Follow Us Twitter Link | Email Us email us | 1.888.745.2520

Posts Tagged ‘neuroscience’

Neuroscience and the Self-Control of Mood and Attentiveness

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.

Neuroleadership’s Big Contribution to Management

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

By William Seidman

Research in neuroscience has been sucessfully utilized to improve management. David Rock and Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz’s article “Why Neuroscience Matters to Executives” details important aspects of neuroscience’s contribution to our understanding of how minds work.

The North American NeuroLeadership Summit at the end of October in New York drew change agents from 150 countries - people coming together to better understand the links from neuroscience to human performance and - most importantly - the application of these findings.

Cerebyte takes these findings seriously, and applies them to the businesses we coach. Some of what we do: help create the vision; focus attention, and create useful repetition and reinforcement for long-term change. A replicable and predictable experience for hundreds of people simultaneously reaps real rewards for companies and organizations.

Affirming Your Values to Reduce Stress: Much More than Cheerleading

Friday, October 17th, 2008

 
By William Seidman

Stephanie West Allen is a tremendous source of good information about neuroscience and mediation, and has also written about the relationship between affirming one’s values and reducing work stress.

A research report that really aligns with our findings, “Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses,” details the impact of personal affirmations on stress levels. The study was conducted at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara by Psychologist J. David Creswell, et al.

The research found that stress is reduced when people affirm their values before doing a stressful activity. Work is very stressful for many people, which is why we have people begin by affirming in writing and verbally their commitment to creating some type of greater good from their work. This creates engagement and stress visibly decreases. It’s a motivator, too.

We’ve also found that review of a passionate statement from the positive deviants by a user of the system creates engagement, which reduces stress, and also seem to positively motivate people. Can a mirror neuron effect occur solely though contact with positive deviant language?

By William Seidman

Stephanie West Allen is a tremendous source of good information about neuroscience and mediation, and has also written about the relationship between affirming one’s values and reducing work stress. 

A research report that really aligns with our findings, “Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses,” details the impact of personal affirmations on stress levels. The study was conducted at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara by Psychologist J. David Creswell, et al.

The research found that stress is reduced when people affirm their values before doing a stressful activity.   Work is very stressful for many people, which is why we have people begin by affirming in writing and verbally their commitment to creating some type of greater good from their work. This creates engagement and stress visibly decreases. It’s a motivator, too.

We’ve also found that review of a passionate statement from the positive deviants by a user of the system creates engagement, which reduces stress, and also seem to positively motivate people. Can a mirror neuroneffect occur solely though contact with positive deviant language?

 

 

 

The Power of Emotional Connection in Learning

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

By William Seidman

David Brooks is writing a book on “neuroscience and sociology” and is interested in the science (and mechanics) of learning. I heard him speak at the Aspen Institute - you can hear his talk here.

Some of his points re learning:

  • emotional connection is vitally important
  • genuine caring is the single most important factor
  • most brain function is beneath consciousness and knowledge must penetrate to deep levels to be sustainable

To coach well you must create a strong emotional connection with your coachee. If your coachee knows that you care and that you listen, the chances of success increase hugely. Establishing an authentic relationship - and then, coaching well - is the best way to go.

Emotional connection provides a powerful platform for working together.

Neuroscience and Change in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

By William Seidman

Can the science we use to effect organizational change be used in other cultures and in other languages? Do differences in negotiating styles, teams and hierarchies, and verbal and nonverbal ways of communicating influence a company’s ability to do things differently, and have the changes “stick”?

I’m working on a change initiative for a large multinational in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Japan this summer. It’a a great way to test the mettle of positive deviance, fair process, and knowledge transfer - based on neuroscience - in translation and with some cultural barriers that we’ll be working with. In Hong Kong there are language differences between Cantonese and Mandarin.

Fair process has three principles: Engagement, Explanation, and Expectation Clarity. There seems to be a universal sense of honor and dignity created when a change process relies on the science of fair process. This has been especially powerful in work I’ve done with Japanese and Chinese companies previously.

A foundation of neuroscience, that “neurons that fire together, wire together,” would seem to predict that the approach will work.

 
Better Tag Cloud