Archive for February, 2009
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
By William Seidman
Dr. Michael Posner, Oregon neuroscientist, was recently interviewed by Alvaro Fernandez on the neuroscience of attention/attentiveness and emotional self-regulation. Dr. Posner theorizes that there is a specific portion of the human brain that is used to allocate attention. From this attention comes “effortful control“: the ability to focus attention in order to accomplish a task.
- You can improve your ability to pay attention, making that ability stronger and more effective.
- When you improve attention and attentiveness, performance improves.
We use this notion of attention to focus people on positive deviant content. This teaches people the content, and also teaches them how to attain improved attention. The combination of the two makes for much improved performance.
Tags: Alvaro Fernandez, attention, attentiveness, effortful control, human brain, improving performance, Michael Posner, neuroscience, positive deviant
Posted in neuroscience, optimization, organizational change, personal change, positive deviance, positive deviants | No Comments »
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
By William Seidman
Common sense tells us that writing things down - possibly to enhance memory but especially to vent - can help us in several ways. Keeping a diary can make you happier, UCLA associate professor of social neuroscience Matthew Lieberman has found. Lieberman has studied the act of writing things down and found that writing about emotions, specifically negative ones, can calm the activity of the amygdala and help regulate emotional states.
In our work we find that writing things down helps learning as well as emotional states - so it was great to see it reinforced in brain scans. The people we’ve coached report a greater sense of personal power and enhanced comfort level with organizational and personal change when they’ve written things down. The act of writing down something emotionally difficult relocates the unpleasantness from the brain’s fear center to its intellectual center - and this makes a huge difference in a person’s ability to cope with the new information or changes.
Tags: amygdala, Matthew Lieberman, organizational change, personal change, regulating emotional states, regulating emotions, UCLA
Posted in best practices, organizational change, personal change | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
By William Seidman
I like the work of blogger Guy Kawasaki, and he’s put up an interview with Stanford Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Hayagreeva Rao, who is the author of “Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations.”
Dr. Rao has published widely in management and sociology. In his new book he takes on the adoption of innovation, and the role of early adopters to drive innovation.
Early adopters’ enthusiasm doesn’t mean much to a product or a movement if there isn’t some underlying value. Innovations that turn out to be mere fads (think pet rocks) can flare up and be hot for a while (and may make money for their originator), but they fade quickly.
Innovations that add long term and lasting value, particularly value that improves the quality of life, tend to stick around for the long term.
Tags: Early Adopters, Guy Kawasaki, Hayagreeva Rao, Stanford University, “Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations”
Posted in business, organizational change, personal change | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
By William Seidman
Yesterday I led a webinar for the Ohio Heartland Chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement. Julie Snyder and Tom Roach of “Leadership Beyond Limits” helped make it happen, and Suki McIntosh of OHISPI hosted.
Our use of the science of positive deviance, best practices research, and change initiatives inspired a key question: Does our scientific approach to change frighten people who are reluctant to change?
My answer: Of course it does! People who don’t want to change resist any method that promises to help them to change.
Our change process - any change process - works only when people want to do something differently and are willing to work to make it happen. Training, videos, digital coaching technology, webinars, binders … none of this drives change with organizations and people who want to stay the same and work in the same old ways. Cerebyte’s success comes from working with organizations, companies, and people who want to change - and want to know how to do it and make it “stick.”
Tags: best practices, digital coaching technology, Julie Snyder, Leadership Beyond Limits, neuroscience and change, OHISPI, organizational change, positive deviance, Suki McIntosh, Tom Rausch
Posted in best practices, getting change to "stick", management consulting, neuroscience, organizational change, personal change | No Comments »
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
By William Seidman
One of our partners in the work we do is Edward Ferris, Managing Partner at Charlesmore, a management consulting and organizational strategic change firm. One of the biggest challenges in organizational strategy is implementation - and this is where we at Cerebyte have so much to offer.
Edward has been doing a lot of work in India, second only to China in growth in Asia. The global recession that started in the US is less noticeable in these two countries. China has been dialed back, but with four times the population of the US and a growing (rather than shrinking) middle class, we can still consider it strong.
The reality of vast internal markets in these two countries (its citizens actually consume what their countries produce) means that many businesses in China and India can continue to grow without, in fact, playing globally. This internal growth isn’t going to be perpetual, but for now it’s pretty significant.
We are looking to companies in China and India for some great opportunities for our coaching for positive deviance, organizational change, and best practices - in whatever sector they are in.
Tags: best practices, Cerebyte, Charlesmore, China, Edward Ferris, global recession, implementation, India, internal markets, management consulting, organizational change, organizational strategic change, positive deviance
Posted in best practices, business, management consulting, organizational change, positive deviance | No Comments »
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
By William Seidman
I recently returned from Shenzhen (above, left), Beijing, and Hong Kong where I worked with Intel customer service teams - speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese, sometimes one and sometimes both - with only moderate English language skills. In their high-tech industry they are some of the best - and the work went well. Vivien Li (above, center) contributed hugely to our success.
My teams found that taking notes was a powerful tool.
- Some of the team members are speakers of Mandarin, and some speak Cantonese ; the languages are vastly dissimilar.
- Being able to write down their learnings in real time is powerful.
- Instead of relying on PowerPoint presentations and spoken English, much of their learning derived from discussions in their native language, stimulated by written “best practices.”
- They then would record learnings by writing in English. This recording made a big difference in retention, and actually solidifies learning. The act of note-taking, and the reliability of notes was especially important to our work in China - much as it is here in the US.
Tags: Beijing, best practices, Cantonese, China, customer service, Hong Kong, Intel, Mandarin, organizational change, Shenzhen, Vivien Li
Posted in best practices, management consulting, organizational change | No Comments »
