Leaders Change™ Principle 2, By Dianne Garrett

A leader’s job is change - to lead change in your organization and in yourself.

Our conscious brain generates about 10% of our decisions. Surprised at the low number? Furthermore, if that is true, where do the remaining 90% of our decisions come from?* The answer is the unconscious. And one part of our unconscious is our habits – repeated actions or thoughts that become standardized into our behavior. The old adage “We are our habits” now has neuroscience research backing.

As leaders, we need to learn about habits. In order to model the way and influence others to their greatness, we need to be aware of our own habits as well as have the ability to assist others in their awareness and changeability. So, the question for this writing is ‘What can leaders do to facilitate the brain to create habits that help us be better?'

Principle 2: Habits are a Brain Efficiency System
Have you ever driven to work and not remembered driving to work? Scary, isn’t it? Well, that experience is led by the part of your brain, the basal ganglia, which governs routine behaviors. Storing our routine behaviors is our brain’s way of conserving energy. How wonderful is that…our brain helps itself by being energy efficient. How can we use this efficiency system function in our brain to help us live a great life of intended habits?

First a little background information. In his book Quiet Leadership, Dr. David Rock explains that our habits are like the Grand Canyon. Just like the years and years of Colorado River water flow cutting a pathway through the rock of the Grand Canyon, repeated thoughts form pathways in the brain. Now think about how difficult it would be to change the water flow out of its repetitive pattern; it’s the same with our habits - changing them is very difficult. Dr. Rock tells us that it’s much easier to start a new habit instead of trying to change an old one.

In order to change, here are a few thoughts on an executable process from Dr. Kevin Ochscner, one of the founding fathers of the social neuroscience field.

1. Leaders need to work BOTH the habit systems as well as our thinking
systems. In business, leaders tend to work the thinking system only.
2. Most often our leadership feedback is directed to our thought systems. In other words, goal setting. Again, we need to engage the 90% of the unconscious as well.
3. Performance feedback is most often negative and not positive. Positive is more reinforcing.

So, our question again, “What can leaders do to facilitate change?”

1. Get commitment. All change fails without full commitment. We only
make it through the tough spots through determination.
2. Identify the situations when this change-goal-item exists. Is it during a time of day, an event of the day, a particular person, etc.? Once you have identified the trigger, develop an “IF THEN” implementation strategy statement.

For example, let’s say I want to stop being late to meetings. I watch my behavior and notice that it’s most often the 2pm afternoon meetings when my energy is low. I also notice that it’s most often when I skip lunch.

At this point, I craft a behavior IF-THEN statement: “If I skip lunch, I’ll eat a fruit and cracker snack in my office.” Now I have an actionable behavior and can then commit to the behavior. I write it down and place it in view as a friendly reminder. And then I prepare by bringing my snacks to work.

Successful leaders pay attention to habits. In summary, I leave you with a great poem (anonymous author) I read recently:

Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Watch your words, for they become your actions.
Watch your actions, for they become your habits.

* The actual numbers of conscious to unconscious thinking varies from 3% & 97% to
25% & 75%. Neuroscientists continue their study.

Author:
Dianne Garrett
Co-founder, QLEAD Intl
http://www.qleadintl.com/

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To see Dianne's Leaders Change™ Principle 1, check it out at http://leadershiplaunchingpad.blogspot.com/2010/11/leaders-change-by-dianne-garrett.html

Leaders Change™ Principle 1, By Dianne Garrett

A leader’s job is change - to lead change in your organization and in yourself.

How do you lead change when change initiatives fail so often? John Kotter, Professor at Harvard Business School (known worldwide for his leadership expertise), tells us 70% of all organizational change initiatives fail. Ouch. Additionally, other research reports that 90% of individuals (in this study), who are in a life & death health situation fail to change, even when their life depends on it. Why is change achievement so hard?

How can you help others change successfully, as a leader of your home life, in your workplace, and the community. To answer these questions, we need to better understand our main decision-making tool - the brain. The more we understand our brain, the more we can work within our excellence and our limits to influence others. This article series, Leaders Change™, will detail brain principles and offer associated leadership strategies.

Principle 1: Threat is more powerful than reward.

Our brains are instinctually built to protect us; its primary job function
is to constantly and unconsciously scan the environment for threat. In
doing so, we make judgments regarding safety. Is that food edible?
Is that person going to hurt me?

Eons ago, identifying or not identifying a danger could be
life-threatening. Today we still have these threat systems in our brain
and we need them to help us live - to react fast to press the brake in the car
to prevent a crash, for instance. These perceived threatening situations
drive our behavior (our choices based on our perceptions). Sometimes
we fight. Sometimes we flee. Sometimes we freeze. Sometimes we
avoid or deny. As leaders, we need to understand our own threat
situations and how we express that energy as well as recognize threat in
others.

Leaders need to notice the emotional climates in their body at the time they experience them. I have an exercise called Emotional Inventory where I ask leaders to record their emotions twice an hour - as awareness is the first step to strategic expression. Once you are comfortable in knowing the feeling of emotional threat, take notice of the triggers (both internal and external) and when they occur. In order to effectively communicate, you need to be fully aware of your triggers and your emotional states in order to choose how to execute or not execute that feeling. It’s a leader’s responsibility to have cognitive control of one’s threat or uncontrolled energy will show up in your decisions. Remember, those that follow you are always watching and learning from your choices.

In your work with others, you need to be able to recognize when others are in threat states. As their leader you need to make smart language decisions, both verbally and nonverbally, to not add threat and provoke an increase in cortisol - the threat (increased arousal) brain chemical. Brain research shows that stress damages our ability to make smart decisions and interact with one another. A leader’s job is to create an environment that forwards people not one that causes negative stress.

Furthermore, research shows us that social threat is even more upsetting than a physical threat. Dr. David Rock, Founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and creator of the SCARF brain model, helps us understand the social power in this question he poses audiences, “Which causes you more stress, getting a bruise on your upper arm from bumping into a wall or from a person using their fist and bruising your upper arm? The answer is a person; it’s much harder for us to get the social infraction off the mind.” Our socialness is part of our humanness.

In summary, leaders, I charge you with increased emotional awareness and increased responsibility of your language as to not create threat in yourself and in others. Remember your constituency is following your lead.

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The next Leaders Change article will detail Principle 2: The Power of Habit another brain principle that impacts our decision-making ability and our leadership.

Author:
Dianne R. Garrett
Co-founder, QLEAD Intl
http://www.qleadintl.com/