mind while also remaining skeptical of purported experts and of any far-reaching conclusions that don't seem to be fully supported by research.

James Baldwin on the Ugly Side of Life

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

- James Baldwin

My colleague Trina Roach tweeted this quote the other day, and it caught my attention.  (And I'm not alone--a search for the line turns up 30,000 hits.  No one seems to know exactly where Baldwin wrote or said it, but it certainly sounds like him, so I'm going to trust the attribution.)

While Baldwin was surely inspired by the specific challenges he faced pursuing his own calling as a writer, I'd extend his sentiment beyond professions to include any institution, from nations to organizations to families.  And I suspect that Baldwin--a gay Black man born in 1924 and driven abroad by ferocious bigotry--would agree.

Someone included this line in a list of "cynical quotes," but that's a misinterpretation; there's a big difference between soul-sucking cynicism and clear-eyed realism.  I'm not a cynic, although occasionally I play one at dinner parties, and I love darkly sardonic humor.  As a coach I believe deeply in the power of the positive--an attitude supported not only by my empirical experience with clients and students, but also by everything we're learning about neuroscience and how our brains respond to threats and rewards.

But emphasizing and harnessing the power of the positive doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the negative, ignoring ugliness and celebrating this best of all possible worlds.  It means accepting that there is ugliness in this world, in innumerable forms, and choosing how to respond to it.

Consider Baldwin's quote in context: He was obviously intimately acquainted with the ugly side of life, and yet he wrote 24 books, the last one published the year he died of stomach cancer.  He didn't shrink from or ignore ugliness, but he didn't let it prevent him from pursuing his calling; I'd argue that he used it to help fuel his genius.

Acknowledging the ugliness that exists while also staying focused on and making use of the positive isn't easy--at times it can be the toughest challenge we face.  But to me that's the definition of maturity, and striving to maintain that balance has been an important process in my own growth and development.  I fail regularly, but hopefully less often as the years go by.

Photo of James Baldwin by Mottke Weissman, accompanying "Freeing James Baldwin" by Dwight Garner of the New York Times.

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

My interest in neuroscience and its implications for executive coaching, personal development and professional effectiveness led me to have lunch recently with Alvaro Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of SharpBrains, a market research firm that focuses on the application of neuroscience in healthcare, education and related fields.  I was sufficiently inspired by my conversation with Alvaro that I went on to read The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness, which he co-authored with Dr. Elkhonen Goldberg, his SharpBrains co-founder.  (Full disclosure: I know Alvaro personally from business school, and he loaned me a copy of his book.)

The Guide, published earlier this year, is a great overview of current neuroscience research, with nearly 20 interviews with scientists, physicians, educators and others working in the field.  A few key points that caught my attention:

1) Cognitive Training Can Lead to Behavioral Change

Dr. Judith Beck, author of Cognitive Therapy (an outstanding overview of this system of psychotherapy's principles and application), has been highly successful at helping people achieve and maintain weight loss, which she found was a secondary goal of many of her patients suffering from depression and anxiety.  As Fernandez and Goldberg write in the Guide:

Cognitive therapy (CT)...is based on the idea that the way people perceive their experience influences their behaviors and emotions.  The therapist teaches the patient cognitive and behavioral skills to modify his or her dysfunctional thinking and actions.

CT aims at improving specific traits, behaviors or cognitive skills, such as planning and flexibility, which are executive functions...

According to Dr. Beck, the main message of CT and its application in the diet world is that problems losing weight...reflect the lack of skills that can be acquired through training.  What skills is Dr. Beck talking about?  Mostly executive functions: the skills to plan in advance, motivate oneself, to monitor one's behavior, etc.

Dr. Beck is also interviewed in the Guide:

I found that many of the same cognitive and behavioral techniques that helped [my patients] overcome their other problems could also help them lose weight--and keep it off.

I became particularly interested in the problem of being overweight and was able to identify specific mindsets or cognitions about food, eating, hunger, craving, perfectionism, helplessness, self-image, unfairness, deprivation and others that needed to be targeted to help them reach their goal.

Although cognitive therapy's efficacy as a methodology extends well beyond its effectiveness in supporting weight loss, as a coach I find the connection compelling.  Many of my clients and students wrestle with issues unrelated to mental health but nevertheless rooted in mindsets similar to the ones Beck lists above, particularly perfectionism.  And while I am not a therapist and do not employ CT techniques per se, much of my work as a coach involves more general cognitive training intended to support and maintain behavioral change.  At the most basic level, simply helping a client reframe an experience or situation by viewing it from an alternative perspective can allow them to feel quite  differently as a result--and then to act in ways that better support their goals.

2) Experiential Learning Has a Neurological Basis

I've written before about the importance of experiential learning in my work as a coach and consultant.  David Kolb (and his colleague Roger Fry) first developed the experiential learning model in the 1970s, and today Dr. James Zull, a biologist and biochemist at Case Western Reserve, believes that activity in different regions of the brain corresponds with the four stages of this model:

SharpBrains: How does learning happen?

Zull: There are 4 stages in the "Learning Cycle."  Stage One: We have a concrete experience.  Stage Two: We develop reflective observations and connections.  Stage Three: We generate abstract hypotheses.  Stage Four: Then we actively test these hypotheses.

In the fourth stage, we have a new concrete learning experience, and a new Learning Cycle ensues.  In other words, we get information (activating the sensory cortex), make meaning of that information (in the back integrative cortex), create new ideas from these meanings (in the front integrative cortex), and act on those ideas (using the motor cortex.)  From this, I propose that there are four pillars of learning: gathering, analyzing, creating and acting.  This is how we learn.

On a tangential note, I'm also struck by the fact that Zull goes on to say that, "Learning in this way requires effort and getting out of our comfort zones.  A key condition for learning is self-driven motivation, a sense of ownership.  To feel in control, to feel that one is making progress, is necessary for this Learning Cycle."  Executive coaching is rarely successful unless the client is willing to stretch beyond their comfort zone, and it's never successful unless the client feels a sense of ownership over the process.

3) Structured Learning Supports Peak Performance

Dr. Brett Steenbarger is a professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, as well as a financial trader with over 30 years of experience in the markets.  His current area of research is "how to enhance cognitive and emotional development among traders to help them become more successful."  Steenbarger is interviewed in the Guide:

SharpBrains: What is the premise of your new book, "Enhancing Trader Performance"?

Steenbarger: The premise is that elite performers in highly competitive fields share common traits... The elite performers are most distinguished by the structure of their learning process... Traders typically devote little time to practice and a structured learning process.  I want to encourage them to see that "learning on the job" is not a substitute for breaking down skills into components, drilling these, receiving feedback about performance, and making continuous modifications and improvements.

In every field, elite performers devote more time to practice than to the actual performance.  To perform at the highest level, you need to protect and optimize practice and learning time.

Specifically, Steenbarger recommends that traders who seek to improve their performance make use of 1) simulation and biofeedback tools, 2) reflection and regular feedback, and 3) mentors and coaches.  I'm struck by the parallel with the Leadership Labs we run for first-year MBA students at Stanford.  In a series of classes in their first Quarter in school, small groups of 8 students each go through simulations and role-plays that evoke how they respond in challenging situations, give each other feedback on their effectiveness, and work with a second-year "Leadership Fellow" who serves as a facilitator and mentor to the group.  (As a "Leadership Coach," I, in turn, work with groups of the second-year Fellows to help guide them through the experience.)

Of course, perhaps it's no surprise that a coach recommends an expert who recommends coaching!  But at least I try to walk the talk--I support my own professional development through such structured learning experiences as having my own coach (who I see every few weeks), joining 3 other coaches for monthly conference calls (a new practice I just started), and being a member of a monthly group that meets in person to support each other, provide feedback and work on our interpersonal skills (although this Fall evening classes have conflicted with my group time :-P )

But the key finding for me is the inherent value in rigorous, structured learning, whatever form it takes.  If that inspires you to go out and retain a coach, great--but if it inspires you to keep a notebook on your bedside table and jot down a few lines before turning out the light, that's great, too.

4) Cognitive Training Enhances Attention

"Attention" is obviously a key cognitive skill, but we typically apply the term somewhat loosely to three distinct processes, as described by Dr. Michael Posner, an emeritus professor of neuroscience from the University of Oregon and a leading expert in cognitive neuroscience:

SharpBrains: Can you explain the brain basis for what we usually call "attention"?

Posner: One of our major findings, thanks to neuroimaging, is that there is not one single "attention," but three separate functions of attention with three separate underlying brain networks... 1) Alerting: Helps us maintain an alert state.  2) Orienting: Focuses our senses on the information we want... 3) Executive attention: Regulates a variety of networks, such as emotional responses and sensory information... Executive attention is...the ability to manage attention towards [goal-oriented executive functions], towards planning... [Later in the interview, Posner stresses that "it is clear that executive attention...(is)...critical for success in school..."]

SharpBrains: Tell us now about your recent research on attention training.

Posner: Several training programs have been successful in improving attention in normal adults and in patients suffering from different pathologies...

Let me add that we have found no ceiling for abilities such as attention, including among adults.  The more training, even with normal people, the higher the results.

The topic of attention is also prominent in the Guide's interview with Dr. Daniel Gopher, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Technion, a scientist who's worked on cognitive performance programs with the Israeli military and the NBA:

SharpBrains: Please summarize your research findings...

Gopher: In short, I'd summarize by saying that cognitive performance can be substantially improved with proper training.  It is not rigidly constrained by innate, fixed abilities.  Cognitive task analysis enables us to extract major cognitive skills in any task.  Attention control and attention allocation strategies are critical determinants in performing at top level in complex, real-time decision environments.  Those skills, and other associated ones, can be improved through training.  Research shows that stand-alone, inexpensive PC-based training is effective to transfer and generalize performance.

In other words: 1) Attention is a complex phenomenon comprised of 3 distinct processes; 2) The specific process of executive attention and the sub-tasks of attention allocation and control are critical to success in cognitively demanding environments, and 3) Inexpensive computer training has been shown to improve attention-related cognitive performance.

So should we all be using these cognitive training tools?  And if so, which ones?  Well, those are the questions that SharpBrains is trying to answer, and I encourage you to check out their research.  The $20 Guide is aimed at laypeople like me with a general interest in neuroscience's implications for our own fields, and their $1,300 Market Report is aimed at analysts and others with a professional interest in the "brain fitness software market" (and bigger budgets.)

Again, full disclosure: I know Alvaro Fernandez personally from business school, and he loaned me a copy of the Guide.  That said, there's no way I'd ever promote a company unless I truly found their products useful, and the Guide is the best high-level overview of the "brain fitness" field I've seen.

What Are You Paying Attention To?

What's your most valuable resource?

Give this a little thought and you might say it's your time.  But it's not time--it's attention.

True, we consume time when we pay attention to something.  But we can free up more time by doing fewer things, or by doing some things faster, or just by stopping sooner.  In a sense, time is elastic.

But attention is far less malleable.  We're either focused on something or we're not.  And we focus--I mean truly focus--on just one thing at a time.  Don't talk to me about multitasking--it's a myth.  Having lots of things in the background, occupying our "peripheral attention," isn't true multitasking any more than using our peripheral vision is true "multi-seeing."  It just means that our focus is shifting more frequently--which can substantially decrease our efficiency as we cycle in and out of various tasks.

I spent 2005-06 as the Executive Director of AttentionTrust, a nonprofit that aspired to educate people about the value of their "attention data," i.e. the mountains of data generated by what we pay attention to (and what we ignore), while providing them with the means to actually capture and make use of this data by means of a Firefox plugin.  I was reminded of that experience and of the crucial importance of attention by Sam Anderson's recent "In Defense of Distraction" in New York.  Anderson interviews psychologist David Meyer, Director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan:

I begin, a little sheepishly, with a question that strikes me as sensationalistic, nonscientific, and probably unanswerable by someone who's been professionally trained in the discipline of cautious objectivity: Are we living through a crisis of attention?

Before I even have a chance to apologize, Meyer responds with the air of an Old Testament prophet. "Yes," he says. "And I think it's going to get a lot worse than people expect." He sees our distraction as a full-blown epidemic--a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought. He compares it, in fact, to smoking. "People aren't aware what's happening to their mental processes," he says, "in the same way that people years ago couldn't look into their lungs and see the residual deposits."

Anderson goes on to discuss the "cognitive plague"--all the devices and channels that clamor for our attention today--in greater detail, as well as the increasing prevalence of "neuroenhancers" like Adderall that many people--particularly students--are using to improve their ability to focus and be productive, before circling around to suggest that distractions can actually be good things:

The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus--the inability to be distracted--can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with "attentional shift" is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It's been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments... It's possible that we're all evolving toward a new techno-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be an advantage again. The deep focusers might even be hampered by having too much attention: Attention Surfeit Hypoactivity Disorder.

I find Anderson's argument here compelling: the ability to let go and move on in a highly dynamic environment can be a valuable adaptive trait, and dogged determination in the same environment can be a sign of fatal inflexibility rather than laser-like focus.  But I'd emphasize two points before embracing that idea fully.

First, sometimes we're distracted for vitally important reasons, as Anderson's conversation with productivity guru Merlin Mann makes clear:

For Mann, many of our attention problems are symptoms of larger existential issues: motivation, happiness, neurochemistry. "I'm not a physician or a psychiatrist, but I'll tell you, I think a lot of it is some form of untreated ADHD or depression," he says. "Your mind is not getting the dopamine or the hugs that it needs to keep you focused on what you're doing. And any time your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you."

When I'm distracted because I'm demotivated or unhappy, my distraction is neither a symptom of the "cognitive plague" nor a badge of honor befitting a "techno-cognitive nomad."  Rather, it's an early warning sign of a deeper issue that needs to be addressed directly.

And second, what we pay attention to matters.  In Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin wrote:

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

What we pay attention to matters, because we pay for what we pay attention to, and we pay for it very simply; by the lives we lead.

Photo by hellosputnik.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.