The NeuroLeadership Summit and Why It Matters to Executives

The First Global NeuroLeadership Summit is about a month away. The Summit still has a few places open, so if you want to attend, you should put in an application as soon as you can.

The organizers have decided decided to film the Summit. This will allow the filming of several important neuroscientists—such as Matt Lieberman, Stellan Ohlsson and Kevin Ochsner—who are important to the field but are unable to attend the Summit. This will film be available online after the Summit.

The Summit will focus on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and how those discoveries can be used to help organizations:

• Increase the level of employee engagement
• Drive cultural change
• Improve decision making
• Assist in the development of high performance leaders
• Improve the performance of individuals and whole systems
• Achieve strategic and tactical business goals

A new article, Why Neuroscience Matters to Executives by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz is available on the strategy+business web site. Here are a few key thoughts from that article:

The study of neuroscience has provided us with a deeper understanding of why people find change so unsettling....The more we understand the phenomenon of change, the more effectively we can manage it. Neuroscience shows us why some common practices work well, such as allowing people to take ownership of a new initiative. It also explains why some don’t succeed. For example, using threats or incentives to implement organizational change is rarely sustainable.

Regular sustained attention — which is what meditation is, after all — can change one’s neural circuitry. Meditation helps the brain overcome the urge to automatically respond to external events; that kind of focus is a very important skill.

Another important idea is the concept of a quiet mind. A noisy mind can develop when the brain is overstimulated. Emotions such as fear or anxiety can also contribute to the noise by increasing stress levels. Too much stress arouses the amygdala, a structure that is closely connected to the brain’s fear circuitry. We all know the feeling of being upset by something at work, then not being able to concentrate for the remainder of the day. In short, a person’s capacity to use his or her prefrontal cortex, also known as the working memory, can be impaired under conditions of peak stress, fear, or anxiety. This can result in a decreased ability to make rational comparisons among competing objectives.