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MPPAWWhat’s Next for

Leadership/Talent Development?

Bob EichingerFebruary 16, 2016

rweichinger@outlook.com

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This marks my 50th year working in the field of talent management

University of Minnesota - 3LWFW (Consultancy) in Texas - 10

PepsiCo in New York - 8Pillsbury in Minneapolis - 2

Lominger - 15KornFerry - 3

CCL Adjunct - 5

Semi-retired, still doing talent management since 2009

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Leaders are mostly bornSears/AT&T/CCL/Bass

CompetenciesDerailment

Action learning/Simulations70/20/10/25

9 Box Potential MatrixPDI/DDI/CCL/SHL/Lominger/EgonZender/HayMcber/MercerDelta

EQGlobal Leadership

Learning AgilityEngagement

CoachingVirtual Teams

Leaders are mostly made

HistoryOf Talent and Leadership

Development

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Current State?We know the requirementsWe know the competencies

We know the derailersWe know assessment/evaluation

We know feedback/360We know potential

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We know coachingWe have inside/outside certified coaches

We have the Successful Manager’s HandbookWe have FYI: For Your Improvement

We have Chief Learning OfficersWe know Assignmentology

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So we have identified high potential achievement oriented motivated adults with

verified consensus developmental management and leadership needs and nearly infinite advice and counsel and resources on

how to work on those needs and we have growing roles for global leadership and

aspiring leaders to fill

So what have they done with the advice?

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Close to nothing!!!

Many are called, but few are chosen

We are still very short of outstanding leaders

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So, what’s the next BIG thing we need to move the efficacy rate of manager and leader

development? How can we get them to use more of the advice

and counsel provided?

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What’s standing in the way of full throttle optimized 100% successful manager and leader development? Developing and deploying flawless managers and leaders!!

1. The high potential candidates do not know their needs and do not accept critical feedback

2. The candidates do not follow through on the coaching and developmental advice and counsel

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Einstein - The height of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different.

Dr. Phil - If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting.

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If you don’t change anything, nothing

will change

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Next BIG things are: 1. help people have more accurate

insights into their own and other’s behavior and

2. to be able to change and grow in line with their developmental

needs and lofty leadership goals.

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Neuroscience and Effective Leadership

NeuroLeadership

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Until very recently, we have been mostly studying manager and leader success and failure from the

outside, observing their behavior and trying to deduce what was going on inside.

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During the last decade, we have begun to see the study of what is really going on inside the

brain, in order to figure why executives (and all people) do what they do.

Especially what’s happening when they are not doing what we want or think they should be

doing or even what “they” want.

We are also learning how we can help them change and become more effective.

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It’s useful to know how the machine(the brain) inside works that runs everything we see on the outside

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What do we know so far that might be helpful for talent and leadership development?

1. Brain Design2. Neuroplasticity

3. Automaticity4. Working Memory

5. Motivated Reasoning & Memory6. Mindfulness

5%

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The Existential Brain Design Questions

What’s the purpose of the brain?

What’s its function?What is it designed to do?

Why?

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The brain’s purpose is to keep you alive in order to replicate your genes. Every moment, your brain decides if anything in the world around you is dangerous or helpful or neutral. Sensing any danger can bring about drastic changes in how you think and what you do. Automatic responses to dangers or rewards are thought of generally as emotions. Your ability to regulate emotions instead of being at the mercy of them is central to being effective.

David Rock, Your Brain at Work, Harper, 2009

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The brain is a neural computer, designed and fitted by natural selection with skills like computational algorithms and reasoning and problem solving skills related to managing our environment of plants, animals, objects, people and artifacts. It is driven by goal states that best served biological replication by the fittest of our ancestors in seeking food, sex, safety, parenthood, friendship, status and knowledge. That same toolbox is capable of doing other things in its down time like ART and MUSIC and being altruistic and other activities that are of dubious adaptive value

David Rock, How the Mind Works, Norton

21Design: The Limbic System

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Design Specifications?

Detection of and reaction to threat

&Efficiency in carrying out that role

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EVOLUTIONARYBIOLOGY

ANDREVERSE

ENGINEERING

Why would X behavior exist?

Why would it have

developed? To accomplish

what?

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Physiological Air, Food, Water, Sex, Sleep, Shelter, Excretion, Homeostasis

Safety and SurvivalResources, Defenses, Health

Love and BelongingRelationships, Family, Intimacy

Self-EsteemStatus, Respect

Self Actualization

Maslow’s Hierarchy of

Needs

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Design: The PFC – Pre-Frontal Cortex

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PFC - Frontal lobes are located in front!!!, are the largest of the lobes (50% of the volume of the cerebral hemispheres), the most prone to injury and are responsible for minor things like:

Consciousness?Planning

Problem SolvingExecutive/Impulse Control

OrganizingMemory

Decision MakingAttention

FocusThinking

PersonalityEmotions

Left lobe – speech and languageMemories of social encounters

Right lobe – concepts, abstractions, vision, creativity

Nothing Very Important!

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An Interesting SeesawThinking Skills

Limbic SystemEmotions

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An Interesting Seesaw Thinking Skills

Limbic System

Zone

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Beneath the Surface… the limbic system … is the powerhouse of the brain – the

generator of the appetites, urges, emotions and needs that drive

most of our behaviour. Our conscience thoughts are mere interpreters and moderators of the biologically necessary forces

from this unconscious underworld … where our conscious processes pull in an opposite direction to emotions, the latter is designed by the neural circuitry in our brains to

exert the stronger force.Rita Carter, Mapping the Mind, University of California Press, 2010

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• Tracks potential threats in thoughts, objects, people and events – real or imagined – from Inside or Outside

• Works on it’s own, free of awareness on your part, .5 seconds ahead of awareness, very hypervigilant, more wrong than right

Going Limbic?

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• When the limbic system is activated, it can make connection mistakes, makes links that are not there

• The limbic system is a low resolution system, doesn’t “see” details

• It asks the hippocampus to go into the data warehouse and retrieve things that look and sound the same – it accepts too many marginal connections

• As your allostatic (stress) load increases, cortisol and norepinephrine increase and lowers your threshold for additional threats = again see more danger where there is none

Going Limbic 2

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• The brain is a predictive calculating computer and prefers certainty to uncertainty and ambiguity

• Uncertainty and ambiguity puts the limbic system on alert

• Anything new, innovative or different puts the limbic system on alert and takes more energy

Going Limbic 3

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StatusCertainty

AutonomyRelatedness

Fairness

TowardsRewards

AwayThreats

The SCARF® Trigger ModelWhat triggers the limbic reaction?

David Rock, Your Brain at Work, Harper, 2009

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Power Stressors (allostatic load)1. Being seen and evaluated by others in a work setting2. Being seen and evaluated by others in a social setting3. Rejection4. Unfairness5. Dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty6. Having to deliver measurable results under time and resource

pressure

Result = Chronic Power Stress Reaction

Boyatzis, Smith and Blaise (2006)David Rock (2009)

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Growth MindsetOptimism/PessimismThreat Desensitization

Reframing

Use it or lose

it

Use it and

change it!

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40-80% of what anyone does is automatic and not influenced by new thinking or problem

solving

Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2011On Second Thought, Wray Herbert, 2010

Automaticity

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Your brain has an built-in autopilot!

And it can program and run itself!

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HabituationEmbedded Routines

HeuristicsAutomaticity

Cruse Control/Auto Pilot

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Heuristics – the Brain on Auto Pilot/Cruise Control/ Embedded Routines

• The brain faces thousands of issues and decisions everyday• If the brain had to stop and apply from scratch white board reasoning

and logic and experience and learned skills to each of those, life would stop

• What the brain does is create shortcuts (heuristics) that execute a set of sequenced stored automatic behaviors to do the task• Creates automatic responses to common situations• Takes 4-7 repetitions to form a beginning heuristic• Examples are driving, swimming and riding a bicycle• Everyone has 100’s of heuristics that can block effectiveness

• To change, you have to form stronger brain circuits to override existing ones and/or create better ones

On Second Thought, Wray Herbert, Crown, 2010

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Autopilot – the Basal Ganglia – Embedded Routines

The brain is lazy!It has a need to be efficient!

Left to it’s own, the brain would like to make everything we do automatic so it doesn’t have

to think (PFC) to act. It thinks the PFC is too slow!

P300 and P500About 40 - 80% of what people do each day are

embedded habits

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Working Memory

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Working Memory - Design Flaw?

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Your working awareness (memory)

• Your capacity for holding something in your mind to work on is surprisingly limited

• The maximum “chunks” or elements of data you can focus your awareness on at any one moment of time is about 7, some argue it’s smaller – most likely 4 – so maybe 4-7

• The number of chunks limit coming from memory is higher than the number of new made up chunks – it’s harder for the brain to work on things that are new and different – takes more energy

• The more chunks you try to focus on, the less accurate the memories will be - Multitasking decreases performance - Think distracted driving

• WMC – Working Memory Capacity is variable in people• WMC is been significantly related to talent and potential

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A SupercomputerInside

An Infinite WorldOutside

WorkingMemory

4-7 channelsChoke Point

Noise

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What clogs up working memory?Going Limbic

Embedded RoutinesAllostatic Load (Worries)

and

King TUT

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• King TUT (Task Unrelated Thoughts)

• The more things on your mind, especially non-essential things and the more you are trying to do at once, the lower your performance will be

• Allostatic load (stress) decreases the effectiveness of thinking – takes up working memeory

• Under allostatic load, the brain switches to the basal ganglia which is the auto pilot, the cruise control, the holder of the repetitive embedded routines – less thinking allowed

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So what gets in the way of being intellectually more effective (clean unbiased use of your PFC) and being a better executive manager leader?

Brain Design - Limbic System ActivationNonaligned Embedded Routines

King TUT and Allostatic LoadMotivated Memories

Limits of Working MemoryMultitasking

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Motivated ReasoningMotivated Memory

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Myself ME

How I see How You see

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How I see ME

How YOU see ME

Well documented GAP

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How I see ME = an idealized overly positive incomplete and inaccurate self

view – partial view

How YOU see Me = ME + limbic reactions, flawed memories, embedded

routines, self delusions – whole brain and whole person

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Awareness

Autopilot

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So, what can we

do?

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Brain coaching/management goals

Clear working memoryResist uncalled for limbic reactions

Resist unaligned embedded routinesCorrect faulty memory and motivated reasoning

Gain more control over your reward centerDevelop the patient pause

Help leaders and managers be in the zone

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Tool?: Executive Mindfulness

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Many definitions

… a moment to moment awareness of the totality of one’s experience without judgment leading to more effective choices – a focus on attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control and thereby fostering better general mental well being and the development of better specific capacities for coping and adjusting like calmness under pressure, clarity of thought and focused concentration on what’s really important

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1. Delay of gratification2. Delay of action or reaction

3. Delay of acting long enough to consider whether the action is the

best available at this moment4. Being totally aware and totally in

control of your perceptions, problem solving, actions and reactions

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What are the benefits of

Mindfulness?Daphne Davis and Jeffrey Hayes

in Monitor on PsychologyJuly/August 2012; Volume 43, Number 7

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Among the many benefits of mindfulness

• Self control•Objectivity•Affect tolerance•Enhanced flexibility•Equanimity• Improved concentration

•Mental Clarity• Emotional Intelligence• Relationship improvement• Kindness•Acceptance• Compassion

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Research based findings:

Reduced rumination leading to a larger working memory with less negative affect and less perseverative cognitive functions resulting in more focused attention and longer concentration powers (The Worry Program)

Stress reduction leading to less negative affect, decreased anxiety and greater emotional regulation and selectivity (Allostatic Load)

Increased focus leading to better attention and the ability to suppress distracting information (TUTs)

Less general emotional reactivity (Limbic (emotional) Regulation)

More cognitive flexibility and openness leading to the suppression of less useful past learning (embedded routines)

Increased relationship satisfaction by handling conflict better and being able to share emotional information

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Therapeutic Efficacy Studies

Best intervention reported to be CBT (Executive Coaching?) and Mindfulness

Why: Patient develops mental discipline and can better carry out (act on) advice

and counsel – override the brain

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Now for thevery Weird

Part

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The goals of the genes, the goals of the “lower”

brain and the goals of the mind are not always

tightly aligned

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For most people, your

non – PFC brain is not your

friend

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You are notyour brain!At least not most of it

You are NOT Your Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Avery, 2011

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Self Talk (inner voice[s])

NarratorEvaluator

Witness

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BrainTalk Management Tools Labeling/Naming

Catch and Release (Don’t Engage)

The Big R Worry Management ToolsReject/Suppress

Refocusing/Shifting AttentionReappraisal (Normalizing/Verification)

ReinterpretingReordering

RepositioningReframing

Recontextualizing

Coaching with the Brain in Mind, David Rock, Wily, 2009

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• Consider your brain to be a necessary but scheming and tricky partner in your career and life• Your brain is part of you but it isn’t you • Choose to manage your brain more than it

manages you – resist automaticity• Learn and practice mindfulness• Be the CBO of your brain• Learn to better use your supercomputer

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So the next things we need to do is 1. help people have more accurate insights into their own and other’s

behavior and 2. to be able to change and grow in line with their

developmental needs and lofty leadership goals.

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Coaching and developing with the

brain in mindExecutive Mindfulness

Coaching with the Brain in Mind, David Rock, Wily, 2009

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Primary Starter Reading List

• Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman, Farrar, Stauss & Giroux, 2011

• Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter, University of California Press, 2010

• Your Brain at Work, David Rock, Harper, 2009• The Brain: The Story of You, David Eagleman,

Pantheon, 2015• The Unterthered Soul: a journey beyond yourself,

Michael A. Singer, Noetic Books, 2007

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•There are over 100 TED and Google lectures on the brain and how the mind works•Watch the PBS series – The Brain

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Secondary Reading List• Your Brain and Business, Srinivasan S. Pillay, FT Press, 2011• On Second Thought, Wray Herbert, Crown, 2010• How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker, Norton, 2009• Coaching with the Brain in Mind, David Rock and Linda Page,

Wiley, 2009• The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg, Random House, 2012• You are not Your Brain, Schwartz, Avery, 2011• Brain Revolution: Train Your Brain to Freedom, Gordon, 2012• Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Brain,

Mlodinow, Pantheon, 2012

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Mysteries of the Mind, Richard Restak, National Geographic, 2000Brain: The Complete Mind – How is Develops, How it Works and How to Keep it Sharp, Michael S. Sweeney, National Geographic, 2009

Graphic Reading List

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• NeuroLeadership Institute www.neuroleadership.org• NeuroLeadership Journal,

Issues one-four, 2008-2012

The Worry Management Program

Using BrainTalk to Decrease the Degrading Impact of chronic Worrying

Create a Worry Box to hold all of your worries in check© Copyright, 2016, Robert W. Eichinger, all rights reserved

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Working Memory is limited to 5-7 channels or streams or pieces or boxes or stage positions of material at a time to work on

“Noise” or TUT’s (task unrelated thoughts) take up one or more of the 5-7 limited channels and decreases the quality of information handling and processing and therefore slows you down and leads to lower quality problem solving and decision making

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Worries or worrying can be good - they can alert us to possibly important stuff we need to pay attention to and solve

Chronic worries are not good as it leads to an increase in allostatic load (stress) and takes up a channel or more of working memory

Worries become chronic when the same worries surface repeatedly and even though you are likely to know what you need to do to address them, you don’t

Chronic worries lead to fussing, fretting, anxiety, catastrophizing, allostatic load and feeling apprehensive and bad

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Common Chronic Worry Categories

1.  Finances2.  Health (own and others)3.  Aging4.  Work and life stress5.  Weight management6. Relationships (family, partners and friends)7. Family management8. The future9. Ego (self) maintenance and protection

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Time spent worrying60,000 - 80,000 popups a day (thoughts including worries popping up in your awareness)

14.31 hours per week worrying

744 hours worrying a year

45, 243 hours of worry in a lifetime

1,885 days of worry in a lifetime

5.2 years of worry

Around 45% of those studied admitted stress and worry had already negatively affected their health.

Most people worry at home (65%), and over half of those who worried at home did so in the bedroom!

When asked when their principal worry times were, 55% said between 9pm at night and 3am in the morning – the bewitching hours when your worries have the best opportunity to haunt you while sleep eludes you!

10-15% of chronic worriers develop Generalized Anxiety Disorder

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Chronic prolonged worry adds to your allostatic load, which: • turns up your limbic system,• turns down your digestive system,• turns up your emergency fight or flight system, • turns down your prefrontal cortex (thinking) • and increases cortisol which taxes your immune

response making you more susceptible to infections• and illnesses,• in addition to robbing you of a good nights sleep and

peace of mind

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Top symptoms of chronic worry

1. Sleepless nights/insomnia2. Lost confidence/self esteem3. Arguments with others4. Change in appetite5. Poorer performance at work6. Distance from others7. Avoiding social events8. Increased alcohol/drug consumption9. Digestive issues/health issues (decreased immunity)10. Make lower quality decisions11. Less use of brain resources (slows you down)12. Easily distracted13. Depression

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Lots of worries to choose from:Worried about the area I live in/ crime levelsPet's healthIf my dress sense is positive and workingMeeting work targets or goalsWhether I'm a good parentManaging career correctlyA broken relationship (boss, partner, child, coworker) Whether I'll find the right partnerWhether my current partner is rightI need to find a new jobI seem to be generally unhappyPaying rent/mortgage/debtsJob securityFinancial/credit card debtsMy dietLow energy levelsWorried about my savings/financial futureGetting old in general

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Chronic unhealthy worrying is worrying about the same 9-11 things over a long period of time and not doing anything or much to solve the challenges and problems to make the worries go away

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Astonishing ObservationMost people can help other people solve their worries and problems but have trouble addressing their own!!

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Other people (usually trusted friends or professional coaches, mentors or therapists or Opra!, Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz or Joel) can most of the time significantly help another person think through the action steps that would be necessary to decrease or eliminate a worry

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Additional interesting observation is that even people with significant chronic personal worries themselves can help others successfully address their worries!

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How many Brain Parts are there?54?3?How many senses?Who is YOU?/Where are you located?What’s awareness?Self talk? Internal voices (Narrator, Evaluator)Who’s listening? (Witness)Mindfulness?What brain parts run the worry program?

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The Worry Management Protocol1. Name your brain parts!!! Give a name to your worry management

partners. 2. Write out your 9-11 recurring worries on 3 by 5 cards and Label your

worries.3. Record any solutions you have come up with on the other side and put

them in your worry box or purse4. Open a dialog between the Witness and your worry manager (mostly

the limbic system/amygdala)5. Make the following bargain with your worry manager6. “I will review my worries with you periodically at a time and place

certain, listen to your concerns, make any updates and edit any solutions and form an action plan and take some actions”

7. “I would appreciate it if you (worry manager) would keep your concerns to yourself at all other times” - be quiet!

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8. Practice catch and release if the worry manager surfaces worries at any other time and tell him/her/it to stand down

9. Form a worry mutual help group with 3-5 trusted people

10.Have periodic meetings (lunch/dinner) and each person offer one worry for group discussion and solution creation - record new solutions

11. Goal is to commit to an action plan to address the worry and report back to the group on what you did and how it worked

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The worry group tends to be a time limited need.

Most people tend to rapidly learn to manage their worries more effectively.

Eventually, there would be no chronic worries to discuss!!

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BrainTalk Worry and TUT Management Tools Labeling/Naming Catch and Release (Don’t Engage)

The Big R Worry Management ToolsReject/Suppress

Refocusing/Shifting AttentionReappraisal (Normalizing/Varification)

ReinterpretingReordering

RepositioningReframing

Recontextualizing

Coaching with the Brain in Mind, David Rock, Wily, 2009

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Goal is to decrease (even possibly eliminate) the harmful impact of chronic worries causing noise in your working memory and contributing to allostatic load which decreases quality of thinking

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The longer term goal once you have your current worries managed is to work hard to solve new worries as they inevitably arise for your entire life.

First, is it real? Is it important? Is it worth paying attention to?

Can you debate it away?

If not:

What is the worry? What are the possible solutions? Check with your worry support group? Pick a solution. Just do it.

Form an action plan. Do something, even small to begin to address the worry.

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Clear your throat!104