Business owners, entrepreneurs, and network marketers face numerous challenges in today's business environment. How do you keep up and maintain productivity, produce cohesive teams, reduce turnover, lessen workplace stress? As in my recent post, brain science increasingly is helping us by providing information about how we can use our brains to align with workplace and market demands to help us become more successful. Answers are becoming more available from the new disciplines of neuroleadership, neuromarketing, and neuroeconomics, which I discussed in a recent post.
Recently, Dr. David Rock, editor of the NeuroLeadership Journal, offered five neural leadership practices to enhance our businesses:
1. Foster fairness. Neuroscientists have discovered that when people feel poorly treated, there is activity in the amygdala. This is an area of the brain involved in processing memory and emotional reactions. People remember being treated poorly. It is better for business leaders to focus on creating relationships based on respect and acceptance.
2. Take a social approach. Our brain is a social organ needing social interaction. Many business environments focus on results at the expense of social interactions The unintended result may be that even the best performers may feel devalued. Consider being more collaborative in the approach to getting things done in the workplace.
3. Get sufficient sleep (but not in the workplace, my addition!). Sleep is know to rejuvenate the brain, help consolidate memories, create new connections, and process solutions to problems. Encourage employees to take breaks, go for a walk, take lunch breaks without continuing to work. This helps recharge the brain and improves employee productivity. Recognizing teams for accomplishment will encourage release of dopamine, a natural chemical brain energy booster.
4. Attention to one task at a time. Multitasking is overrated. Brain research shows that when tasks compete for the same mental resources, the quality of the task performance is lessened. Try to focus on one task at a time to increase the efficiency and completion of the task.
5. Stop predicting. Dr. Rock noted our human tendency to attempt to predict what will happen. However, he observed that we can hold on to a prediction that may interfere with our seeking out a better strategy or decision. We can help ourselves and employees by encouraging them not to jump to conclusions and to consider alternate strategies.
Dr. Rock's fifth practice brings us back to mindset, our belief system. As I've noted in other posts, there is scientific support for the conclusion that negative mindsets activate different and more emotional areas of the brain than success (growth) mindsets. Individuals with such negative mindsets (self-doubt, self-blame, negative view of the world) often do not look for or respond to corrective feedback and continue problem behaviors in business such as unhelpful attention and leadership styles, poor team development, and personal unhappiness. But how do you even know what your attentional, leadership, and mindset tendencies are? Certainly, the five practices above are very helpful. If you need or want more information, feel free to contact the Success and Mindset Group at www.successandmindset.com for more information. As always, remember to Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Results.