NeuroLeadership Summits Blog

2011 NeuroLeadership Summit Day 3 highlights

2011-11-28T14:35:00.001-08:00

Jessica Payne

Leaders becoming caught in ‘Leadership Lockdown Syndrome’

The neural needs and resources of successful senior leaders was the topic of the first session of day three at the summit. The brain needs three things to function optimally, explained neuroscientists Jessica Payne (Notre Dame) and Stephen Thomas (Southampton School of Management) - moderate stress, good sleep and positive affect (positive mood).

While this sounds simple, its contrary to the pressures most executives experience, leading to 'Leadership Lockdown Syndrome', a phrase first coined by Jessica & Stephen for this summit. Leadership lockdown syndrome is when a leader’s brain locks down (or locks up some might say) and cannot process incoming data efficiently, because of overly high allostatic load or ‘threat’ levels. The problem occurs partly because of interaction between three experiences: high stress makes sleep and positive affect worse. Poor sleep makes stress and positive affect worse. And negative affect tends to make sleep and stress worse. So when people have high levels of all three experiences, the interaction can result in overly high stress experiences with significant cognitive impairment, impacting basic perception as well as judgement and decision-making. High levels of ongoing stress can also create permanent damage to the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for memory, with its high number of cortisol receptors.

Insufficient sleep also means we are not giving our brains time to integrate information in a meaningful way and are therefore operating at a sub optimal level, especially with regard to creativity. Sleep also plays a big role in regulating emotions, a crucial strength for any executive. Studies show that as little as a seven-minute nap allows regeneration of our creative brain circuits and improves mood.


Sara Mathew

Priming for organizational change

Across all organizations, leaders actions are watched closely; ‘everything is examined, becomes water cooler stories, and ultimately folklore’ says Sara Mathew, CEO of Dun and Bradstreet.

She suggests that ongoing learning, being open to feedback, being self-aware and then modifying behaviour maybe just the ticket to setting the right context and expectations across the whole organization.

Dean Mobbs, David Rock, Sara Mathew

Dean Mobbs (University of Cambridge) agrees that small priming activities make a big difference. Studies show the brain is primed by seemingly inconsequential cues, from carrying a heavy clipboard to being given a warm beverage. The brains social circuitry means that having an ‘in group’ including the entire organization can make for a motivated and rewarding success based culture. Different business units competing may lead to ‘out group’ categorisation and a sense of pleasure at the ‘out groups’ failure.

Other levers of change include office layout, organizational beliefs, language, and rituals that increase peoples feeling of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness, such as Google’s weekly town hall meeting where lots of information is shared across the business.

Summit participants discussing
biofeedback systems

Real time measurement of brain functioning in leaders

Al Ringleb (CIMBA) who runs the NeuroLeadership lab, is doing ground breaking work in the neuroscience of leadership space. At his business school in Northern Italy, Cimba, he sets up real time biofeedback systems, where future leaders get real time data about heart rate and skin conductance as they go through various leadership tasks. This data correlates to various brain functions such as overall threat or reward response. Students in an MBA program wear wireless heart rate monitors the size of small coins for long periods of time, getting to practice regulating their emotions under pressure. The fun part is that everyone in a class can see everyone else’s data.

The data collected has given a number of clues to what makes leaders succeed. One finding shows that the level of emotional regulation may be the key to highly successful leaders, as close knit groups and teams mirror the heart rate of those taking the lead. More data on the study can be found in the Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, published by Harvard Business Press.

Also presenting was Marian Ruderman and Carol Connolly (CCL), talking about the field of leadership development and its evolution, and the need to shift to neuroscience, positive psychology and contemplative traditions as core foundations for the field.

Differential leadership

This session was all about leadership from multiple angles, looking at leadership across different stages, ages, gender and culture, each presenter by a different researcher.

Paul MacDonald (Victoria Management School) looked at different stages of leadership. He outlined an initial stage of leadership, where individuals must become angry enough to stand up and act to change the status quo. Self-awareness is another stage, which is somewhat counter intuitive; we often consider leaders for their intellect or reasoning, however Paul proposed that it is emotional leadership that inspires us to follow someone. A third stage is a willingness to take risks. Paul suggests if you want to grow your leadership capability then the easiest way is to take more risks, ie go for a holiday in Kenya versus a safer version in Mexico. There will be more learning and growth to come from something more difficult then taking the safe route. Leaders need to step through these stages to be fully effective.

Jessica Payne (Notre Dame) spoke about leadership across different ages. Jessica noted that well managed stress is crucial to leadership at any age, and that without stress management our brains are far less effect not only in the moment, but in their ability to generate fresh neurons on an ongoing basis. Other influential ways to impact aging brain functions include exercising, sleeping well, having plentiful and/or meaningful social connections as well as a spiritual belief system.

Jacqui Grey spoke about leadership across genders. She noted that statistics on the gender gap are stark: of 190 world leaders currently only nine are women, in corporations between 15-18% of senior leaders are women, while the starting pipeline is 51% women, and only 3% of leadership positions in banking are held by women. Jacqui proposes that workplace systems are built by men for men, with the current rate of change unlikely to see equality before 40 years time. One of the culprits may be testosterone, giving men a false sense of confidence and an advantage over most women in the leadership domain.

Yiyuan Tang

Yiyuan Tang (Dalian) presented on leadership across cultures. He presented on how different cultures experience the world fundamentally differently, for example studies that show context may be more important then a central character from the Eastern perspective in a simple picture. These cultural differences impact how we think and interact with others and have implications in many areas including emotion, action, decision-making and social life.

Philip Zimbardo

Increasing workplace heroism

In the final session of the 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit, Philip Zimbardo, creator of the renowned ‘Stanford Prison Experiment,’ (www.prisonexp.org) suggested we all have the capacity for evil behaviour—that is far greater than is widely understood - and an equal or greater capacity to be heroes.

The session was facilitated by Tim Tobin, global head of talent for Marriott, who had some fascinating comments about the need for heroic actions in the hotel industry.

“Heroism is learned, taught and modelled, not inborn,” Zimbardo said. “It’s everyday people doing extraordinary actions that can have a ripple effect that influences many others.” He distinguishes between reactive, impulsive heroes—those given a sudden and unexpected opportunity for heroism—and proactive, reflective heroes, who have time to think about it before they become heroes. “Leaders need to be proactive heroes,” he said. This was an inspiring and energizing close to a mind-expanding three days.

2011 NeuroLeadership Summit - Day 2 highlights

2011-11-14T02:05:00.001-08:00

Rethinking Organizations with the Brain in Mind:
Part 2, Core Theory

How do we create better leaders?
How can bosses learn to manage better?

Day two of the 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit in San Francisco started with Matthew Lieberman (UCLA) presenting three fascinating pieces of research.

Firstly, studies are suggesting that for humans, ‘social is our basic operating system'.Secondly, Matt outlined that one of the reasons organizations and the workplace may not be as socially conscious is that most managers and leaders are promoted for utilizing their analytic and strategic thinking skills, which tends to switch off their social neural networks.

Over time, the less we use our social neural networks, the harder it is to switch them back on, and the less human awareness our, Matt talked about how we frequently guess incorrectly when detecting other's motivations and the implications for improvement of this one skill may be far reaching in an organizational context. Matt's lab is now researching how we can improve our ability to predict and understand another's motivation, as this is an integral skill in social awareness.

Language has the power to shape our experiences.

Lera Boroditsky (Stanford) presented next on the power of language and its ability to shape not only our thinking, but also our emotions. She noted language is a powerful tool in orientating ourselves in the world as well as within organizations.

In western societies we think of the past as being behind us, and the future ahead. If we orientate ourselves differently, with the past in front of us and the future behind, and therefore more unknown, how might that change our thinking and planning?

The deeper neuroscience of SCARF

In the ‘Deeper Neuroscience of SCARF’, Savannah DeVarney and Phil Dixon from Brain Resource proposed that we can understand what goes on when the brain reacts to SCARF-social-threats by studying brains that are ‘stuck’ in danger mode, such is the case in clinical anxiety conditions.

By looking at data from the Brain Resource International Database, we can start to understand what goes on in real time when our brains experience a danger response resulting from Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness or Fairness being threatened.

It was proposed that employee brain training to improve brain health should complement leadership and change-management initiatives, since a healthy brain has the best chance at adapting and regulating when social threats arise.

Goal setting informed by neuroscience

Setting goals is an integral part of most organizations. How is it that we get people in a toward-state and committed to these goals in a workplace setting? Elliot Berkman (Oregon) broke down the elements of goal setting from a neuroscience and social psychological view point touching on motivation, planning, goal setting, social processes and self control. Throughout the session, Ruth Donde from the NeuroLeadership Group helped make meaning of the research and connect the ideas back to organizational practice.

Elliot suggests that languaging of goals is important to give people ownership and tap into individual motivation. Goals sit within a neural hierarchy stretching from the abstract to the concrete, from the why (more values based) to the how (granular actions). Having goals that fit well within your existing hierarchy means you can align and act in concert to achieve the goal.

Whoever leads the goal setting process must be able to mentalize, or have the ability to see another’s viewpoint, matching people’s approach and avoidance biases with appropriate language.

Using the brains natural social tendencies, we can provide opportunities for groups to form around goals. Naming a group, mixing skill sets, and allowing autonomy on how to achieve the goals can provide fertile ground. If tasks are implicitly allocated in the group based on strengths, and if there are initial wins, this can lead to a positive spiral, where mirror neurons add motivation and builds further commitment and commonality within the group.

Finally self-control is a limited resource, and working in concert with other aligned individuals can help preserve this resource for when it is most needed. Self-control is also something that can be strengthened using the brains natural plasticity.Overall this was a session rich with explanations of the underpinning neural process in successful goal setting.

What is the neurobiology of leadership assessments?

Ann Herman-Nehdi (Herrman Brain) and Mark Schar (Stanford) presented on the neurobiology of leadership assessments noting there is much open ground to cover. They suggested the first piece of the puzzle is to create a common definition of leadership, which doesn’t currently exist. If we are to study leadership assessments from a neurological standpoint we need to agree on what leadership is, what we wish to measure and how we hope to use the data.

At present there are four commonly gauged domains of leadership assessments: personality, behavior, talent/interest and cognition. When it comes to these assessments organizations are looking for statistical validity, reliability, perceived value from the user and observed insights. Neuroscience has a great deal to bring to this field but more research is urgently required.

Reappraisal and mindfulness maybe the keys to adaptive organizations.

James Gross (Stanford), YuYuan Tang (Dalian), Karen May (Google) discussed techniques for emotional regulation and mindfulness, and looked at how we can apply these within an organization.

Emotional regulation is used everyday in many situations, with varying success and strategies, some with implications for those around you.Suppression is cognitively expensive, raising not only your own blood pressure and heart rate but also for others in the room with you.

Reappraisal and mindfulness may be a more successful strategy. Taking the time to become more mindful through a meditation practice can have long-standing results across many aspects of life and allow you to be ‘in flow'.Facing difficult tasks, priming your brain to test your willpower, might be useful for avoiding distractions and keeping focused.

It is useful to know that emotions can be regulated, and how we go about it matters; we all have the ability to learn to manage emotional challenges.Other fascinating sessions across the day explored questions like the biological validity of leadership assessments, and the deeper neuroscience beneath how we successfully set goals.

2011 NeuroLeadership Summit - Day 1 highlights

2011-11-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

There's an emerging field of research tackling a big question: how can we develop better leaders, and create more successful organizations. Called NeuroLeadership, the field each year gathers for an annual summit to explore the big questions and share new research.

The 6th NeuroLeadership Summit began in San Francisco this week. Scheduled for three days, day one was all about big picture issues, including "Creating adaptive organizations", "The beliefs that organizations should hold", "The neuroscience of global talent management", "Brain fitness" and "Neuropolitics" amongst others.

Bringing the pieces together.

First up Dan Siegel (UCLA) and Christine Williams of NASA put forward the idea of integration being crucial to the success of not only an organization but also of an individual. Diverse intelligence and organizational divisions can come together with flexible and open thinking. Rigidity and chaos are two extremes that need to be avoided.

Praise leads to cheating?

A number of seemingly innocent organizational practices, like praising people for success, is likely to not only reduce performance and increase cheating but also make people less adaptive in the work environment.

A study by Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford discovered that individuals praised for intelligence were found to be three times more likely to lie than those praised for effort.

Values for success.

Janet Van Huysse, Vice President of HR at Twitter shared three of their ten core values she believes underlie its success: Seek diverse perspectives; recognize that passion and personality matter; and innovate through experimentation.

Adaptability and curiosity key in successful hires?

Most performance management problems are a result of hiring decisions. A panel of HR experts with Stuart Crabb (Facebook), George Rose (Sony Pictures), Anna Tavis (Brown Brothers Harriman) and Evan Wittenberg (HP) discussed how neuroscience can help with talent challenges.

Psychological tests alone aren't reliable in determining how adaptive a candidate is, as those tests tend to favor people who are good at discerning patterns. A more effective method is to create an environment that demands adaptability.

Training the brain for fitness

Dan Siegel (UCLA), Alvaro Fernandez (Sharp Brains), Savannah DeVarney (Brain Resources), and Mitch Wasden (Ochsner Health), each presented on the latest thinking, techniques and technologies around the idea of optimal brain fitness.

Until relatively recently we thought that the brain ceased to grow and develop in adults. We now know the brain remains plastic throughout our life. This discovery has begun a new industry. Like with physical fitness, we are starting to see the equivalent of gyms, personal trainer and coaches for our cognitive functions. Alvaro Fernandez talked about the development of this industry and its future, while Mitch Wasden talked about the application for organizations. Dan Siegel presented the Healthy Mind Platter he developed with David Rock, and talked about the cognitive benefits of 'time-in'.

Savannah DeVarney presented some technology solutions for brain training that exist now, that engage and build strength in self regulation, emotional recognition, management of feelings and cognitive speed. Studies are showing that these new technologies have good uptake by high stress individuals and are having an ongoing positive impact on a variety of areas. Simple mindful techniques also have significant benefits in overall neural conditioning, integration and effectiveness.

What neuroscience teaches us about power

Jake Dunagan (Institute for the Future) talked about where the growth in interest and research in neuroscience may be leading us. He suggests we are in an age where people are looking for credible information, and if studies come with reference to the brain than we are more likely to believe them.

Jake also spoke of research about power, isolation and implications. The more distance we have from our consituents the more ruthlessness, impulsivity and less empathy we have. ‘People in power act like severe brain damage cases’. This has important repurcussions for organisational leadership staying in touch with lower level workers.

Another element in this new found interest is we are now looking for other ways to enhance our cognitive abilities across the board. A study showed that 20% of scientists now use stimulants on a regualr basis. We may soon find ourselves in a world where cognitive stimulants aren’t just used to stay ahead, but to stay competitive.

How to imagine the future and why it is so hard to do.

Clarity, not certainty, is key to seeing into the future. In the final group session of day one, two experts, Robert Burton and Bob Johansen took us inside ‘knowing' and what it means for our ability to think ahead with any hope of accuracy.Trends are patterns of change from which we can extrapolate future events with consistency, according to Bob Johansen, and a 10 year forecast is a story from the future that provokes insight in the present, he added.

"Some of the best are those that annoy us, because they make us really think about the present," he said. An effective forecast is one that takes us from foresight to insight to action.

A key characteristic that will help leaders view the future more effectively is an ‘opposable mind,' which Bob described as the ability to hold opposites in mind and still function-for instance, seeing the future through a threat lens of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) while being able to focus on Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility.

In a VUCA world it is important to have an integrated mind and a growth mindset.

Begin with the end.

We wrapped up the day with a Gala dinner including a session with Kenny Moore, a former catholic monk and co-author of best seller The CEO and the Monk: One Company's Journey to Profit and Purpose.

Kenny shared his views on encouraging employees to embrace change by allowing them to mourn the loss of the company they know, and are losing through change, by holding a corporate ‘funeral'.

To find out more about the NeuroLeadership Summit click here.

Are you a born a genius? Being a learner is smarter

2011-11-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

We all like to feel smart and talented. Turns out that whether we attribute it to natural ability or to hard work is a strong predictor of how successful we’ll be. In a session on the beliefs that help grow successful organizations, Carol Dweck, distinguished professor at Stanford and a leading expert on motivation, explored fixed versus growth mindsets with Janet Van Huysse, HR leader at Twitter. The distinction, said Dweck, is that those of us with a fixed mindset see talent as a static trait, and those a growth mindset see it as a potential that can be developed.

Organizations can have fixed mindsets, too—and in the war for talent, those that do are losing out on great people, said Huysse. As Dweck pointed out, trusting in the value of hard work and effort is not just a stronger predictor of success, but a much more powerful motivator.

“A fixed mindset doesn’t tell you what to do next,” said Dweck. “It provides no recipe for recovering from failures,” which makes it tough to take on new challenges where stumbling is possible or even likely.

Van Huysse shared three of Twitter’s ten core values she believes underlie its success: Seek diverse perspectives; recognize that passion and personality matter; and innovate through experimentation.

At the core of a growth mindset on talent is neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to reorganize itself with learning. It requires not just working at what you know, but pushing past into areas that stretch your knowledge and skills. A favorite quote of Dweck’s: “Anyone who’s never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Mindsets are transmitted in an organization through a shared understanding of what’s valued: being right or being open to learning. “We are very tuned in to messages about what will make people like and admire us. We’re wired to pick this up,” said Dweck. Praise for intelligence instead of praise for effort sends the wrong message. People who are praised for being smart “don’t want to risk their newly minted genius status,” and that fosters static, rigid organizations. Praise for effort keeps people engaged and willing to work hard.

Can organizations develop a growth mindset? Turns out the answer is yes. One research project did it by developing a workshop around mindset. It began with an article and video on how the brain grows with learning throughout life. Participants are then asked, “What’s an area where you once had low ability but now perform quite well? How were you able to make this change?” or “Who is someone in your life who has dramatically improved their performance? How did they do it?” Participants were then asked to draft an email to an employee who was doing well and then struggled.

After the workshop, these managers exhibited more openness to critical feedback, willingness to mentor—and a higher quality of mentoring—and openness to the possibility of employees’ changing.

People with growth mindset have greater awareness of mistakes and how to think them through. “You can’t hand people self-esteem on a silver platter,” said Dweck. “But you can equip them with mindsets that allow them to build self esteem themselves by taking on challenges and obstacles, by mastering things. That’s the gift.”

Carol Dweck, Ph.D, is a distinguished professor of psychology at Stanford University. Janet Van Huysse is Vice President of the HR team at Twitter.

To learn more about these presenters and their research, click here.

Welcome to the 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit

2011-11-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

The 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit opens today in San Francisco, with some of the world’s top experts on neuroscience and leadership exploring new ideas and paradigms for developing leaders. This year’s theme, ‘Adaptive Organizations,’ takes a look at how we can apply emerging insights about our brains to create more resilient, dynamic, adaptive organizations.

Some of the questions being explored include:
What determines what we and our employees pay attention to?
Can we really keep our brains more fit?
Why it’s so hard for our brains to make accurate predictions and a process for how to do it more effectively?
How can we get our brains on our side to achieve our goals?
Can leadership assessments really have biological validity?
Does teaching employees how to harness emotions drive performance?
Could turning leaders into heroes be the key to developing adaptive organizations?

Join the converstion:
Hashtags: #2011nls #neuroleadership
http://twitter.com/neuroleadership
http://twitter.com/search/2011nls

NL Summit 2011: Program & Speaker Announcement

2011-05-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

The theme in 2011 is 'Adaptive Organizations' and will focus on a more organizational perspective. The program involves more senior executives in the discussion as we think about how to create more resilient, dynamic, adaptive organizations through understanding the brain.

Presenters include senior executives involved in talent management or leadership development from organizations including:

• NASA
• Dun & Bradstreet
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Hewlett-Packard
• Marriot International
• Brown Brothers Harriman
• Commonwealth Bank
and more...

In response to feedback we have made the following programmatic changes this year:

Annual gala dinner on the first night
Post Graduate & Masters student/faculty dinner
Evening free on day two for self organized groups
More space for the popular lunchtime 'meet the scientist' sessions
Special interest group connection sessions (eg industry/topic focus)
Accommodation on site

Click a link below to view the program, check out the full list of academic & corporate presenters, or to register for earlybird:

For more information visit www.neuroleadership.org

Summit Sponsors

NL Summit 2010 Insight: The Neuroscience of Intent

2011-05-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

Malia Mason, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia University. Malia and David Rock presented the final session on Day 2 at the 2010 Summit titled ‘The Neuroscience of Intent’.

Organizations could be thought of as 'intent creation machines'. Organizations identify intents and try to focus people on those intents. An individual is being influenced by a large number of intents at any one time: the organization’s purpose, through to its mission, strategies, annual goals, quarterly targets, monthly objectives, weekly quotas, and one's daily to do lists, then finally our moment to moment attention. Each of these levels draw us into specific intentions (like closing a sale or delivering a good presentation) and each competes for our focus.

So what does neuroscience research reveal about intent? There seem to be two related neural circuits, the first circuit appears to be an action network that is specific to responding and behaving to things in the external environment, eg phone rings and I pick it up. The second circuit is a network that mediates actions that are internally guided and spontaneous, in the sense that they are not responses to external factors, they tend to be more volitional.

The brain makes a distinction between these two types of actions and generally the internally guided action system trumps the externally triggered action system. The two systems work in parallel all the time and are often conflicting and competing for our attention. We can improve our effectiveness by finding strategies to align these two neural systems so that they have a common pursuit and are working together for us. One strategy that is effective in helping align these systems is the use of implementation intentions as discussed in the ‘Neuroscience of Habits’ session at the Summit.

Research also reveals that our unfulfilled intentions become a distraction for us. Too many open intentions can hinder our capacity to prioritize and focus and ultimately impact our productivity.

Intentions are a critical foundation for all organizations and keeping them alive and active in the workplace presents an ongoing challenge. Some important considerations when implementing intention strategies are:

Limiting or narrowing intentions can have a powerful impact
Intentions need to be kept top of mind or ‘sticky’ to be effective
We tend to act on incomplete intentions first
It is important to align internal and external intentions, as intentions that are in conflict are problematic.

In Sheena Iyengar’s session she proposed that we should be “choosey about choosing”, when it comes to intentions it is apparent there are also great benefits in being “intentional about our intentions."

Click here to access the webinar recording for a full debrief of the 2010 Summit sessions
For more information on Malia Mason's work visit http://www.maliamason.com/
For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org
To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NL Summit 2010 Insight: The Neuroscience of Cultural Intelligence

2011-04-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Ying Yi Hong Ph.D. is a Professor in the Division of Strategy, Management and Organisation at the College of Business (Nanyang Business School), Singapore. David Livermore Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Global Learning Center in Michigan, a visiting research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a senior research consultant with the Cultural Intelligence Center in Michigan. Ying Yi and David presented a breakout session titled ‘The Neuroscience of Cultural Intelligence’ on Day 2 of the 2010 NeuroLeadership Summit.

This session explored what neuroscience is revealing about culture and the brain, how the findings can assist individuals develop the capability to adapt to cross-cultural environments, and what the differences are between individuals and businesses that succeed in today’s complex globalized world and those that fail.

In response to the growing importance of these areas a new form of intelligence, Cultural Intelligence (CQ), has emerged as an area of focus and research. Cultural Intelligence is defined as the capability to function effectively across various cultural contexts (national, ethnic, organizational, generational, etc.).

Some of the current intercultural competency myths that exist are:

International experience = cultural competence
Technical competency = success
High emotional intelligence = high cultural intelligence

Although some correlation exists none of these indicators are clear predictors of an individuals success. In fact in some cases the very thing that makes someone successful in one country may be the thing that erodes or frustrates their success in another country.

The neuroscience research into CQ reveals that cultural experiences shape the wiring of the brain and that these neural systems are malleable and responsive to new cultural influences. As these systems are dynamic, not static, it is possible to acquire more than one cultural meaning system and be able to switch between these cultural frames when there is a demand or necessity to do so.

By understanding the neurological differences between cultures, organizations can leverage from the different perspectives. By employing the most appropriate and effective cultural frame for a given situation, organizations can harness the benefits of each system in the areas of decision making, learning, and problem formation and analysis.

So how do we develop CQ? With the volition and agency to do so, anybody can develop cultural intelligence and the ability to brain switch between systems.

The 4 CQ capabilities:

1. CQ Drive [Motivation] - our level of interest, drive and motivation to adapt cross-culturally
2. CQ Knowledge [Cognition] - our level of understanding about cultural issues
3. CQ Strategy [Meta-cognition] - our level of awareness and ability to plan in light of our cultural understanding
4. CQ Action [Behavior] – our level of adaptability when leading and relating cross-culturally

Cultural intelligence is progressively becoming more relevant and important for organizations and individuals operating in a global context. Understanding the research and frameworks and employing strategies to enhance CQ capabilities in individuals and teams will improve effectiveness, creativity and adaptability in the culturally diverse workplace.

Click here to access the webinar recording for a full debrief of the 2010 Summit sessions.

For more information on Ying Yi's work visit http://research.ntu.edu.sg/

For more information on David's work visit http://davidlivermore.com/

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NL Summit 2010 Insight - The Neural Challenges of the Senior Leader - Sleep, Stress & Performance

2011-03-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

Jessica Payne is the Director of the Sleep, Stress & Memory Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Jessica co-presented a breakout session on Day 2 of the NeuroLeadership Summit 2010 with Christina Lafferty, Professor Behavioral Science & Director of Research & Writing at the National Defense University, USA.

The session, ‘The neural challenges of the senior leader – sleep, stress & performance’ looked into what neuroscience research is revealing about the optimal brain state for learning, performance, leadership and behavior change.

The session explored three factors the brain needs to order to function at its optimum:

1. Moderate stress
2. Good nourishing sleep
3. Positive affect

As all these areas intersect and are neurobiologically linked, targeting any one of these areas for improvement has the benefit of affecting the others.

Stress

Research reveals that the brain operates at it’s optimum under moderate stress. Too low you lose alertness and too high you fall into anxiety and disorganization. High levels of stress can impair the brain, and have tangible effects on the physical body and brain and on mental and emotional health. This impairment is selective and unfortunately targets the areas that we need most in order to process information efficiently, learn and perform cognitively at our optimum.

There is evidence to suggest that by practicing activities such as relaxation, mindfulness meditation, exercise and deep breathing we can reduce cortisol levels (stress hormones) in the brain and improve regulatory control over the stress response system in general.

Sleep

Sleep is critical for optimal neural performance. The sleeping brain is smart and very active. During sleep the brain extracts what is essential and important and makes calculations of what to retain and what to let go of, what to remember and what to forget and helps us regulate our emotions.

Sleep allows us to harness a huge amount of unconscious or implicit knowledge that can’t be accessed when the brain is ‘online’. Effectively, during sleep, the brain is allowed to ‘run-a-muck’, searching for connections that don’t make sense and defying the rules of time and space. Sorting through, mapping out, reconnecting and recombining information that we know, yet don’t have conscious access to when we are ‘online’. Jessica hypothesizes that the purpose of this process is to allow you to find connections that you wouldn’t be able to find otherwise.

Emerging evidence suggests that sleep not only consolidates your memories and helps you to learn and remember things but also helps you reorganize that information in a way that gives rise to creative cognition and insights and allows you to make inferential jumps that you can’t make during wakefulness.

Positive Affect

Postive affect is extremely powerful to the brain, lab results indicate that minor affect manipulations, eg a smile, can have a huge impact. The impact on cognition include: facilitating memory for neutral and positive information (instead of negative), increasing verbal fluency, positively impact the strategies we use in decision making and improving creativity and problem solving.

In conclusion Jessica suggests that anything we can do to lead with a scientifically informed understanding of the brain, taking into account the brains limits and harnessing its strengths, is sure to improve performance, dramatically enhance leadership and make for a more productive workplace and happier employees.

Click here to access the webinar recording for a full debrief of the 2010 Summit sessions
For more on Jessica's work visit http://psychology.nd.edu/people/JessicaPayne.shtml
To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insight - Optimizing Learning Initiatives

2011-03-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

Lila Davachi, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology Cognition & Perception, Center for Neuroscience & Center for Brain Imaging at NYU. Tobias Kiefer, Ph.D. is Head of Global Learning & Development, Booz & Company, Munich, Germany. Lila and Tobias presented the second session on day two of the 2010 Summit on ‘Optimizing Learning Initiatives & Creating WOW’.

During this session we dove into the neuroscience research findings on learning and memory. Memory was defined by Lila as the conscious access to the past. Understanding how we encode, generate and retrieve memories can help to shape the strategies we implement to enhance learning & training in organizations.

Over the course of a year coming up to the 2010 Summit, Lila worked with Tobias as well as David Rock on identifying a way of summarizing what we know about memory from neuroscience research. The result is the AGES model, a tool to assist in defining and remembering how to apply the learnings. There is a paper in the 2010 NeuroLeadership Journal on this model in detail.

AGES stands for:

A = Attention
G = Generation
E = Emotion
S = Spacing

One factor critical to the successful formation of memory is focused attention, research reveals that memory suffers with distraction. It may be that we are doing our memories a disservice by living & engaging in a media heavy world.

Once information is in the brain system, generation is important, as the way we attend to information changes the probability of later remembering it. Generation is most effective when we make the information personally relevant and attach it to existing associations in our brain. Encouraging people to transform the information in an individual way can have a huge boost on memory.

Emotion is the physical aspect you might feel in relation to an event. Because emotion ‘grabs our attention’ it influences the attention component of memory and enhances your memory for the experience. As a result memories are more likely to stick, they are more likely to consolidate and become durable memories that you can remember later on.

The last component of the AGES model is spacing. Lila described ‘spacing’ as simple, and a free gift. Unlike other components of AGES that require effort, thought, and implementation, spacing allows us to strengthen memory traces as we rest. Rest periods between learning work for us to help solidify the learnings and can actually contribute to making the memory last.

So what does AGES mean to the corporate world? The application of AGES has the potential to revolutionize how we drive change and teach people. It has implications not only on training design and delivery but also the cost structure of training for organizations. Designing brain-friendly training programs that take into account what we know about our learning and memory brain systems could greatly enhance their effectiveness individually and systemically.

Join a FREE webinar for a full 2010 Summit debrief, 24 March, 7.30pm USET
(RSVP to support@neuroleadership.org)

For more on Lila's work visit http://www.psych.nyu.edu/davachi/

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

Summit 2011: Speaker & Topic Announcement

2011-03-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

Join us at the 2011 Summit from 8 to 10 November in San Francisco, USA. The theme in 2011 is 'Adaptive Organizations'. This year we will be taking a more organizational perspective, and involving more senior executives in the discussion, while we think about how to create more resilient, dynamic, adaptive organizations through understanding the brain.

The 2010 NeuroLeadership Summit was our best yet. Our goal is to make 2011 even better, and we think we're on track to do so. Take a look at the program that is confirmed so far...

Dr Philip Zimbardo – one of the most famous psychologists alive today. The researcher behind the famous Stanford Prisoner Experiment. Dr Zimbardo will present on 'The Leader as Hero’.
Click here to see what Jonah Lehrer said about Dr Zimbardo’s work in the Wall Street Journal recently.

Bob Johansen, from the Institute for the Future, one of the world's leading futurist think tanks, will be joined by Dr Robert Burton, neurologist & author of 'On Being Certain' to present on 'Why it is hard to think about the future, and how to do it better'.

Dr Carol Dweck, author of the bestseller ‘Mindsets’ will present on the question of 'What beliefs organizations should hold in order to be more adaptive'.

Dr James Gross, founding father of emotion regulation research, will talk about 'How organizations can better harness emotions to be more adaptive'.

Dr Daniel Siegel, bestselling author and one of the leading researchers around the neuroscience of mindfulness, will talk about 'Creating adaptive, resilient organizations'.

Dr Matthew Lieberman will talk about 'The importance of the social brain for leaders', focused on the inherent challenges in the brain of being a leader.

Dr Lera Boroditsky will talk about 'The power of language' and how language can be used to create change.

Some of the breakout topics will include:

Designing a global talent management framework based on the brain
Real time bio feedback in leadership programs
What we have learned from the five Summits so far
The Neuroscience of goals
Differential leadership across ages, gender and stages
The senior executive brain

There are a number of programmatic changes based on your feedback, including:

Gala dinner on the first night
Leaving night two free for self organized groups/downtown
More space for the surprisingly popular lunchtime meet the scientist sessions
Accommodation on site

The things that work really well, such as interaction in the sessions, we have kept.

There are many more sessions in discussion, look out for announcements on further developments coming soon...

More Information

NLSummit 2010 Insight - The Mechanics of Motivation

2011-03-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

Dean Mobbs PhD is a Senior Investigator Scientist at the MRC-Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University UK. Dean and Walter McFarland, an Organizational Learning Consultant and Independent Researcher, presented a session titled 'The Mechanics of Motivation' at the beginning of Day 2 at the 2010 NeuroLeadership Summit.

Walter began the session by exploring where we are in organizational life around human motivation. He summarized the current theories of motivation that are currently used to inform and develop work systems to enhance motivation. Walter highlighted, that in spite of everything we think we know about the drivers of motivation, there remains a lot we don’t. The presenters propose that neuroscience may provide the valuable keys to understanding how people are motivated.

Dean began his presentation by defining motivation as ‘the basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure’. He then presented the findings on some of his research on the fair and reward processes of the brain. This research is revealing interesting findings on the activation and response of particular brain systems to drivers of motivation such as incentive, fear, punishment and social environment.

These responses to are helpful to evaluate the effectiveness and potential dangers of the motivators we employ. Some examples of the learnings so far are:

Incentives in some circumstances can be detrimental
Fear can change our perceptions
Short term threat may facilitate motivation but long term may decrease performance

Although there are many levels to motivate people, what is becoming evident through this research is the importance of the social environment. Strategies that appeal to the social-brain, such as affiliation and feedback, are potentially the most powerful motivators in the workplace. Social motivators activate the dopamine and reward system in the brain and we experience this activity when we:

see those in our ‘in-group’ win
help others and give advice
work in a team
hear people say nice things about us

To date the design and development of motivational systems within organizations has been theoretically based with no consideration of the neuroscience. This new understanding of the brain, offers an exciting opportunity to interject a meaningful perspective on the mechanics of motivation and may provide a useful framework to evaluate motivational strategies and their potential impact on the organization and the people in it.

Join our FREE webinar for a full debrief on the 2010 Summit - 24 March, 7.30pm (USET)
(Register your attendance at support@neuroleadership.org)

For more on Dean's work visit http://sites.google.com/site/dmobbs/home
For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org
To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insight - The Art of Choosing

2011-02-17T13:16:00.000-08:00

Professor Sheena Iyengar is the Inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and is considered one of the world's experts on choice. Sheena is the author of The Art of Choosing and presented an outstanding keynote with this title on the evening of Day 1 of the Summit 2010.

Sheena began the session by explaining how choice is the powerful tool we use to express ourselves. Our choices allow us the opportunity to assert our individuality and to distinguish ourselves from others around us. They allow us to go from who we are today to who we want to be tomorrow, and are the most powerful instrument we have to shape our futures.

We associate choice with freedom and we have come to believe that choosing is the practice of freedom. We believe that we are experts in knowing what we want, and as long as we choose what we want we will be happy. That the more choices we have the more opportunities we have to find what we want and be happy.

But how true are these beliefs? Do we really know what we want? And if we do, are we more likely to find it if we have a larger set rather than a smaller set of options?

In a world where we are offered a smorgasbord of choices in every aspect of our lives, a new problem emerges as we experience the ‘obligation to choose’. Are we really helped when we have all this choice at our disposal and is the ‘more choice the better’ model really working? 15 years of research indicates not, and that in fact there are harmful consequences of too much choice.

Sheena encourages us to begin to evaluate the meaning and importance of our everyday choices. To ask ourselves “How free am I if I am bound by the need to choose? How much choice do I really need? Which choices are worth making and which are merely distracting me from my larger goals?”

It may be that in some instances choosing not to choose may be the best thing we can do for ourselves.

Click here to listen to an interview with Sheena about her session

For more on Sheena's work visit www.columbia.edu

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insight - Formation of Habit

2011-01-30T16:52:00.000-08:00

Kevin Ochsner, Ph.D. is one of the founding fathers of the social neuroscience field and Head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Columbia University. Kevin presented a session with Phil Dixon on “the formation of habit” at the end of Day 1 at the 2010 NeuroLeadership Summit.

The session explored current models of feedback and their effectiveness in improving performance. An analysis on current feedback models revealed that they result in improved performance 30% of the time; no change 30% and made matters worse 40% of the time.

Psychology and neuroscience research has identified different types of mental processes and brain systems that give rise to our behavior and that make feedback more or less effective. The first mental processes are those driven by habit and second are those driven by thought. A conservative estimate is that humans are guided by habits 70-90% of the time and guided by deliberate planful thought only 10-30% of the time.

Unfortunately, most feedback is designed exclusively for the thought system. Feedback is often very general and high order, abstract and not specific, and delayed in time. As our habit systems are responsible for guiding our behavior most of the time, if you want to implement behavior change you have to speak to the habit system. This system changes slowly but responds to immediate feedback, and to be effective the feedback needs to be specific, not ambiguous, and positive so as not to elicit counter productive defensive habits.

So how do we change behavior? Firstly, change will only happen if the person has a desire to change. To implement behavior change there needs to be ownership of the behavior, commitment to a goal to change, and the identification and employment of strategies to enact the top down thought system to train and control the habitual impulses at play so as to develop a different way of responding. These are technically known as 'implementation intentions', or 'If-then' frameworks.

As we operate in habit mode most of the time, mindfulness and self reflection are useful techniques to monitor the impulses that come up and help us to notice when we need to change our behavior. When we recognize these moments pre-formulated intention strategies can reduce the burden on the thought system and make it easier for us to implement them when the time comes to regulate.

Click here to listen to an interview with Kevin about his session.

For more on Kevin's work visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/fac-bios/Ochsner/faculty.html

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insight: Making Sense of Others

2010-12-26T21:34:00.001-08:00

Jason Mitchell is the head of the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Harvard University. He uses functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and behavioral methods to study how we infer the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of others (i.e., how we mentalize), as well as how we reason about counterfactual experiences. During Jason’s session on Day 1 of the 2010 Summit he explored the subject of “Making Sense of Others”.

Psychologists have begun to realize that a large part of what allows us to be such a force on this planet comes not only from our cognitive abilities but also a set of specialized abilities that allow us to harness the energies of other people and hook up to their minds. Humans have the unique ability to cooperate in ways that contribute more effective communities, by plugging into the know-how and information that resides in the head of each individual.

We are veracious mind readers and are constantly trying to make sense of others. In every day life we are very readily, almost continuously, tracking the various mental states of those with whom we engage.

One of the ways we do this is by making reference to what is happening in our own mind. However, to use ourselves as a basis for understanding another person, we must perceive them as appropriately similar to us. The complexity arises in this modern age where we are often engaged with different people who see the world differently.

So is there anything we can do to promote more of this overlap between self and other, to increase activity in the brain region to promote and encourage our brain to see a person as similar to us?

One way to increase the overlap is through explicit attempts to take that persons perspective. Jason suggests that by thinking for 1-2 minutes about what that person’s perspective might be like, what that person’s internal subjective experience might be like, you can subsequently demonstrate all sorts of pro-social effects.

Studies have shown that after a few minutes of perspective taking manipulation people tend to stereotype less, are more likely to be altruistic and share resources with somebody who’s perspective they have taken. The more you can make yourself create that overlap between self and others the more likely you are to show this overlap in neural activity.

For more on Jason's work visit http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~scanlab/people.html

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insights: The Neuroscience of Moral Decisions

2010-12-14T16:50:00.000-08:00

Joshua Greene, Ph.D. directs The Moral Cognition Lab at Harvard University, studying moral judgment and decision-making using behavioral methods and functional neuro imaging (fMRI).

On day one of the 2010 Summit Joshua’s session on the neuroscience of moral decisions exploredhow moral judgments are shaped by automatic processes such as emotional “gut reactions”, and controlled cognitive processes such as reasoning and self-control.

During the session he examined what neuroscience research is contributing to the debate between the two schools of thought in moral psychology on the roles of emotion and reasoning in making moral judgments. He proposes that emotions and reason both play a critical role in moral judgment and that these functions are grounded in different systems in the brain.

Joshua used an effective analogy between these two brain systems and the automatic and manual settings on a camera. The automatic setting ofemotions/gut feelings is very efficient but not flexible, it is good for most of what you need to know but there is a lot you can’t do well. The manual setting, the brains capacity for reasoning is very flexible but is not efficient and takes time and effort. If you don’t know what you are doing, you are more likely to make mistakes. The way the camera (and brain) balances the tradeoff between efficiency vs flexibility is by having both options.

Joshua took the audience through a series of moral dilemmas and visited the complexity of making moral decisions, highlighting how the two brain systems can sometimes point in opposite directions. He proposes that the solution to making good moral decisions is for us to understand ourselves and how we think. There is significant social value in understanding how we make these decisions, what our intuitive judgments are sensitive to, and what we do when we reason. With these tools we can identify what we are facing and what the right thinking is for the given situation.

For more on Joshua's work visit http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 Insight: Getting to AHA!

2010-12-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Schooler, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Jonathan pursues research on consciousness, memory, the relationship between language and thought, problem-solving, and decision-making.

During day 1 of the NeuroLeadership Summit Jonathan explored some enhancers and inhibitors of ‘Getting to AHA’.He proposed that our mental sets and perceptions hamper our ability to see alternate perspectives necessary to overcome impasses and reach insight solutions. Our capacity to expand the range of possibilities that we are exploring seems to be a critical aspect to the experience of insight.

We need to be aware of the limitations of excessive deliberation and discussion when problem solving. There are situations where verbal analysis and group conversation is disruptive to generating insights.Group brainstorming is being challenged by research as an effective tool to generate creative solutions.In studies, individuals working separately generated more solutions in number and novelty/creativity than those working in a group setting.

Jonathan then explored the importance of daydreaming and stepping back as tools to facilitate insight. We need to make time to let our minds wander idly, and catch ourselves in this daydreaming state, so that when creative solutions occur we can make the most of them. Finally, if we can get our brains to think, ‘step back’, and see the big picture, insight solutions will happen.

Click here to listen to an interview with Jonathan about his session.

For more on Jonathan's work visit http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/schooler/index.php

For more Summit Insights visit http://blog.neuroleadership.org

To order the 2010 Summit recordings and accompanying slides click here

NLSummit 2010 insight: A New Model for Emotion and Cognition

2010-11-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory (IASL) at Boston College, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Lisa led the second session of day 1 titled: A New Model for Emotion and Cognition.

Lisa challenged some of the most deeply held ideas about how the mind works in her session. She stated that Daniel Goleman’s theory on emotional intelligence is largely incorrect. Studies show there are no specific anatomical brain regions pinpointed for any of the emotions. The brain is a more integrated system than previously imagined, with thinking, emotions, mind and body all contributing to our experience in a holistic way.

We are used to thinking that emotions are generated and we then regulate them after the fact. A common metaphor is to think of the brain as a machine, with emotions as wild animals that we need to control. However, Lisa’s model suggests a more accurate analogy is that we are chef’s, with a set of ingredients, used for both emotional generation and regulation. As with ingredients in a pantry, we can use them to make different kinds of ‘meals’ or emotional experiences.

We are the agents of our own experience and we can change our experiences in simple ways, including:

Sleeping and eating well
Putting ourselves in certain contexts and not other contexts
Widening our emotional vocabulary to help us label experiences in a more empowering way
Learning how to wield that knowledge in a very fluid, contextually appropriate way

Lisa suggests the importance of discerning when your physical state needs to be made meaningful in a psychological sense, perhaps by connecting to what is going on around you, and when it is just a physical sensation like being hungry or tired.

Order summit recordings

Summit 2010 insight: Mindful Leadership - Ellen Langer

2010-11-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

Ellen Langer is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, studying the illusion of control, decision making and mindlessness theory. Amongst other international accolades, she has a movie of her life being made starring Jennifer Aniston.

Ellen opened the 2010 Summit on the morning of the first day. Below is a brief summary of elements of her talk.

In organisations as well as in every day life, we make many assumptions based on information we have not fully examined. 'There is no more information than there has ever been - we choose to be overloaded'. We need to ask 'how informative is the information?' and choose what to pay attention to.

'Our major job as a leader is to provoke mindfulness in those we lead'.

Paying attention and noticing are key ingredients in mindfulness. In the workplace we need to be aware that 'priorities are conditional, rather than absolute'. To be mindful, we need to be sensitive to context and perspective, and adaptive in our thinking about changing situations. 'It is always good to stay a learner' and to notice when we are on autopilot.

To build mindfulness Ellen suggests starting each day examining priorities and looking afresh from the place of learning and taking time to notice subtle changes. Making subtle changes to our behaviours and then noticing the impact is the way to go about this mindfulness revolution.

Click here for a sample of Ellen's keynote presentation.

Order Summit recordings

For more on Ellen's work visit http://www.ellenlanger.com/

6 weeks to go til SUMMIT

2010-09-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Only 6 weeks to go until we gather again for our annual NeuroLeadership Summit. Don't miss your opportunity to join us in Boston for an outstanding event set over three full days.

The theme this year is 'Rethinking Leadership' and presenters include researchers from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, NYU, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and Cambridge Universities.

New features of the Summit include:
• Better integration of neuroscience and leadership research
• More leadership thought leaders
• Greater practitioner focus
• Free audio of breakout sessions so you don't miss a thing
• New lunchtime 'meet the scientist' sessions
• Full 3 day program (for the price of 2.5 days previously)
• More time for fun and informal networking
Fantastic registration discount options....

Become a member of the Institute and receive US$265 discount on registration for you and a guest.

Or, gather your friends and register 3 or more people for the 2 or 3 day pass to receive a discount of US$100 on each registration*

Click a link below to view the program, check out the presenters or to register for the event.
http://neuroleadership.org/summits/2010_SummitProgram.shtml

Post Grad, Masters and Summit !

2010-08-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

We are currently enrolling for the last cohort of 2010 for the Post Grad Certificate year, otherwise known as Phase 1 of the Masters program.

Get a start on the Masters now by joining the October cohort! We are accepting applications now. Please contact Janelle for details:

janellelight@neuroleadership.org

See more details on the Master here:

http://neuroleadership.org/resources/masters.shtml

Join us as the Summit this year in Boston, Oct 26-28. This year's theme is 'Rethinking Leadership.' Our Ivy-League presenter line-up is spectacular. Check out the full 3 day program here:
http://neuroleadership.org/summits/2010_SummitProgram.shtml

Who among the speakers has a movie coming out about her starring Jennifer Aniston? See this week's Speaker Spotlight below.

Speaker Spotlight:

Dr. Ellen Langer of Harvard University's Psychology Department will be speaking at this year's NeuroLeadership Summit. Dr. Langer has described her work on the illusion of control, aging, decision making and mindfulness theory in over 200 research articles and six academic books. Her work has led to numerous academic honors including, but not limited to, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest of the APA, the Distinguished Contributions of Basic Science to Applied Psychology Award from the American Association of Applied and Preventative Psychology.

Her books written for general and academic readers include 'Mindfulness' and 'The Power of Mindful Learning' as well as her forthcoming book, 'Mindful Creativity.'

Come see Dr. Langer at this year's NeuroLeadership Summit!

Summit Speaker Spotlight!

2010-08-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

Alex 'Sandy' Pentland

Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland is a pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and computational social science. Sandy's focus is the development of human-centered technology, the creation of ventures that take this technology into the real world. Professor Pentland will be presenting a session on 'Quantifying leadership excellence' and leading a lunch discussion group on 'Predicting Leadership Effectiveness' on Day 3 of this year's NeuroLeadership Summit in Boston.

Click here to see full 3 day program for Boston: http://neuroleadership.org/summits/2010_Summit.shtml

Post Grad application deadline extended!

2010-07-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

We have recently extended the deadline for this coming September Post Grad program! Completed applications must be submitted by Aug 31st to be considered for this round.

Please contact: janellelight@neuroleadership.org for more details or visit our program page

http://neuroleadership.org/resources/graduate-certificate.shtml

September Post Grad applications NOW OPEN

2010-07-26T07:16:00.001-07:00

The Institute is now taking applications for this coming September's cohort!
Earn your Post Grad Certificate in the Neuroscience of Leadership and join a community of like-minded individuals who are making waves about NeuroLeadership around the world!

For more details on this program and our upcoming Masters program visit the Post Grad link: http://neuroleadership.org/resources/graduate-certificate.shtml

Or contact: Janellelight@neuroleadership.org
914-502-0108 (US, Eastern Standard Time)

Your Brain on Change-- LIVE in NYC June 7th

2010-04-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

If you are in or around New York in early June, David will be giving a presentation on 'Your Brain on Change.' It's going to be a great evening of networking and lecture that you won't want to miss!

Here's a synopsis of the talk:
Change is hard. New research is beginning to explain why it's so hard and how change can happen more easily. In this surprising session, David will illustrate:
-Why it's important to start thinking about neuroscience in the workplace
-How we overestimate the importance and capacity of logical thinking
-How insights occur in the brain
-Why it's so hard to collaborate with others
-How change does occur in the brain

To learn more about this event, email: janellelight@neuroleadership.org

This blog has moved

2010-04-13T15:49:00.001-07:00

This blog is now located at http://neuroleadershipsummit2007.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
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THE 2010 NEUROLEADERSHIP SUMMIT PROGRAM IS HERE

2010-04-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

This years theme is 'Rethinking Leadership.'

Presenters include researchers from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, NYU, Cambridge University, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and more.

New features of the Summit include:
Better integration of neuroscience and leadership research
More leadership thought leaders
Greater practitioner focus
Free audio of breakout sessions so you don't miss a thing
New lunchtime 'Meet the scientist' sessions
Full 3 day program (for the price of 2.5 days previously)
More time for fun and informal networking

Click here to read more about presenters:

Click here to see full Summit program:

Click here to register with early-bird pricing for a limited time:

Detailed updates on 2010 SUMMIT AGENDA

2010-03-03T19:39:00.000-08:00

Greetings NeuroLeadership Community!

You will now find updated information on speakers, venue and accommodation for the 3-day 2010 NeuroLeadership Summit in Boston, USA Oct 26-28th.

The theme for the 2010 Summit is 'Rethinking Leadership'. This follows on from earlier Summit themes of "Witness the Birth of a New Discipline", "Making New Connections" & "Toward Integration". This year's Summit is tightly focused on how to proactively create effective leaders at all levels in organizations.

This Summit will gather top neuroscientists and leadership experts over a full three-day program to explore new paradigms for developing leaders. Registration for the three-day program is the same price as the 2009 two-and-a-half day program. Click here for more details on registration types and pricing.

Earlybird registrations are now open. Register & pay by 30 June 2010 to save 10% on registration fees. Alternatively secure your place with a Save Your Place deposit for US$350.

Current taking applications for the March start date!

2010-02-16T19:41:00.001-08:00

We are currently taking application for the March 2010 cohort of the Post Graduate Certificate in the Neuroscience of Leadership. Classes begin end of March, beginning of April, running in two time zones concurrently due to the high demand for the program. Please contact Janelle at janellelight@neuroleadership.org for more details and how apply.

2010-02-16T19:36:00.001-08:00

A Growing Institute!
2009 was a year of amazing growth for the NeuroLeadership Institute and there don't seem to be signs of slowing in 2010. In response to this growth we have added two new fantastic team members, Gemma Brown & Janelle Light.

Gemma was added to the team in September 2009 and is based in Sydney, Australia. Gemma provides logistics and support for the Institute and Institute members and can be contacted at support@neuroleadership with all member and resource order enquiries. Some may have met Gemma at the Summit in 2009.

Janelle commenced her role as Sales & Marketing Coordinator this week and is based in New York, USA. Janelle can answer all your Post Graduate Certificate & Summit enquiries at janellelight@neuroleadership.org

NeuroLeadership Summit 2009 - Final Wrap Up

2009-12-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

Here's what happened at the final day of the Summit...

The day begun with a guided attention session, led by the UCLA's Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (MARC) and breakfast for all Summit attendees.

Emotional Regulation

Matt Lieberman, Ph.D. presented the opening session of the day, titled 'The Brain's Braking System'. Matt talked about the ways the brain regulates emotions, both the positive and negative and talked about strategies for managing emotions more effectively.

You can listen to the first few minutes of his presentation here:

Powered by Podbean.com

This session was followed by a panel session on the same topic, featuring Matt, Mark Goulston M.D. and Joan Fiore Ph.D.

Engagement

David Rock, co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute co-presented with Dr Yi-Yuan Tang, a session on the neuroscience of engagement. The session covered how to be more effective at collaborating with and influencing others for improved employee engagement, flow and motivation.

Social Pain and Pleasure

Following lunch, Naomi Eisenberger Ph.D. presented the latest findings from social cognitive neuroscience in relation to social pain and pleasure. Naomi identified some of the similarities between social and physical pain (from the physiological perspective), which identifies the importance of social connection for optimum performance.

You can listen to the first few minutes of Naomi's presentation here:

Making Change Stick

The Summit concluded with a panel discussion on what neuroscience can tell us about creating change and making it stick. Al Ringleb Ph.D., Dan Siegel, M.D. and Evian Gordon Ph.D. featured on the panel that was facilitated by David Rock.

Final Wrap Up

130 people from more than 17 countries converged on Los Angeles to take part in the 4th NeuroLeadership Summit. The event was a great success with outstanding feedback from participants. Here are a few of their highlights:

"This was truly an important event and is a long conversation which as barely begun"

"Compared with most conferences, access to speakers and researchers is fantastic at the Summit"

"Fantastic organization and food, great venue"

"The opportunities built into the conference to network and connect is outstanding"

"Thank you, what a wonderful gathering and opportunity to learn and grow!"

"Excellent conference I will definitely make it a priority to attend next year"

Audio recording from the Summit available now

If you missed the Summit and would like to catch up on what was covered, the entire conference was recorded and is now available for purchase.

2010 NeuroLeadership Summit - Hold the dates

Hold the dates for next year's Summit, which will be held in Boston from October 25 - 28. If you're interested in attending, then we invite you to complete the Expression of Interest Form. We look forward to seeing you next year!

NeuroLeadership Summit 2009 - Day Two Update

2009-10-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Here's what happened on Day Two at the Summit...

Leadership Greats

Warren Bennis and Werner Erhard, two of the greats of leadership development opened day two with two very energetic and inspiring keynote addresses.

Warren spoke about stories of great

leadership and the importance of respect. Werner spoke about how language creates our world.

Listen to Warren speak about the importance of respect as leaders (4.07 min.):

Decision Making

Jonah Lehrer, a leading neuroscientist and best selling author of 'How We Decide' spoke about decision making and the cognitive struggle between the rational and other functions of the brain.

Listen to the first few minutes of his presentation here (5.

49 min.):

Creating Change

The breakout sessions after lunch focused on creating change. Art Kleiner and Cynthia Scott Ph.D. spoke about how organizational change happens. Evian Gordon Ph.D. took us through the emerging technologies for measuring and improving brain functioning at work and John Joseph and Dr Al Ringleb talked about change in schools.

Listen to Art Kleiner talk about what neuroscience brings to organizational change (2.27 min.):

Listen to Cynthia Scott talk about creating sustainability at Walmart using neuroscience (2.07 min.):

Getting Along with Others

Our final keynote of the day was with Marco Iacoboni Ph.D. a leading neuroscientist and neurologist and Professor at UCLA. Marco talked about how we know each other - social neuroscience and how the 'smart' cells in our brain allow us to understand others.

Listen to Marco talk about why knowing about social neuroscience and mirror neurons is important for leaders (0.54 min.):

Big ideas after dinner

There were two salons after dinner for those eager to learn even more. Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and Art Kleiner ran a discussion on neuroscience and spirituality and Lone Frank Ph.D. explored the influence of the brain research on our understanding of self, ethics and other big issues.

Listen to Jeffery and Art talk about neuroscience and spirituality (2.24 min.): <

To hear all the presentations at this year's Summit, pre-order the audio recordings

If you couldn't make it, but would like to hear from some of the world's thought leaders in neuroscience and leadership, then pre-order your copy of the Summit recording now for only US$195. Available December.

NeuroLeadership Summit 2009 - Day One Update

2009-10-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here's what happened on day one at the Summit...

Planning future directions for the Institute

The day started at 10am with around 50 people joining Institute Directors David Rock and Dr Al Ringleb to discuss the future direction of the Institute. There were lots of great

ideas about refining the mission, vision and 2 year goals of the Institute, focusing on being the bridge between scientists and practitioners for breakthroughs in brain research that will further the field.

Great pre-Summit sessions

A suprisingly large amount of people joined Dr Naomi Eisenberger, Dr Al Ringleb, Dr Dan Radecki and David Rock, to discuss doing research in the NeuroLeadership field.

The people attended had the chance to plan and get feedback on new research projects and there was lots of energy around the idea of adding to existing studies rather than starting from scratch.

Dr Matt Lieberman presented some key neuroscience principles relating to leadership in his pre-conference session, Neuroscience 101 and John Joseph, Director of Focus Education shared his inspiring program for 'taking the brain to schools'.

Opening Dinner - Developing Mindful Leaders

Dr Daniel Siegel presented our opening keynote at dinner and spoke about the importance of mindfulness as a leader. In a very entertaining presentation Dan spoke about rigidity and chaos being the two main symptoms of almost all of today's problems in the workplace, as demonstrated by a vocal performance from a bunch of very brave Summit attendees!

Dan also spoke about the importance of leaders understanding the brain and leaders being integrators.

Listen to Dan speak about why it's important for leaders and organizations to know about the brain and what 'Leaders as Integrators' is all about:

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Pre-order the audio recordings from Summit 09

If you couldn't make it to the Summit, but would like to hear from some of the world's thought leaders in neuroscience and leadership, then pre-order your copy of the Summit recording now. Available December.

August 09 update

2009-07-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

The early bird for the summit has now closed, and already people from 17 different countries are planning to attend. We're delighted to see so many people from last year coming back again. If you're planning to attend we recommend booking early as the event is likely to sell out in September. Have created a brief video explaining this year's event, or read below.

The participants at these events are as fascinating as the speakers. The participants are people involved in fascinating and important projects, across organizational development, learning, education, leadership development, change management and coaching. If you are coming, we recommend clearing your calendar to be fully present, as it's a rare chance to meet so many fascinating people and immerse yourself in big ideas.

The theme for this year is 'Toward Integration'. This means linking the science closer to practice, and connecting the fields of neuroscience and leadership development in deeper ways. It's also about creating integration within an individual brain and amongst many brains.

This year the presenters are some of the most important thinkers from neuroscience, change and leadership development, including Daniel J Siegel, Warren Bennis and Werner Erhard.

We have also made some changes to make the event even more interactive and rich, including:
- Starting and finishing the summit focused on the theme of change.
- A session on brain assessments and brain training
- A poster session for anyone to present a case study, research or research plans
- A focus on educational tools for practitioners
- A time for practitioners to share with each other
- Two salon sessions in the evening for more philosophical discussion time

We have also ensured that there are only 4 sessions each day (plus the evening salons), with even more time for connecting with others within the sessions.

For more information see the summit website, or download the full program here.

Update on the 2009 summit in Los Angeles

2009-04-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

We are very excited to have some of the most brilliant minds of our time involved in this year's event, including these three:

Warren Bennis, One of the greats of leadership development

Werner Erhard, Founding father of the transformational leadership field

Daniel Siegel, Author of the best seller "The Developing Mind", co-director of UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre.

The theme this year is 'toward integration', and the sessions will be even more integrative than the highly acclaimed summits in 08. The topics this year also build on the previous year's insights, to provide an ongoing educational forum for senior change-agents from around the globe.

This is an event for people who are already making an impact in the world, and don't find that normal conferences provide new insights or the right level of networking. Many participants are involved in a broad range of wide scale and global change initiatives, inside or outside large organizations.

(Or to put it bluntly: I go to 30 conferences a year and rarely attend a session: this summit is specifically the topics I want to learn about now...) Few people out of 150 in NYC last year missed a single session.

Early bird registrations are open, til June 30 only. There are only 200 places at this event, so if you're keen we suggest you register early to reserve your place. We have people registered from 9 countries so far, including USA, UK, Canada, Peru, Australia, Netherlands, Brazil, Liechtenstein and Belgium.

The Summit 2009 brochure outlining a larger list of presenters and topics will be available in early May.

David Rock

2008 North American NeuroLeadership Summit Debrief

2008-11-08T11:09:00.001-08:00

What happens when you get 150 change agents from 20 countries around the globe, together with the world's leading neuroscientists, to talk about the biology of decision making, managing emotions, collaborating with others and facilitating change? A tremendous number of new connections, between people, ideas and research, and new insights for developing leaders. As one participant said: 'This conference was truly historic'. (Okay, so we made up the picture on the right...)

While the first Summit was held on top of a mountain in northern Italy, this was in heart of Times Square amidst the bustle and chaos. The theme for this Summit was ‘making new connections’.

These connections were helped along by wonderful facilitation from Art Kleiner, editor of strategy+business magazine. Participants came from China, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Canada, US, Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Australia. About a third were from inside large organizations, a third were independent consultants or coaches and a third were educators. What they had in common was a desire to bring the science of the brain into the way they created positive change in the world.

A common quote from participants was 'I never normally go to conferences, and if I do, I don't go into sessions. Here I can't bear to miss a single talk.' This was a Summit for people doing challenging, complex change work, who wanted new tools, not the same old ideas, and wanted to learn from their peers.

Below are some of the highlights of the event. If you want to dive into this work and make your own connections, you can get the entire Summit on audio, with both slides and a recording of every session.

As well, you might want to join the NeuroLeadership Institute, or order the first edition of the NeuroLeadership Journal, on it’s way for release in the next few weeks. You can also order a DVD set of the entire 2007 first summit in Asolo, Italy.

There's some great podcasts up now, with interviews with several speakers, to hear more about the field at high-level.

Preconference – ‘Neuroscience 101’
Lila Devaci did a great job of outlining the brain overall for novices, providing a platform of knowledge for going into the summit. There was extra interest in the brain circuits for memory and emotional regulation.

Opening session – ‘How attention changes the brain’
Neuropsychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz and physicist Henry Stapp presented a 'double-act' rich with insight about the underlying physics of how attention changes the brain. The session was held in the magnificent Hudson Theatre and provided some deep insights about the processes involved in change in the brain.

‘Why thinking has limits’
Amy Arnsten, one of the leading neuroscientists working on the prefrontal cortex, presented her research that explains why mental processes are so tiring, and how to maximize mental performance. A key theme was the importance of a sense of control for the brain.

‘The neuroscience of decision making’
Facilitated by Katharine McLennan, with Bob Eckert and Amy Arnsten, this panel discussion explored in depth some of the issues around decision-making.

‘The anatomy of an aha’
We were fortunate to have Jonah Lehrer (left), author and science writer, facilitate this rich session exploring the neuroscience of insight. Panel included Mark Jung-Beeman (right), the leading figure in the study of insight in the brain, Chris Wink, one of the founders of the Blueman group, taking about the creative process itself, and myself David Rock talking about organizational applications of insight. A great quote from Chris (that's him with the red nose): ‘I can’t even imagine having writers block now, it’s such a strange concept to me’.
The big idea: while insight is still mysterious, we are learning plenty now from the brain about how to 'stack the deck' to significantly increase the likelihood of it occurring.

‘Know thyself – the latest science of mindfulness’
Yiyuan Tang, a leading global researcher based in China and the US, presented a range of insights and science explaining mindfulness. His recent study showed the difference between 5 days of mindfulness training for 20 minutes a day, versus 5 days of relaxation training (in summary: a big difference!) Yiyuan is an inspirational, deep thinker who had a big impact on the group. You can see two people reflecting as they listen to his session here. There is more on Yiyuan’s work in the forthcoming NeuroLeadership Journal.

‘The limits of memory’

Lila Devaci delivered a powerful session on how memories are created, and how we can do better at encoding memories by understanding the brain. She had a wonderful ability to synthesize and simplify complex science to make it easy to digest (and remember!)

‘Mindfulness panel discussion’
We had an eclectic mix of people discussing mindfulness in more depth, including Yiyuan Tang, Anna Tavis from AIG and two consultants, Millie Greenough who was running the morning attention-training sessions, and Suzanne Kryder, working with senior leaders on mindfulness.

Connecting sessions
Each day had an hour for meeting other participants during the day. This allowed time for the brain to rest and digest, and to discuss ideas with scientists and other participants. Given the caliber of participants there, this proved to be a much appreciated window each day.

‘Stay cool under pressure’
Kevin Ochsner, one of the two founding father of the social neuroscience field, presented a dynamic session illustrating the neuroscience of regulating our emotions. He explored topics such as how suppression is a terrible strategy for our emotions, and the impact of reappraisal on the brain.

‘The brain is a social animal’
Matthew Lieberman, the other founding father of social neuroscience, delivered a powerful session illustrating the neuroscience behind the pains and pleasures of social life. He presented many fascinating findings around the theme of how social pains and pleasures use the same general systems as physical pains and pleasures. (My favorite study: Tylenol was reducing social pain more than a placebo in people.) There is more on this in a paper Matt published in the forthcoming NeuroLeadership Journal.

‘Panel on the neuroscience of leadership’
This was a rich discussion with John Case, ex CEO of a division of Electrolux, along with consultant Cathy Greenberg, with Diane Coutu, a senior editor with the Harvard Business Review, and Kevin Ochsner weighing in. John Case's FAT system was a highlight. The other highlight was Diane presenting the counter-argument that business isn’t ready for neuroscience yet, which was then discussed in the group.

‘Panel on education and the brain’
We heard from Al Ringleb, director and founder of CIMBA, an international business school teaching MBA students about the brain. Also Renee Rolleri, co-founder of the BlueSchool in NYC, who are integrating brain research (and soon teaching about the brain) into the way they are designing curriculum for k-12. Matthew Lieberman also participated, and the session was facilitated by an Australian educational consultant, Andrew Mowat.

‘A quantum theory of trust’
Karen Stephenson, one of the leading lights in social networking theory, presented a powerful session on the nature of trust and it’s role in networks. The group loved her straight-to-the-point approach and her humor, but above all her crisp insights about what really drives organizations: trust networks.

‘The neuroscience of cultural change’
This session featured Karen Stephenson discussing the ideas of changing systems in more detail, with input from Brent Oberholtzer(right), an executive from the Treasury in the US, Janet Crawford, a consultant, and Eugene Baker (left), who is collaborating with scientists to build brain based assessment techniques. This holds the promise of evidence-based assessments for leadership interventions based on changes in brain functioning, an important development in the field.
Facilitated by Cheryl Doggett, an executive from Bank of America, the session was a rich discussion about how we can use what has been discussed at the Summit to drive change in complex systems.

‘Coaching with the brain in mind’

This session featured cases from NASA, presented by their head of leadership development Chris Williams (right), and American Express by their head of coaching Scott Wigley (also right). I presented more of the theoretical framework for brain-based coaching, and Linda Page (left), who facilitated the session, presented some of the deeper foundations of brain based coaching.

‘Drive change’
This was the closing keynote for the Summit, where the ideas from all the sessions were linked together. Of special interest to people was the definition of the field into four areas of interest (see left). Also the SCARF model which summarizes much of the science emerging about collaborating with and influencing others. See the Journal for more on both of these.

What to do next if you want to make more connections to these ideas?

Become a member of the NeuroLeadership Institute, and attend members-only events in Sydney and NYC coming up.

Order the Summit audio, including speaker slides, or DVD's from the first summit.

Order the first NeuroLeadership Journal

Join a general mailing list, be first to learn about 2009 Summit(s)

Making New Connections in Sydney

2008-09-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

The theme for the Asia Pacific NeuroLeadership summit was ‘Making new connections’ and we certainly achieved that and a lot more.

Here’s how we know the event was a success:

•Attendance at the preconference on Neuroscience 101, over 80 people, which was very well received
• The number of senior business leaders who actually attended most sessions (a rarity nowadays)

• The very high number of books bought per person at the store – we had arranged just the right set of books selected for the 5 tracks emerging within this discipline
• Over one third of attendees registered for membership of the Institute, giving them an opportunity to stay connected
• Sales of DVD’s from the first summit, released in Sydney

• Strong participation in the self-organizing ‘connection sessions’.
• The fabulous comments from participants about the world class speakers

The new design of the event, based on feedback from the first summit, was more inclusive, and allowed for significant time for participants to digest the ideas, connect with each other and talk with the experts.

The format modeled how the brain likes to learn (intense bursts, then rest, with processes for integration such as informal and small group discussion time.)
And finally there was the great location (yes, the view in the picture was the view from the deck where we had every break) and the perfect weather, the first good weather of spring.

If you couldn’t make it to the Sydney Summit, you can order a digital summary of the event. This includes audio recordings of most sessions, as well as many of the slides and other resources. (This will be sent on a flash disk.) There is also a full audio summary of this event, and other audio resources here.

Asia Pacific/Sydney Summit Underway

2008-09-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

The NeuroLeadership Summit being held in Sydney, Australia is in full swing and we are wrapping it up today. The Keynotes and breakout sessions have held captive audiences as they learn more about how the brain works and how they can use this information to be better coaches, facilitators and managers of people.

View the Sydney program.

NY Summit Program Confirmed

2008-09-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

The program for the North American Summit being held in New York City is confirmed and Keynotes include:

Attention changes the brain

Know thyself: the latest science of mindfulness

Stay cool under pressure

The brain is a social animal

Drive change

Feel free to follow this link to download the NeuroLeadership NY Summit Program.

September 08 Update

2008-09-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

The big news right now is a fantastic article in the New Yorker Magazine, that summarizes the science emerging within one of my favourite areas of study, insight. Written by Jonah Lehrer, with interviews with Mark Jung-Beeman, the article is a must-read for anyone interested in the brain and leadership, innovation, coaching and change. To me insight is at the heart of change, and real change has an insight at the core. Download the article here.

I also recently interviewed Jonah about his current book, and he is speaking in NYC at the NeuroLeadership Summit. He will be running a session with Mark Jung-Beeman, along with one of the founders of the Blueman Group, all about the science of insight. You can listen to the 30 minute interview here.

One of the most fun parts of what I do is getting to spend time with some incredibly smart people, and Jonah is one of these for sure. Jonah also runs the best blog in the world for people interested in the latest neuroscience research. It's called the Frontal Cortex, and it's well worth diving into.

There was a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently about the NeuroLeadership field, a full page story with photos.

I am about to dive into the first of the two Neuroleadership summits. The programs are all finalized, you can dowload them on the neuroleadership site. Am also excited to be editing the first neuroleadership journal, which will come out around the NYC Summit at the end of October. We have over a dozen papers rich in insights and ideas coming together. I am publishing a paper on Influencing Others, with a summary of some of the key social neuroscience research.

Between the two summits I will be visiting Oxford University to give a talk, and spending time at CIMBA in Asolo, Italy, where I am on faculty. I look forward to working with a new group of MBA students, introducing them to the key findings from neuroscience as they start their year long MBA. It's exciting to be part of the team at CIMBA building a brain-based MBA for future leaders.

One thing I know for sure is that knowing about the brain is proving to be tremendously useful for staying cool under pressure amongst the chaos that is life. The more I am learning, the easier it is to catch debilitating patterns before they take hold. As a paper I read this week said, (by Craig Hassed who is teaching mindfulness to medical students), there are lots of trains of thought your mind travels along. I believe that knowing about your brain gives you more ability to choose which train to get onto, and more importantly, which to stay off.

That's about it for now. Please feel free to email me, davidrock@workplacecoaching.com, with any feedback about what you find useful or meaningful in this blog.

July 2008 update

2008-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

As of July 2008, the Summits in Sydney and NYC are taking shape nicely, with an amazing line-up of some of the world's leading researchers.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Jonah Lehrer, author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist" and talk about his new book on making decisions and neuroscience generally. Jonah will be speaking at the NYC summit in October. It's a great thirty minute discussion, download it here.

I recently did a brief video interview that gives a bit more background to these Summits, (for a webinar I did for the Conference Board in June. ) Click below to watch.

There's a brief interview here with a participant from the first summit, talking about what he got out of the event, click here to download.

The NeuroLeadership Summits will:
• Give you cutting edge research into human performance, including looking at future trends
• Help you understand and manage your own brain better
• Explore how to use neuroscience inside leadership and learning programs
• Illustrate how to to improve leadership and learning programs

You will have access to the leading neuroscientists of our times, as well as networking with practitioners who are integrating neuroscience in many different ways.

The summits each have five main areas of focus, which are topics that both Neuroscience and Leadership development have in common:
1. How we know ourselves
2. How we make decisions and solve problems
3. How we stay cool under pressure
4. How we get on with others
5. How we drive change

To register of for more information see http://www.neuroleadership.org/

Update about 08 Summits - at February 2008

2008-02-22T01:30:00.004-08:00

Below is an update about the Sydney and NYC Summits, along with links to recent media about the field.

The 2008 Summits, in Sydney and New York City, are coming along well.
We opened for registration just before the end of the year and already a steady flow of people are booking a place.

A strong advisory board for the Summits is now place, which includes executives from American Express, AIG, Metlife, several neuroscentists, educators and consultants.
The editor of strategy+business, Art Kleiner, is confirmed as the facilitator for both Summits.

Most of the scientists needed for the event are now confirmed, and we are thrilled to have some of the top neuroscientists in the world attending both events, including the two people who are central in the Social Neuroscience world.

We have just confirmed that Henry Stapp will speak in NYC. Henry is one of the most important quantum physicists alive today. He studied with Wolfgang Pauli and has some big insights about attention and the brain.

We have also decided to have a pre-conference event the day before each Summit, which will focus on providing basic neuroscience information to the lay person.

You can see who is speaking, and follow the links to more information abut each speaker, and register, at the Summit website.

Note that the early bird price now closes June 30 for both Summits.

We are now finalizing sessions by leadership educators and others, and a call for papers has been opened.

We are looking for presenters who be part of the dialogue in either Sydney or NYC and help establish this new field. The call for papers is available for download here.
Please follow the instructions carefully if you wish to be involved, there will be selection panel etc. The call for papers closes March 28.

A full program for both events will be available online late March or early April.

There's been some good media about this emerging field, with an article in the Guardian in London.

And another in a leadership journal in Australia, Boss Magazine.

Another announcement will come out with the full program and as other information comes to hand throughout the year.

Announcement about the 2008 Summits

2007-10-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

The Summits have finally been confirmed

There will be two events:
Sydney will host a Summit on 10th and 11th September 2008.
New York City will host a Summit on 29th and 30th October.

See www.neuroleadership.org for details.

2007 Summit Debrief

2007-05-30T12:46:00.001-07:00

The Setting

Picture an ancient town atop a small mountain at the foothills of the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy, in the midst of a warm spring. At the top of the hill is a 500 year old church and monastery, now coverted into an international graduate school of business. Now imagine 55 open-minded, high-powered thinkers from many corners of the globe, coming together to build a better science for leadership by integrating relevant neuroscientific research.

Day One
The Summit began with Arie De Geus, author of the Living Company. Arie explored how people think about the future, focusing on the role of language in giving us the ability to make decisions. While a senior executive at Royal Dutch Shell, Arie had built one of the first widescale scenario planning processes which became sought after by government and big business the world over.

Despite big investments in process and technology, decisions about the future seemed to be made simply through people talking to each other. This raised an important thread that ran throughout the Summit, of how conversation, or in neuroscience terms, focusing attention, creates real physical change.

Next was one of the world’s leading Quantum Physicists, Dr Henry Stapp, who studied under both Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli. Henry has been working with Dr Jeffrey Schwartz for nearly ten years to explain the impact of attention on the brain. (That's Henry with an 'uncertain hand' on the right.) In 2005, Henry and Jeff published one of the first scientific papers to explain the physical impact of attention on the brain

Dr Stapp explained how Newtonian Mechanics was the science of objects, whereas Quantum Mechanics is the 'science of ideas'. As the science of ideas, Quantum Mechanics is ideal for understanding how ideas interact, in the physical world. Henry laid the foundation for one of the central session of the Summit, on how attention changes the brain.

After lunch in the warm sun in the courtyard of CIMBA, the sponsoring university, we heard from Jeffrey Schwartz M.D. Jeff spoke about how attention changes the brain, through the act of the ‘impartial spectator’, a term first coined by Adam Smith. Jeff introduced an important formula for change in the brain, which operates at an individual through to system level. This formula came out of years of discussion with Henry Stapp and more recently through discussions with leadership consultant David Rock. This new formula for change is based on the interaction between attention density, expectations and our ability to ‘veto’ specific mental processes.

Finally on day one we heard from Dr Robert 'this wont hurt a bit' Coghill, a world expert on pain research. Dr Coghill showed us how pain is an excellent model for exploring differences in experience, the so called ‘Qualia’ problem. Coghill illustrated experiments where the same pain stimuli were rated at between 1.8 to 8.9 on a scale of 1-10, showing how individual even the simplest experiences can be. He illustrated conclusively through a series of experiments how a ‘dose’ of expectations can literally have the same impact on pain as a common dosage of morphine. He explored how we might set expectations more effectively based on his findings. This is an important area for further study.

Day Two
Day two began with a session by Dr Yiyuan Tang, one of the most respected scientists in China, and the government representative on the human brain project. Dr Tang presented neuroscientific research showing how Eastern and Western brains process even the simplest events differently: Eastern brains focusing more on context and Western on detail. He illustrated several other important findings, finishing with a piece on how our cognitive functions decrease when we experience emotional stress.

Next we heard from Dr Mark Jung-Beeman, a world expert in the study of insight. Mark explained the specific brain anatomy and processes involved in the insight experience. He illustrated how we need significant cognitive control to have insight, especially to help suppress accidental connections that might be inhibiting new solutions.

Mark explained how the quiet brain is more likely to have insight, and how people who were happier were having significantly more insights. He said he could tell even before a person began an exercise whether they were likely to have an insight or not, based on their brain patterns.

Another feature of the Summit in the afternoon of day two was the session on the 'social brain’ presented jointly by David Rock (left) and Jeffrey Schwartz, with interviews recorded for the event with two of the most eminent social neuroscientists Dr Matt Lieberman (UCLA) and Dr Kevin Ochsner (Columbia). David and Jeff showed how the brain is a 'social animal', and how many of our responses to the world are driven by social factors. They explored the way our cognitive capacities decrease during amygdala over-arousal, and how social pain was activating similar brain areas as physical pain.

The final session on day two was David Rock's interactive session on the 'neuroscience of influence'. David began to weave the insights of the first two days into a more cohesive whole. He explained that having a physical theory to explain intuitive approaches to leadership was not a small matter, but a major leap in our ability to improve leadership.

David said that using a neuroscience theory base for leadership programs was contributing significantly to getting organizational leaders to focus their attention on human issues, and opening up new ways of thinking about driving change and learning. David then used the neuroscience presented to explain why our capacity to influence others is so low and how we can increase it significantly by better understanding the brain.

Day Three
Day three began with an open session in the courtyard, with the group being warmed by the morning sun rising from behind the mountain. Everyone got to share what they were experiencing and their thoughts about the ideas being presented.

The focus of day three was 'application', starting with young people, moving to university education and then to leadership in organizations.

We first heard from Jaimie Cloud, an expert in K-12 education. Jaimie is teaching kids in hundreds of schools across the globe to think in new ways, to think about complete systems and sustainability, and is working in partnership with Peter Senge. Jaimie presented a provocative session about the need to give children new mental models for understanding the world.

Next Al Ringleb, the director of CIMBA the sponsoring university, along with several key CIMBA faculty, presented their approach to using neuroscience across their year-long MBA and undergraduate programs. CIMBA is the first university in the world to use neuroscience to develop future leaders.

Over lunch, Nicolas Gorjestani from the World Bank shared some inspiring stories of change within the bank, and Siobhan McHale shared the ANZ Bank's journey to transform culture across thousands of employees in their 'Breakout' program.

Next we heard from Cheryl Doggett, the director of learning and development at EDS, a Fortune 100 technology firm. EDS has been training thousands of leaders in coaching skills in the last few years, using a coaching model that is directly based on an understanding of the brain.

The final session of day three was by John Case, the CEO of Electrolux Home Products, North America. John introduced his approach to leadership, showing how an understanding of the brain explains the success of his 'Focus, Accountability, Teamwork' model.

We finished day three by exploring the future of these ideas, how we will set up an institute and journal, and discussing next year’s event, which will be around the same time early May, again in Asolo, (by a significant majority vote!)

Acknowledgments
Big thanks go to:
• The CIMBA team for a fabulous three days of entertainment.
• Art Kleiner, editor of strategy+business magazine (right) for his masterful facilitation and weaving together of the ideas.
• Summit sponsors CIMBA, strategy+business magazine, Results Coaching Systems, Thinking Dimensions and Rapport Leadership.

A final acknowledgment goes to all the Summit participants (left), whose passion and intellect made the event an amazing journey for everyone involved. (Rumor has it that exactly 40% of Summit participants were still together at 2am on the last night of the event.)

Doing further study
There is a new audio summary of the event as a podcast which may be of interest. Then there are many resources listed within this website, including suggested books, articles, and scientific papers. A set of DVD's will be available later in the year of the key sessions from the event, email info@neuroleadership,org to be notified of when these are available. A Journal is being planned for release at the 2008 Summit.

If you would like to be on a general mailing list about news and events relating to this field, email info@neuroleadership.org with the subject line as 'mailing list'.

NeuroLeadership Summit 2008
If you'd like to feel as deeply satisfied as the people in the picture on the right relaxing on the day after the Summit, then email info@neuroleadership.org with the subject line as '2008 Summit' to get an early notice about registration for the next Summit. Places will be limited to 50 participants in 2008, and the dates will be roughly the same time, early to mid May.

NeuroLeadership Institute - Research focuses

2007-05-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

The NeuroLeadership Institute is being formed to coordinate research that connects neuroscience and leadership development. The Institute is being housed initially at CIMBA, in Italy, though other universities are invited to participate as well.

The expected areas of research include (an incomplete list) the following domains:
• Attention research: exploring how attention itself creates change in one and many brains
• Innovation: Understanding the physiology of insight and how to better solve complex challenges
• Critical thinking: understanding the physiology of problem solving and decision making
• Expectation research: how our expectations impact perception
• The social brain: the science of how we influence each other
• Cultural issues
• Systemic application of all the above areas
• The neuroscience of engagement and employee retention
• The neuroscience of career development

A Journal will be published which will with the first edition released at the 2008 NeuroLeadership Summit.

Speaker web links

2007-05-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Schwartz, Summit Co-Director
David Rock, Summit Co-Director
Art Kleiner, Summit Facilitator
Al Ringleb, Director of Sponsoring University
Arie De Geus
Henry Stapp
Dr Yiyuan Tang
Robert Coghill
Mark Jung Beeman
John Case
Cheryl Doggett
Jaimie Cloud
Dr Matt Lieberman (On video)
Dr Kevin Ochsner (On video)

2008 NeuroLeadership Summit

2007-05-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

The 2008 NeuroLeadership Summits have been announced!
See neuroleadership.org for details.

Scientific papers

2007-05-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Scientific papers

Here are some of the main scientific papers, or web links to papers, that were discussed at the Summit. This list will be updated considerable during June as the Summit wrap-up is completed.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Henry Stapp on the Quantum Mechanics of Attention
Dr. Mark Jung Beeman on insight
Dr. Robert Coghill on expectations
Dr. Yiyuan Tang on cultural differences
Matt Leiberman's - Social neuroscience lab
Kevin Ochsner's social neuroscience lab

Video, books, magazines and audio

2007-05-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

Here are general resources to further explore ideas from the Summit.

Video of the event
The main sessions at the Summit have been professionally recorded, for release in the 2nd half of 2007 either online or as a DVD set. If you are interested in finding out about these when they are available please email info@neuroleadership.org with the subject line 'DVD Set'. You will then get a note when pricing and ordering details are finalized.

Books by Summit Presenters
The Living Company - Arie De Geus
The Mind and the Brain - Jeffrey Schwartz
The Mindful Universe - Henry Stapp
Quiet Leadership - David Rock
Who Really Matters - Art Kleiner

Some of the better general books on the brain
The Human Mind - Robert Winston
The Users Guide to the Brain - John Ratey
Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson
On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins

Magazine articles
The Neuroscience of Leadership, strategy+business, Summer 2006
Why Neuroscience matters to executives, strategy+business, April 2007
The New Science of Change, cover story in CIO magazine 206
A Brain Based Approach to Coaching - International Journal of Coaching in Organizations

Audio recordings
strategy+business webinar with Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and David Rock
Interview with David Rock at the NYC launch of Quiet Leadership
John Case on his FAT leadership system
David Rock on a 'Brain based Approach to Coaching'
David Rock on NeuroLeadership and the Global 2008 Summits