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A Dow Corning manager in one of my "Culture Clash" workshops told me that his colleagues use a term they call the "Idiot Factor": The farther someone is from us, the more we will think of them as idiots.
We tend to believe that those who think the same way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for executives who surround themselves with group-thinkers and yes-men. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are the company lacks intellectual diversity.
In this way, people are no different from organizations. Brain research has shown that in puberty, the brain shuts down about half the brain's capacity, keeping only those modes of thought that have seemed most useful during the first ten years (more or less) of life.
So how can you reawaken that hidden capacity? One way is to go about it like the brain surgeon in this video:
But perhaps that is not the best way. The answer is, you keep your brain vibrant through activities that are unfamiliar and may even feel weird.
“Try lacing your hands together,” said Dawna Markova, author of The Open Mind (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1996). “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.” (By the way, the original meaning of the word "confusion" comes from Latin and means "joining together.")
Going beyond your comfort zone can pay off handsomely. One managing director at a large multinational was an inspiring speaker, but I saw in our very first executive coaching session that the guy simply did not stop talking.
After I had listened to his monologue for some 15 minutes, I told him, “Mr. So-and-so, do you realize that you don’t listen?”
He was flabbergasted: “Nobody ever told me that. How did you know?” I smiled: “Sir, it didn't take a Ph.D. to figure it out.”
During the Coaching-In-Action process, the executive set out to develop his listening skills. He rated himself on his listening performance after every meeting and every phone call.
In debriefing each conversation he had with a colleague, he asked himself: Had he truly listened, or had he merely waited for the other person to stop talking so he could finally say his own brilliant ideas?
Within three months, he had built his active listening muscle. The result: more speaking by his subordinates, more ideas, more initiative, more leadership, more results ($74 million more sales, to be exact).
“It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases," wrote M.J. Ryan in This Year I Will... (Crown Archetype, 2006).
"No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”
P.S. If you have not yet downloaded my new book Leading Leaders: The Art and Science of Boosting Return on People (ROP), do so now. For your free personal copy, go to Leading-Leaders. Enjoy!
In this way, people are no different from organizations. Brain research has shown that in puberty, the brain shuts down about half the brain's capacity, keeping only those modes of thought that have seemed most useful during the first ten years (more or less) of life.
So how can you reawaken that hidden capacity? One way is to go about it like the brain surgeon in this video:
But perhaps that is not the best way. The answer is, you keep your brain vibrant through activities that are unfamiliar and may even feel weird.
“Try lacing your hands together,” said Dawna Markova, author of The Open Mind (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1996). “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.” (By the way, the original meaning of the word "confusion" comes from Latin and means "joining together.")
Going beyond your comfort zone can pay off handsomely. One managing director at a large multinational was an inspiring speaker, but I saw in our very first executive coaching session that the guy simply did not stop talking.
After I had listened to his monologue for some 15 minutes, I told him, “Mr. So-and-so, do you realize that you don’t listen?”
He was flabbergasted: “Nobody ever told me that. How did you know?” I smiled: “Sir, it didn't take a Ph.D. to figure it out.”
During the Coaching-In-Action process, the executive set out to develop his listening skills. He rated himself on his listening performance after every meeting and every phone call.
In debriefing each conversation he had with a colleague, he asked himself: Had he truly listened, or had he merely waited for the other person to stop talking so he could finally say his own brilliant ideas?
Within three months, he had built his active listening muscle. The result: more speaking by his subordinates, more ideas, more initiative, more leadership, more results ($74 million more sales, to be exact).
“It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases," wrote M.J. Ryan in This Year I Will... (Crown Archetype, 2006).
"No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”
What do you think? What unfamiliar practices do/could you or your company experiment with? I look forward to your comments on my blog.
All the best,
All the best,
P.S. If you have not yet downloaded my new book Leading Leaders: The Art and Science of Boosting Return on People (ROP), do so now. For your free personal copy, go to Leading-Leaders. Enjoy!
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