Organisational Change - Shifting Social Conscience

While working with Elaine Johnston last week, CEO of the Parenting Project, The South Warwickshire based charity which delivers services for children aged 0-19 years, including 8 Children's Centres across the county, Elaine made an excellent observation we just had to share.

She said, "No-one questions the principle that the heart pumps blood around our system - but they often challenge the idea that the brain sits at root of all behaviour, action and organisational performance! It's so obviously a fact! Why do people try to deny it?"

It's an excellent observation and one we can of course explain in intricate detail. We receive two primary reactions when we introduce some basic principles from Neuroscience and Psychology to those leading Change in all sorts of organisations and situations, they are ...

The first is fascination, because everyone is inherently interested in understanding more about people. Responses typically come from an observational 'blame and projection' (defence mechanisms) position, going something along the lines of .... "Yeah! I recognise that, I've seen people act like that ...'They do do that don't they' ... their brains are obviously going through that process! This stuff is excellent." (They fail to see the principles in themselves at this point).

The second response also comes from a 'defence mechanism' origin, but cuts in when those responsible for obtaining results by leading change, start to 'sense' the impact this 'New world order' might have on their own approach. At that point we see people start to go through the four steps of change from the simplified Kubler-Ross model; 
1. Denial, 2. Resistance 3. Investigation 4. Commitment.

At this stage of sub-conscious defence, we hear people start to justify reasons why the language of neuroscience is too complex, why it's not necessary, why the market needs to have 'simple' delivered on a platter and how people in business are not sufficiently intelligent or interested in addressing 'performance' with this depth and rigour. 


They say things like ... "understanding the brain has nothing to do with sustaining bottom line improvements" ... when the reality is, where the actions and reactions in people are a neural process, the bottom line has everything to do with the brains of those acting to achieve it. Where leadership 'best-practice' advocates actions which are contrary to getting the best from brains, it's not really 'best-practice', it's just 'common practice' ... in the market of leading change globally, it becomes (ironically) just the way we do things around here! (A term that won't be lost on the audience of our articles).

People, the funny ol' things that we are, will basically come up with 'Anything' (no matter how ludicrous in extreme cases) to avoid and reject the obvious if the obvious challenges their current world view... a human brain will expend huge amounts of energy making other people, the market or the principles 'wrong' so they can remain 'right' (largely because making others wrong still consumes less energy than growing new neural nets to reflect a new world view) - this is a classic example of our basic fight, flight, freeze fawn responses, utilising 'blame' to ensure we human beings (adult mammalian brains) remain congruent with our own world view... or in TA (Transactional Analysis) terms - making sure, "I'm OK, You're Not OK."

Where we then point out that people are themselves now experiencing 1st hand, exactly the psychological and neurological electro-chemical events we are discussing ... and how we can now understand this in respect to a human brain navigating and responding to anything new .. (new CRM system, new theory, new boss etc.) ...especially when 'New' = a need to make change to ones own 'justified' view of the world, we typically see the following occur;

Those with a high degree of self-awareness manage to check their response at that stage. Those less 'aware' of themselves, dig in for the fight. Thinking of the first group, once people realise for themselves that they are also subject to these neurological principles of change, applicable to any and all adult mammalian brains adapting to a new paradigm, they immediately find themselves more open to change and less likely to justify their own beliefs while projecting blame. This is a significant and foundational step in breaking 'mental patterns' which otherwise keep people locked in step with social norms and previously developed belief systems, methods and approaches. (Incl. organisational / culturally accepted control mechanisms / systems / policies etc.).

The principle in itself is understandable, if not a little ironic (i.e. we watch human brains react and reject the idea of learning about human brains 'as root cause of reactions', because of the automatic responses in the human brain we can now help people understand!). No wonder the human race finds it hard to make step changes to human behaviour... people are pre-programmed to fail to look at themselves first!

All said and done, when you understand the brain, this immediate resistance to change is understandable. Where we understand such issues, we can overtly address them in ways that work with the brain instead of against it... and THAT is a very encouraging thought!

We mustn't lose hope. Humans will adapt to this new knowledge. After all, picking up on Elaine's observation, there was a time when the human race didn't know or understand the function of the heart. Blood was seen as one of the 4 humours, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism) and the scientists of the day were happy to claim 'knowledge' in respect to the way in which these 4 humours led to the 4 temperaments. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_temperaments). 

We look back on such 'mundane science' today with contempt.

Similarly Ignaz Semmelweiss (the Doctor who identified Germ Theory and a lime wash solution for cleaning hands 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis ) found that his discovery was rejected by the 'Leading minds' within the medical fraternity across Europe, seeing a 100 years pass-by, before 'society' adapted to the new belief; that germs could be physically transported between patients. 

We look back at those who rejected Semmelweiss and marvel at the social influence that kept minds fixed on past beliefs, while systematically failing to recognise the benefit of a new principle. 

So, when we are asked, how can it be, that people dismiss the idea that the brain and the understanding of it in detail, is required to truly understand leadership and change ... we can reply, "it's human nature" ... but we can also say, people 'pulling together' and 'digging-in' to prove anything 'new' is wrong, doesn't last forever! Even when the prevailing belief throughout a social set (European wide medical fraternity or the world of organisational change agents) confirms the current view as 'right', 'good' and 'all' ... change within mindsets will prevail today as it always has. 

We will overcome the denial that currently exists in the mainstream and one day, perhaps not too far in the future, we will see 'Change', 'Leadership' and 'Education' approached with a thorough understanding of and appreciation for the development of human brains and minds. One day, this view will be as natural to the human race as it now is to think of the heart as the pump which circulates the blood in our bodies.