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By Lisa Yoon
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
-- John Milton
Let's say one has a particularly wounding setback at work. Perhaps, for example, one had a brilliant idea for, and did the crucial work on, a successful, high-profile project -- and someone else enjoyed company-wide kudos for most of it. One could, in theory, have a brain scan performed that would show the part of one's brain that registers the distress. This image would look much like one of a brain dealing with a punch in the face. That is, both social and physical pain trigger the same part of the brain (namely the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex).
For years, management experts and business schools have encouraged leaders to manage with emotional intelligence. By now EI is commonly accepted as a critical quality in the leadership arsenal. Being part of conventional management wisdom has its failings, however. Like many overly repeated phrases, "emotional intelligence" hardly registers enough meaning to command notice anymore. In this regard, this is a fine time for the work published in recent years linking neuroscience and management to be garnering attention. Emotionally enlightened leadership is all well and good; neuroscience gives us electroencephalograms to show it.
"The cool thing about neuroscience is that it provides hard data," notes Charles S. Jacobs, author of Management Rewired, one of the best-reviewed management books of 2009. Indeed, how many executives have the intellectual horses to argue with a neuroradiologist and his very-expensive imaging technology?
Moreover, this scientific evidence is a gift to managers: Leaders who understand the human brain as a social organ can be far more effective at building successful teams and motivating employees to elicit their best performance. After all, the workplace is a social environment. Knowledge of the brain has applications in practically every area of management, including goal-setting and performance feedback, motivation, and teambuilding and management. And even a layman's briefing on neuroscience can actually make managing easier -- in addition to more effective. Once you understand how the brain works, explains Jacobs, logic kicks in and "you'll know what to do and what not to do."
Threat and Reward
Understanding the "threat and reward response" is the core of social-brain research as it applies to management, since it governs most of human behavior. All you need to know as a leader is this: the brain that senses a threat is high-maintenance. It uses up the blood's oxygen and sugar, then has to divert even more resources from the brain. This is also known as the fight-or-flight, and its result is impaired memory, critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving -- i.e. the functions you as a manager rely on the most. By contrast, the brain is at rest when it feels rewarded. Undistracted by threat, the brain is focused and at peak performance.
Managing Goals, Feedback and Performance Reviews
The full title of Jacobs's book is Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science. Feedback doesn't work? Inasmuch as it triggers the threat response, no. In a traditional performance review or informal feedback, managers tend to deliver statements. Statements that convey criticism -- no matter how constructive in intent -- trigger a threat response. (Consider your own mental reflex upon merely hearing the words "Can I give you some feedback?") With the brain thus geared into defensive mode, the recipient of the feedback is less capable of processing new ideas or suggestions. Going forward this employee will be less effective at analysis, problem solving, and even collaborating with colleagues.
"I'm not recommending turning the asylum over to the inmates," Jacobs is quick to clarify. "You hold people accountable to what they agree to do."
"What they agree to do" is the operative phrase in a productive performance review. A better approach to the performance review begins well before the review itself, Jacobs explains. It begins with setting the goals that will later be under review. Jacobs recommends joint goal-setting over dictating each employee's targets. Published research has shown people require autonomy and a sense of control; the absence of control triggers the threat response and can create enough stress to undermine performance. Giving employees a voice in setting goals you both agree on is itself a step toward better performance.
As for the review itself, the conventional procedure has the employee give a self-assessment followed by the manager's counter-assessment. According to Jacobs, managers would do better to follow the self-assessment with questions that urge introspection instead of the typical statement assessing the employee's work. For example, how might they have performed better? How might they work differently to achieve improved performance? Questions are more effective tools, says Jacobs, "because you have to come to terms with them. Statements, on the other hand, are restrictive" and are more likely to engage a defensive stance.
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