Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Learning”

22 Sep 2009

Are We Getting Better at Thinking?…and Innovating?

For all the talk of the evils of the web in terms of driving us to attention deficit/ dispersal, a few areas I’ve been reading have glued together in my head which may make a case for the opposition:

First, in a fantastic book on writing powerfully for business: We, Me, Them & It,  John Simmons makes a point, ‘For as long as I can remember I’ve used writing to sort out my thinking’

I’ve been toying round with a way of prioritising my time – personally and at work – around 5Cs: Create, Connect and Collaborate, Communicate and Consume. So in that order, I try and allocate any time I have to ensure I’m not just consuming or communicating. Since I restarted writing and refocusing on creativity nearly sixteen months ago, I’ve probably never been happier. I’ve argued to others that it makes my brain feel fresher and more flexible. The act of creation is satisfying, and I feel that I think better as a result of forcing myself to articulate things better – even when I play with words or ‘dump’ thoughts without much structure. I find this unblocks my thinking. Read more…

Posted in Communication, Creativity, Learning, Neuroscience, Psychology, Social Networks, Writing and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
25 Jul 2009
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Using Neuroscience to Train Frankinstein Leaders?

Work has been undertaken which suggests that the behavioural and emotional qualities of leadership can be traced to neurological activity in identified regions of the brain.

In a really practical step, Pierre Balthazard at Arizona State Uni. is then working on linking this activity with the qualities that best benefit those at the top of a company to create training techniques that develop effective leadership abilities.

The FT reports on this in their article ‘A Brainwave in the Study of Leadership‘, noting that more recently leadership research has focused on more complex issues, ‘how to develop traits such as authenticity, charisma and visionary and inspirational leadership in less talented leaders’

Everything centres around evidence and belief that training (and subsequent scanning and rescanning) can show evidence of changes in signature brain patterns for certain behaviours: ‘neuro-feedback training can develop the behaviour individuals want to optimise’

Balthazard has gathered evidence he believes to be 100% accurate in determining who is  a strong leader (a bold claim….). He has also discovered that leaders with ‘high psychological capital’ – such as hope, optimism and resilience – display different brain activity.

Applications are obvious, and the US Military Academy at West Point and global management schools are looking at patterns that can be copied. It’s not surprising however that funding has been hard to find, and that there are obvious detractors (quoting 1984/ Orwellian Big Brother nightmare scenarios….)

For me, I feel intuitively that making such fundamental changes can’t be as simple as learning how to make lights flash differently on one screen to match a prescribed ‘best’ pattern on the other.

Apologies to Balthazard and his team for making such sweeping conclusions with such little evidence.  I’m sure it’s probably because I don’t want to admit that we’re absolutely as simple to change as all this. For me however, understanding; appreciation of how things overall ‘fit together’ and underlying values seem like bigger pieces of the equation of leadership excellence that cannot be trained so easily.

Posted in Business, Conscious and Unconscious, Control, Leadership, Learning, Neuroscience and tagged , ,
29 Nov 2008
1 Comment

The Relationship between Conscious and Unconscious and the Next Stage of My Journey

Finally, I’m finishing Guy Claxton’s Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. I feel like i’ve been on an epic journey.

I’m changed materially by what I have read. This blog probably evidences this in as good a way as any. As such, completing the book marks a shift in my needs and wants for this blog (and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever particularly pandered to anything other than this in JST)

‘….an image of the mind as ‘the theatre of consciousness’, a brightly illuminated stage on which the action of mental life takes place; or perhaps as a well-lit office in which sits an intelligent manager, coolly weighing evidence, making decisions, solving problems and issuing orders. In this executive den, human intelligence, consciousness and identity come together: they are, in effect, one and the same thing. ‘I’ am the manager. ‘I’ work in the light. I have access to all the files that comprise my ‘intelligence’.

What I cannot see, or see into, either does not exist, or is mere ‘matter’, the dumb substance of the body that can do nothing of any interest on its own. It may manage certain menial operations like digestion, respiration and circulation without supervision; but to do anything clever it has to wait for instructions from head office.

This image continues to animate and channel our sense of our own psychology, of our potentials and resources…..

……and it is wrong in every respect’

– Guy Claxton, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind (emphasis added)

Posted in Change, Conscious and Unconscious, Knowledge Management, Learning and tagged , , ,

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