Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

Interesting brain research offers clues to best management approaches, according to Nobscot’s Weblog. Nesbot’s post quotes Business + Strategy magazine which links neuroscience, psychology and business management practices. I wasn’t surprised to see how “many standard business practices such as punishment and rewards and performance feedback run counter to the way our brains function.”

The articles shows how short term or working memory requires a lot of energy. These connections may or may not make it to the more permanent storage areas of the brain.

Did you know that your Basal Ganglia stores your habits and routines and requires very little energy to use. So what does this have to do with change…? Nesbot reminds us that, “To create behavioral change in the workplace, the goal is to have information processed in the pre-frontal cortex and then assimilated into the basal ganglia.”

Parts of the brain works against us. The orbital frontal cortex, according to the article's authors Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz and David Rock, “acts as an error detector… “when presented with new information … it compares the information with what the brain already knows and assumes the new information must be a mistake. Do you see why so many people settle for habits and run from change…? What do you think management can do to counter fear associated with change…?