Your Brain in Business: Not Just An Interesting Theory But Applicable Reality

Sometimes in life we are fortunate to meet someone who is both brilliant and compelling.  Someone who makes you think about things in an entirely new way. These qualities and more characterize my impressions of my friend, Harvard psychiatrist Srini Pillay, MD, best selling author and executive coach.  Below, in this edition of Dian’s Advice, I choose to share an article reflecting Dr. Pillay’s advice.

Your Brain in Business: Not Just An Interesting Theory But Applicable Reality
By Srini Pillay, MD

Dr. Pillay is CEO of NeuroBusiness Group, an executive coaching program that trains coaches to help businesses develop leaders and accelerate strategy. The techniques combine organizational psychology with brain biology. Dr. Pillay is also the author of "Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders"(FT Press, 2011) and the award winning "Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear"(Rodale, 2010) in which he talks about how stress and fear impact change. He has worked with major consulting companies, The World Bank, Novartis, Genzyme and The MITRE Corporation.

When I got deeply into my studies on how brain science can be applied to executive development, the connection soon became obvious.  People run businesses, and brains essentially run people.  Therefore it stands to reason that if we understand the brain, we will better understand people, and by inference, better understand business.  So I was quite surprised when several people said that this sounded theoretical and difficult to apply. Difficult to apply?  Perhaps- but only before the information was rewritten clearly for business people.  Theoretical? Certainly not.  Why is brain science just a theory and organizational psychology a reality?  I happen to think that they both play well together, and the greater the depth of reasoning I apply to this logical combination, the more remarkable I find our ability to examine and understand the brain in business.

Here is why:
Can you see the unconscious in human behavior?
How often have we seen businesses that cannot grow despite the most amazing expertise behind them?  Or businesses that somehow stop growing after making huge initial profits?  How often have you seen businesses that simply cannot implement the opinions of top consulting companies?  These difficulties are failures that are not easily dismissed as conscious laziness, lack of understanding or procrastination.  Instead, they may in fact be due to unconscious factors.  Many unconscious factors can influence business growth and development.  Brain science shows us proof of the effects of unconscious fear and stress.  It helps us understand why optimism should not be dependent on “reality” but should shape the reality of one’s desired success.  It also helps us understand how we can access these unconscious forces if we want to make the changes that we desire.

Do we understand why some great business plans work while others don’t?
The success of a good business plan – one’s ability to act on what one has written down – depends on whether or not one has fueled the action brain.  The action brain is a network of brain regions that cause you to act, at the center of which is the brain’s motor cortex.   While the action brain can listen to messages, this is often tiresome. It loves images.  The reason we remember movies and songs better than essays or textbooks is that images activate the action brain.  Images are remembered more easily, but only if one is engaged with them. Neuroscience teaches us the fundamentals of engagement, and, combined with research in psychology, helps us discern useful from useless practices.  For example, did you know that certain types of imagery increase your confidence while others do not?  This has been shown repeatedly among athletes.

Do we understand why sometimes it makes sense to start on a business course of action before we know exactly the reason?
The brain’s GPS (the posterior parietal cortex) often collects enough information to move us in the right direction even before it knows exactly where we want to go.  Sometimes it makes sense to start moving before we know where we will end up.  We may learn something along the way.  The brain is able to reformulate plans as it updates its information.  So rather than wait for all the information you need to reach your goals, start with what you have and your brain will take care of the rest.

These then, are just three of the many reasons that brain science can add to our understanding of business.  Indeed, in the wrong hands, brain science can sound too theoretical and not sufficiently practical, but in the right hands, brain science can relieve you of many stresses and create greater satisfaction and success for you and your team.  These insights into how the brain works in regard to business can help you overcome unconscious obstructions that stand in the way of progress in all areas of the business or venture.  Likewise it can help you learn how to construct mental images of what you want and lead to your greater productivity and happiness. Lastly, it can help you understand why you should not delay your path of action and subsequent desired goals.

I hope I have shown you that brain science is not just a theory, and how it can have real impact if you allow it to.  In future blogs, I will go into some of these issues in greater detail.