Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

A good friend, and fellow blogger Galba Bright, asked me today … “Ellen do you have insights into how you and your colleagues use your MITA model to address the power issues involved in achieving improved results in organizations?” The answer draws from wonderful new research on the brain's plasticity - and it could impact your own growth.

Change for improvement is in part, based on a larger question about research on  plasticity. Simply put,  some people accelerate their plasticity for growth – others stall their own and others’ brains daily. 

Those who move forward ask “What if…” and in response their brain sparks new dendrites for innovation based on that statement. They tend laugh more, create daily, and show interest in those around them. Each act here fuels an impetus for improvement in any workplace.

How often have you heard cynics lament, on the other hand… “can’t” … “won’t”  … impossible … and hosts of stalled projects or deflated peers at work. Few cynics recognize how their own brain’s  add to the shut down of growth, reduce research on plasticity and eliminate growth opportunities for their entire organization.  How is this so.

In reality, and in spite of all the rhetoric about reform, organizations still tend to change slowly or not at all. Not so for the human brain, interestingly. In fact your own brain is not the same as brains 10 years ago…. That’s also why yesteryear’s strategies at work rolled out well for former workers. But the brain’s wiring today is far different from mental wiring 10 years ago.

How so?

The fast changing multimedia-based workplaces along with the added stress from an every changing and faster pace of living, have dynamically changed how the brain functions at work. Brains literally wire differently to meet new demands at work.

Have you noticed how people have grown steadily accustomed to making faster and more technologically related responses, for instance? Sadly, the disconnect between brain research and tactics for coping and conquering the best from work,  slow down progress so that many workers complain that their organization has lost its zest.

Do people describe your organization as one with zip, or as a dull, non-engaging setting where not much happens outside of boring routines?

Did you know your brain is capable of rewiring itself far more than once thought? Sometimes called plasticity this natural process is crucial to a healthy mental life.  Your frontal sections of the brain tell you who you are and help you to build  strategies for becoming who you want others to see in you. Injured or inactive frontal lobes… prevents you from making good choices, acting morally or finding contentment.

Rewiring in the human brain occurs when the brain is stimulated … and when we remain passive far less rewiring occurs. So to improve and change is to remain active and attentive to the world around us.

Repetition of activities that first impact this frontal section of the brain… eventually help to rewire and change other parts … such as the basil ganglia… so that the areas of working memory are once again freed to take on new facts and challenges for innovations on another day.

Can you see why it is critical to stay alive to new stimuli at work and to actively rewire our brains as a way to develop and maintain brain plasticity? Some do so, while the cynic’s brain continually  rewires its pattern to hold a workplace back.

What do you think?