Read Online Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders by Srinivasan S. Pillay - Free Book Online
Authors: Srinivasan S. Pillay
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justifying the need for mood changes, we may support this by reminding leaders that the brain’s ability to produce insight solutions improves when people are happier. The thought behind this is that feeling good increases the chances of flexibility in thinking and promotes a more “global scope of attention.” 38 Note that insight and analytic problem solving work through different brain mechanisms. Some of the differences between these types of problem solving are the following (you do not need to remember the brain regions—just that there are differences between insight and analytical solutions): (1) Insight solutions activate the right hemisphere more; (2) insight solutions activate the right temporal lobe more; (3) verbal insight solutions activate a distributed neural network that includes bilateral activation in the insula, the right prefrontal cortex, and the anterior cingulate. 39 Furthermore, the rostral portion of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex showed a sustained increase in neural activity during the preparatory interval before participants actually see problems, and stronger ACC activity occurs prior to trials solved with insight than those solved more analytically. 40 The fact that happiness increases this suggests that this specific component of insight production is enhanced.
The application: Coaches can tell leaders who are stuck in finding solutions that their solutions may need to emanate from insights rather than analytic processes. To enhance the possibility of this, focusing on the positive and improving one’s mood state have been shown to increase flexibility of thinking and, through this, vital insight regions including the ACC in the human brain. They may further explain that although analytical solutions may not be prone to improvements with feeling better and focusing on the positive, insight solutions are.
For many businesses I have worked with, analytic problem solving is a way of not standing still. It creates the impression that a problem is being solved when it is not really being solved. It is just being broken down into different shapes and sizes and put back together ina different way. Insight gives birth to a whole new way of thinking. Positive thoughts give your brain permission to travel where it has not travelled before. It is more nerve-wracking because the unknowns are greater, but you are much more likely to find insight solutions that way—and the brain science supports this.
The Psychology of Mindfulness
The concept: Mindfulness is our capacity for awareness (or self-knowing), and a recent paper outlined why this may be so important in the business environment as well. 41 In this paper, called “The Practice of Mindfulness for Managers in the Marketplace,” the author states the following: “Partly because of the brilliance of our scientific and techno-logical triumphs, we have dissociated ourselves from the spiritual world, sought outside for answers that can only be found within, denied the subjective and the sacred, and over-looked the latent capacities of mind. However, there exists within us, unexplored creative capacities, depths of psyche, and states of consciousness, undreamed of by most people” (Walsh and Frances, 1993). To capture the importance of mindfulness in our volatile economy, the author points out a quote: “You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Psychological mindfulness involves the nonjudgmental acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. It specifically does not involve analysis of what one is thinking or feeling, and research is increasingly showing that this state of “mind” is a powerful state that can significantly reduce anxiety and worry. 42 – 44 As we learned earlier, reducing worry can help thinking and productivity. Thus, awareness of the worry without judgment can help thinking considerably. Mindfulness as a practice can also decrease negative thoughts that intrude upon a leader’s
The application: Coaches can tell leaders who are stuck in finding solutions that their solutions may need to emanate from insights rather than analytic processes. To enhance the possibility of this, focusing on the positive and improving one’s mood state have been shown to increase flexibility of thinking and, through this, vital insight regions including the ACC in the human brain. They may further explain that although analytical solutions may not be prone to improvements with feeling better and focusing on the positive, insight solutions are.
For many businesses I have worked with, analytic problem solving is a way of not standing still. It creates the impression that a problem is being solved when it is not really being solved. It is just being broken down into different shapes and sizes and put back together ina different way. Insight gives birth to a whole new way of thinking. Positive thoughts give your brain permission to travel where it has not travelled before. It is more nerve-wracking because the unknowns are greater, but you are much more likely to find insight solutions that way—and the brain science supports this.
The Psychology of Mindfulness
The concept: Mindfulness is our capacity for awareness (or self-knowing), and a recent paper outlined why this may be so important in the business environment as well. 41 In this paper, called “The Practice of Mindfulness for Managers in the Marketplace,” the author states the following: “Partly because of the brilliance of our scientific and techno-logical triumphs, we have dissociated ourselves from the spiritual world, sought outside for answers that can only be found within, denied the subjective and the sacred, and over-looked the latent capacities of mind. However, there exists within us, unexplored creative capacities, depths of psyche, and states of consciousness, undreamed of by most people” (Walsh and Frances, 1993). To capture the importance of mindfulness in our volatile economy, the author points out a quote: “You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Psychological mindfulness involves the nonjudgmental acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. It specifically does not involve analysis of what one is thinking or feeling, and research is increasingly showing that this state of “mind” is a powerful state that can significantly reduce anxiety and worry. 42 – 44 As we learned earlier, reducing worry can help thinking and productivity. Thus, awareness of the worry without judgment can help thinking considerably. Mindfulness as a practice can also decrease negative thoughts that intrude upon a leader’s
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