Tag Archives: mind

The best way to think great thoughts

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You have a problem to solve or a new idea to cook up. What do you do? Pile lots of people in a room and brainstorm, right?

Wrong. It turns out that free association in a group uncovers predictable options, not innovative, creative ones. In the presence of others, we don’t want to seem weird, so we edit our responses or end up building on someone elses thoughts. And let’s face it. Being in a group of your peers is often not the relaxing, free-form state your brain needs to produce its best work (especially if you tank up on coffee and sugar). Fast Company’s Debra Kay blogged about this:

“It turns out that a brainstorming session is a great place to load up on baked goods and caffeine, but it’s not so great for generating ideas.”

Instead of group brainstorming, start with laying out the issue and then let people go about their lives. Allow the thoughts to percolate and pop up when they’re ready – usually when they’re engaged in something else. Some of the greatest thoughts spring to mind when you’re in the shower, taking a walk or doing something else that is pressure-free.

MindTools recommends individual brainstorming before any group engagement around an idea. Find a place away from distractions, and consider creating a Mind Map to articulate and connect thoughts.

You may want to do something more productive with your time than pondering new uses for your toilet plunger. Whatever you decide to tackle, start with giving everyone some solo time before gathering to brainstorm. You’ll tap the best ideas your people have to offer.

Need to energize your innovation? Contact Humanergy.

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Strategy and your brain

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It might seem that when it comes to strategic thinking, the brain is your ally. Not always. Our brains aren’t always rational, and we are unaware of the extent to which the mind takes shortcuts and makes assumptions. Charles Roxburgh writes about the brain in Hidden Flaws in Strategy (McKinsey Quarterly):

“Over the millennia of its evolution, it has developed shortcuts, simplifications, biases, and basic bad habits. Some of them may have helped early humans survive on the savannas of Africa (“if it looks like a wildebeest and everyone else is chasing it, it must be lunch”), but they create problems for us today. Equally, some of the brain’s flaws may result from education and socialization rather than nature. But whatever the root cause, the brain can be a deceptive guide for rational decision making.”

Roxburgh points out eight flaws that every leader should be aware of as they solve problems and make decisions. For example, our brains are overconfident in our own abilities. We think we can estimate far more accurately than we can, and we believe that enterprises that we’re involved in are above average. Related to this overconfidence is being overly optimistic – skewing toward the most positive projections about factors that are uncertain.

You can compensate for your overconfident brain by:

  • Testing strategies over a wider range of scenarios, and giving people a choice between an even (2, 4, 6…) number of options. If given an odd number of choices (e.g., 3), most will choose the safer middle option.
  • Mitigating the risk of getting monetary projections wrong by reducing your most optimistic estimate by 20% to 25%. If you’re estimating revenues of $5 million, reduce that “best case” figure to around $4 million.

Read the full article on McKinsey’s website (registration required), so you can plan around your flawed brain. You’ll be way ahead of your competitors who think their brain is just fine the way it is!

 

Want to be more strategic and execute well? Contact Humanergy for helpful tools that will make your brain even bigger!

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Curiosity: A leadership superpower

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We are hard-wired to be critical of new ideas. Maybe it’s our Stone-Age brains in the forefront, avoiding risk in order to survive. Sometimes the urge to appear intelligent and decisive can result in too-swift judgment of something novel.

Art Markman’s blog on promoting a culture of smart thinking includes a tip on staying open to ideas. He recommends that you allow fresh information some “soak” time and try them out before you pass judgment.

Staying open to different viewpoints can only happen when we are willing to be wrong sometimes. We may also need to wrestle with some powerful emotions, such as anger or hurt. In these moments of vulnerability, curiosity is both difficult and much-needed.

If you’re like me, you may be programmed to quickly ask, “What’s her problem?” or “Is he nuts?”

To boost curiosity, try some new questions: “I wonder why he said that?” “What would that look like?” “How would that work?” “What do I like best about it?”

You may find that these questions will not only open your mind…it will unblock those of the people around you as well.

Need some help staying open-minded? Contact Humanergy.

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Change your body to change your mind

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Most people are familiar with the idea of a mind/body connection. We typically think of this as being the power of our thoughts to impact our body. However, did you know that your body’s position can affect your mind as well? Research shows us that the association between our brains and our bodies is a two-way street.

“Embodied cognition” is the term for the interdependent and collaborative relationship between the brain and body. Shaun Gallagher, director of the cognitive science program at the University of Central Florida was quoted in a recent blog: “In any particular instance, what’s going on inside the brain in large part may depend on what’s going on in the body as a whole, and how that body is situated in its environment.”

Upright posture affects confidence. Research published in 2009 showed that people who were sitting up straight were more likely to be confident in the things they were asked to write about themselves. People who slouched were less confident of their own thoughts.

Use of non-dominant side of your body builds creativity. It may be no accident that many creative people are left-handed. Forced to operate in a right-hand-dominated world, lefties create new, usual neural connections. Run backwards or use your non-dominant hand for a short time each day to build mental capacity and even slow the aging process.

Exercise prepares your brain for learning. Dr. John J. Ratey of Harvard says, “We really need to think about exercise to keep the brain functioning well, and that it also happens to be good for the body.” Numerous studies show that rigorous activity (at least 40 minutes four times a week) improves your brain’s functioning, regardless of age. While exercise doesn’t make you smarter, it does prep the brain for learning. Our bodies were made to move, and we must do so vigorously and regularly to maintain optimal circuits in the brain.

Body position impacts memory.You’ve left an important client meeting and are struggling to remember a vital detail. Improve your chances of recalling the information by assuming a body position similar to the one you maintained in the meeting. Like smells, textures or emotions, body position is a strong mental trigger for memory.

Emotional response depends upon body position. Psychological Science reported on research showing that people’s brains responded differently to anger-inducing stimuli, depending upon their body position. People who were lying down experienced less activity in the left prefrontal cortex (where anger is “located” in the brain) than people who were sitting up. Some researchers believe that the upright body position signals a sort of “I’m ready” state in the brain, making it more prone to react angrily. Similarly, the simple act of smiling (or frowning less) has been correlated with increased happiness, even when the smiling was forced. In fact, people whose ability to frown has been limited due to botox injections were found to be happier and less anxious, even if they did not feel more attractive.

Your body influences your mind. So what? Here’s a summary of leadership to-dos that will help your body influence your brain in positive ways:

Sit up straight. Use your non-dominant or weaker side. Exercise vigorously. Use your body to remember. Smile. Angry? Lay down. Pretty soon your brain and body will be in sync, ready to tackle any challenge – intellectual or emotional – that comes your way.

 


Your thoughts may be making you miserable

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Professional athletes do it. So do the Navy Seals and other elite military units. They know that one key to excellence is unlocking the power of the mind.

Your thoughts – the words and images that seem to spring spontaneously to life – impact your life in greater ways than you might imagine. And these thoughts can be controlled to a great extent, reducing stress and enabling fluent leadership performance.

Some of the ways our minds trip us up include:

Expectations. Having unrealistic expectations can exaggerate frustrations and disappointments. You expect your vacation to be 100% relaxing, involving sun, surf and sand. It rains, the kids bicker and you come back to work more stressed than ever. If you’d started the vacation assuming that it would be a mixed bag of fun together with the typical family dynamics, you would have enjoyed the good times more and been prepared to roll with the punches.

Thinking amplifies feelings. How you think affects how you feel. You may not be aware of the scripts running in your brain. Many of us operate, for example, with the presumption that life is fair and bad things happen to bad people. Logically, we know this isn’t true. Yet,we stumble and feel victimized when life deals us a bad hand. You cannot avoid feeling frustrated, but you can keep those feelings calibrated to reality by examining your patterns of thinking regularly. Replace your “poor me” thoughts with “I can handle this.”

Thoughts bleed from one situation to another. You leave a meeting absolutely fuming about the way your boss dismissed your ideas. At the next meeting with your team, someone comments that the last project could have run more smoothly. You explode with rage, giving her a piece of your mind. You’d like to believe that the first meeting had nothing to do with your reaction in the second. Unfortunately, few people have the capacity to wall off their feelings, and they often seep from one interaction to another. Remedy this by taking a break after an emotional encounter. Come up with a plan to deal with the event. If you can’t do anything about it, choose to think about it differently. “I know that my boss doesn’t appreciate my contributions, but that makes them no less valuable.” If no action seems possible and you can’t alter your thinking, put those thoughts on hold. Compartmentalize them for a time, so that you can move on productively. (Don’t forget to deal with them later!)

Disciplining your thoughts requires some work. You must be willing to spend some time understanding the ways your mind typically operates. The next step is to replace old habits of thinking with new ones. Whenever you find yourself thinking negatively, replace it with a more positive thought. If you imagine yourself failing, replace it with a picture of success. Experts recommend visualizing yourself not only at the finish line, but triumphing in the midst of the hard work too.

Recognize that the messages in your head are not only real, they are powerful. In the final book of J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series, Albus Dumbledore talks with Harry after the two were reunited in the next life, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Want to explore more productive ways of thinking? Contact Humanergy.

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