At its very worst, science is the act of giving complicated names to things to try and sound intelligent. At its best it is an investigation of how things work, leading to insights and developments.
The new field of neuroleadership is teetering between the two at the moment. Cynics accuse neuroleadership believers of dressing up the labelling of pre-existing notions of how we think, as groundbreaking science. The believers however, think that applying neuroscience to management and leadership will revolutionise human interaction and achievement at work.
The problem neuroleadership has is that over our long history of human civilisation we’ve actually worked out a lot of the ways that we think. It has become common sense that you don’t give people the answers if you want them to learn. Instead you guide their thinking. Good leaders and managers already operate this way. And good trainers and consultants teach people to do this too, they didn’t need neuroleadership to point it out. At its worst neuroleadership falls into the trap of labelling these ways of operating, and presenting it as new amazing learning.
For example:
“Cognitive scientists are finding that people’s mental maps, their theories, expectations, and attitudes, play a more central role in human perception than was previously understood… This can be well demonstrated by the placebo effect… the mental expectation of pain relief accounts for the change in pain perception… ”
We already knew that.
Two great hopes for brain science and neuroleadership
1. Credibility
Neuroleadership can give credibility to formerly ‘touchy feely’ interventions that actually work. Neuroleadership can show the reasons behind things like emotional engagement, and the reasons behind the techniques that build that. A new book by neuroscientist Dr. Kerry Spackman rehashes ideas that have been around for a while. I compare a lot of his new book to works like Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualisation. But Dr. Kerry has the scientific research and ‘intellectual background’ to support his ideas. He’ll have you making scrapbooks and cutting out pictures of yourself and your goals. And you’ll feel almost like a scientist too.
As neuroscience catches up with our civiliations’ history of working with our brains, there is more evidence for the efficacy of techniques that have been considered a bit strange. Drivers for personal change may shift from tapping into the universal consciousness, to hard and fast fMRI research. And if that leads to more credibility for things like mindfulness, creative visualisation and engaging with our emotions, then that’s a good thing.
2. Picking what works
Neuroleadership can help us cut out the chaff in people development. Hopefully it can let us focus more on what works. And in doing so, perhaps it can increase the quality of trainers and consultants working with organisations. Some trainers are just loud extroverts looking for a stage, rather than thoughtful practitioners helping people to think better. It also gives us the opportunity to see the actual results of a training intervention, or learning exercise. The question you can ask is this: how has your training changed my brain?
Into the future
We are still a long way from practically being able to look at the real-time brain changes from our learning and development interventions. But the future is bright. Neuroleadership has its detractors, as does any good scientific field. So while we should be keeping the scientists honest when they try and look smart, we should also consider that this young field is starting to pay off, and in time brain understanding will be an important part of much of how we live our lives.
Recent Comments