March 15, 2025 • 56 mins
Step into the revolutionary intersection of neuroscience and leadership with Professor Patricia Riddell and Ian McDermott as they shatter outdated brain myths and reveal how understanding neuroscience transforms leadership effectiveness.
Most leaders operate on brain models that are 60-65 years out of date. This knowledge gap isn't just academic – it directly impacts how we develop talent, make decisions, and build organizational capacity.
Patricia and Ian introduce "neuro-effective leadership," a groundbreaking approach that applies cutting-edge neuroscience to practical leadership challenges.
Neuroplasticity emerges as the game-changing concept every leader needs to understand. Leaders who understand neuroplasticity see potential differently – not as a fixed attribute to be measured, but as a capacity that can be systematically developed through the right experiences.
The conversation reveals surprising insights about how our brains handle tasks versus relationships.
We also explore how understanding empathy as a structured cognitive skill rather than a vague "soft skill" provides practical techniques for creating psychological safety while maintaining accountability.
Patricia and Ian's upcoming book "Neuro-Effective Leadership" will be published by Routledge in June 2025, with pre-registration available in May.
Connect with them on LinkedIn to learn about their Applied Neuroscience program (get a special offer) and discover how understanding your brain can transform your leadership capacity.
Curious?
If you want to lead more effectively, build better relationships, and create a leadership style that truly works for you and your teams, this episode is packed with practical neuroscience-backed insights you can apply immediately.
🎧 Tune in now and start leading with more choice, clarity, and confidence!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes that
deliver practical insights andtips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought-provoking ideas
, leading People is your guideto better leadership.
(00:44):
Thought-provoking ideas LeadingPeople is your guide to better
leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Can neuroscience help you lead better?
What if your leadership habits,assumptions and even your
decision-making style were beingshaped by unconscious brain
patterns?
And what if you could trainyour brain so you could become a
more?
effective, adaptable andimpactful leader.
(01:09):
In this episode of LeadingPeople, professor Patricia
Riddle and Ian McDermott revealhow understanding the brain can
transform leadership.
They explain howneuroplasticity acts like brain
sculpting and how you can rewirehabits, why your leadership
assumptions may be limiting yourown and your team's potential,
(01:34):
what neuro-effective leadershipreally means and how to apply it
, and how to create more choice,empathy and compassion in your
leadership.
If you've ever wondered whysome leadership strategies fail
while others thrive, thisepisode will change the way you
think about leadership andperformance.
(01:57):
So stay tuned.
This is one you won't want tomiss.
Patricia Riddle and IanMcDermott welcome to Leading
People.
Thank you Great to be here.
Great, I first met both of youwhen I trained with you in
actually 2016 on your AppliedNeuroscience and the Brain and
(02:19):
Behaviour Change course.
And, just for our listeners,you've published many books and
research papers, and you're heretoday to talk about
neuroscience and leadership andmaybe give us a little sneak
preview of what's coming up inyour new book that you'll be
publishing, I believe, sometimein the not-too-distant future,
and we'll get to all of thatshortly.
(02:39):
But first, so our listeners canget to know you a little bit
better, how did you both get towhere you are today?
What people, places or eventsor epiphany moments stand out in
your respective journeys?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So for me, I've been an academic forever and have
worked in developmentalpsychology actually, so it's
quite a long way from where Icurrently are.
But the epiphany for me was whensomebody actually a colleague
asked me why it was that she rantraining programs that didn't
(03:18):
transfer into the workplace, andcould I have a look and tell me
what was going wrong inpeople's brains so that she
could make it better?
So I went away and had to thinkabout learning and memory and
how it transfers, and I came upwith some ideas, because I'm not
that's not my area of expertise.
I took it to a colleague ofmine and said this is what I'm
thinking of saying about memoryand learning, what do you think?
(03:40):
And he looked at it and saideverything you say is correct,
but I would never have thoughtof the applications.
And for me that was the momentof thinking oh, my goodness,
there's all this stuff that'ssitting in neuroscience and
psychology that's not actuallybeing transferred and being used
usefully, and that's where Istarted my journey into doing
(04:04):
properly applied neuroscience.
So, and I spent the last 15 ormore years just thinking about
how can we get this the mostrecent research and transfer it
translated into something thatpeople can apply immediately in
their own lives.
It's not about teaching peopleneuroscience.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It's helping people to apply neuroscience yeah, and
that that's one of the greatthings that I learned from you,
and you've got a professorshiptoday, don't you?
In applied neuroscience?
At which university again?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
um at reading, but the when you get to be a
professor, you get to choosewhat your title is, and the
title I mean what I do isneuroscience, but actually what
I'm more interested in isapplication, which is where the
applied neuroscience title camefrom.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, that's probably a great segue into your
background, Ian.
I've got several of your booksfrom your NLP days here.
Perhaps you can take us throughthat journey.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Oh dear, yes, it really started a long, long time
ago.
My hair was a different colorat the time, but there you go.
Time moves on, and whathappened was originally when I
was working with clients, be ittheir individuals, families,
couples, teams.
I was interested in what worked, and that's how I ever became
(05:28):
familiar with what was known asNLP neurolinguistic programming
simply because it was lookingfor different ways of engaging
with different kinds of peopleusing different models, rather
than saying there is one way andthis is it.
And that gave rise to a kind offascination with what really
works.
And so, in my own career, Ifounded an organization which
(05:50):
was dedicated to putting it outthere, making it available to
anybody who wanted to havepractical how-tos, and the
result of that was, I felt, bothdemocratizing and demystifying,
because people began to knowwhat they could do and how they
could do it.
And guess what?
You know, success results.
(06:11):
Now, does that mean everybodyends up as Mozart?
No, it doesn't.
But can we go towards a greatercapacity that we already have
inherently?
Yes, we can, and so you know.
The years went on and thatflourished and that indeed, it's
still going.
But I was also aware that therewas this tsunami of research
(06:33):
that was coming out of the fieldof neuroscience, and I also
knew that I'm not aneuroscientist and I'm not going
to start making grand claimsthat, yes, neuroscience tells us
, tells us this, that and theother.
But I did think it would bereally remarkable if I could
demonstrate what was oftenreferred to as the magic of NLP,
(06:54):
had research backing, and Iendeavored to find some
neuroscientists who wereinterested in exploring this,
and I had a number of goes notvery satisfactory.
And then, by more luck thananything, trish and I met and it
was like boom immediately,because we both had the same
(07:20):
interest, which was this is allfine and dandy, but how do you
apply it?
And if you've got just vastamounts of research being
generated, if the researcherslove doing research, fair enough
, but that means nobody'sactually taking it out there and
saying, ah, yes, if you were totry it this way, you might get
(07:42):
a better result.
And so it was just a remarkablekind of exploration that then
began, and the first thing wehad to do was recognize ah,
these are different backgrounds.
My background originally waspsychotherapy.
So you're finding a commonlanguage in how we're going to
(08:02):
explore things and how can wetest them to see is that
actually practically useful forpeople to learn?
And so began the journey westarted.
We were thinking about this theother day.
I think it was like 15 yearsago.
For the last 10 plus yearswe've been running a program
(08:26):
called Applied Neurosciencebecause we wanted to make it
bite-sized chunks so peoplecould understand.
And here we go again todemystify and democratize it,
and so that has continued.
We've refined it over the yearsand the net result is we got to
a point of saying I think wecould legitimately make a
(08:49):
contribution now to theliterature, but maybe we'll talk
about that in a while.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah.
So I just can say for thebenefit of the listeners that I
can attest to the chemistry, yes, and I can also really endorse
the program because of what yousaid.
It's quite remarkable how manyopportunities there are to talk
(09:17):
about the brain and talk aboutwhat's going on for people in
just ordinary layman's terms,without getting too technical
well, I probably couldn'tactually get too technical, but
sometimes just to be able to tofirst notice for yourself right,
it's the self-awareness bitthat really you start to go,
okay, I wonder what's going onfor me today, etc.
(09:38):
Etc.
And then being able to alsostart to notice how people are
maybe processing a situation andgo doesn't seem to be the most
useful state that they're in atthe moment.
Maybe we need to talk aboutsomething else or reframe or
whatever so there's a whole lotof beautiful stuff that comes
out of that and I personallyfound I do quite some training.
(09:59):
Sometimes I've been asked to doa few little formal things
around the neuroscience in in.
You might be asked to do alittle thing on conscious bias
or something.
We've used a lot of Canmanstuff in decision-making courses
, but it's not even just doingit formally, it's just that
ability to have a chat about itwith people and have people go.
Oh wow, I never thought of itthat way.
(10:21):
And that's the beauty of this,I think and your course is so
good at it because it's notacademic Trish you give us a
little bit, but then you send usoff to find out how it works
and we had to do some.
Incredibly, I would call heavylifting to actually you didn't
say go away now and we'll seeyou in a couple of weeks again.
(10:42):
You went away and said go awayand go off and do something and
come back and show us what youdid.
And we were able to to learnnot just from you guys, but we
also learned from each other alot as well.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So I can endorse that a lot that's good to hear
actually a student speaks.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yes, I stay in touch with other people who've done
the course and they're all Imean mean they're pretty
enthusiastic about it.
So we'll get to some of that alittle bit towards the end,
because you might have somethingto say about it towards the end
.
But let's just get into thewhole idea of where neuroscience
fits into leadership andparticularly coaching.
(11:20):
I mean, patricia, you co-wrotea book a few years ago which I
have behind me here on theneuroscience of leadership
coaching.
I mean, ian, I don't know, Icouldn't even count take four or
five hands to count the numberof books that you've put out on
NLP.
But when we get into, how doyou both see neuroscience
enhancing coaching andleadership development and what
(11:41):
does the integration ofneuroscience offer that
traditional leadershipapproaches might be missing?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Oh, I think a neuroscientist should speak to
this first.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
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Speaker 3 (12:28):
So I think there's a number of ways that you can come
at this, jerry, and the firstthing I would say is that often
it's about really legitimizingwhat people already know is
working.
You know, I'm doing this thing,I don't know why it works, but
it seems to work and often justgiving people a better
(12:48):
understanding of what might bechanging in the brain as they're
trying these, these techniques,gives them a confidence and a
credibility in what they'redoing.
So I think I would start withsaying it's not about completely
reinventing either coaching orleadership.
But the other thing I would sayis that the brain doesn't
(13:09):
always do what the laypersonthinks it might be doing, and
those areas where it's doingsomething that's unintuitive
often mean that we're tryingthings one way because we think
that's the way the brain works.
But when you stop and say topeople you know, hold on a
minute, that's not actually howit's doing it, it's doing it
this way instead, it can reallykind of change people in
(13:31):
thinking oh right, okay, well,if that's the way my brain's
working, then it's worth metrying something different.
And absolutely in bothleadership and in coaching, I
think the main thing that theneuroscience and access to
better understanding of thebrain can do is increases your
(13:51):
choice.
I have so many more ways that Ican think about things because
I understand how my brain isworking and it increases
compassion, and compassion forself first, also compassion for
others, or if that's the waytheir brain's working, then I
shouldn't be surprised that thisis a response I'm getting now.
(14:12):
How, how might I help them todo something different that
would be better for them andprobably better for me in the
long run too.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I guess, ian, this notion of choice is very has
been very prominent in the worldof NLP over the years, and
being able to have choice andcreate choices and expand our
models of the world, and what'syour experience of this?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Because you do a lot of coaching at choice is in
itself, a significant thoughtshift for many people.
What does it mean to be atchoice?
You mean, for example, workingwith somebody very recently who
has a big challenge coming up.
(15:02):
My question was simply so, ifyou're going to be at your best,
how do you get to be at yourbest in preparing?
It's a very simple propositionthe idea that if it's going to
be challenging, I think I'd liketo be firing on all cylinders
when the occasion arises.
But the how-tos, those aresomething which neuroscience can
(15:26):
actually help us sayspecifically what will assist
and what will actually get inthe way.
But I think that there are someradical opportunities here
which and I'll do this as thenon-neuroscientist which are
really fundamental forunderstanding if you're a leader
(15:49):
, and one of these is that yourunderstanding of the brain,
which may be something you don'tspend a lot of time thinking
about, it's just like, well,yeah, everybody's got one, I
wish I'd use it and something,but actually the understanding
is frequently extraordinarilyout of date.
I know this because of ourinitial time together.
(16:15):
I actually asked Trish becauseshe's in a field that was not my
field.
Necessarily lay understandinglags behind specialist research,
so I'd expect there to be sometime lag, and I said to her what
would you say in terms of layunderstanding of the brain
versus current understanding,what's the time like?
(16:36):
And at the time, the firstthing she said was 20 to 30
years and I thought, good God,this is like.
I mean, basically it'sextraordinary.
But okay, then there's a lot ofreason for doing what we're
about to start doing.
However, the kicker was thatshe came back to me some days
(17:00):
later.
In fact, you should say thisTrish, what did you say?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well, at that point some of the models are 50 years
out of date.
Now make that 60 to 65 yearsout of date.
So I'm still hearing stuffbeing said that is 65 years old.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
I'm a very left-brain person.
Oh yes, I'm sure hearing stuffbeing said that is 65 years old.
I'm a very left-brain person ohyes, I'm sure you are.
What are we talking about here?
We're not talking aboutanything of any real.
It's not real.
But the reason why this mattersin this context, to answer your
question, Jerry is theperceptions that people have
shape their understanding ofwhat is possible, and therefore,
(17:41):
if you are talking about yourown development, you know what's
possible for you.
Well, it's all downhill after25, isn't it?
Or whatever nonsense you have,then that's not helpful, but
it's far more pernicious thanthat, because if you're in any
leadership role, these are theassumptions you're bringing to
the development potential ofentire teams of people.
(18:04):
You know you can write off alot of people through ignorance,
and so one of the things for uswas well, what would this mean
if you started to understand?
Let's take one fundamentalconcept, which is possibly like
the beginning neuroplasticity.
What does that do?
If you understand somethingabout that and again, I'm going
(18:26):
to keep my mouth shut for amoment and trish neuroplasticity
, I mean, who cares before?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
you answer the neuroplasticity, because that's,
that's a, that's a brillianttopic in itself.
Um, what always occurs to me isum because I sometimes joke in
my own little way in the roomwhat prevents this being taught
to children and adolescentsabout?
You know?
What prevents?
Just talk, because it seems tome like having a manual for this
(19:01):
part of you know, our anatomy,which tends to have a big
influence, would be such anobvious thing to have, not at
the very site, technical stuffalthough when they get to
biology and stuff like that andchemistry, maybe you can start
to sprinkle a bit moretechnically but what stops the
education system just teachingyoung kids this?
Because think of it, if theyembed that early on and they
(19:24):
just build on that, it would bebeautiful.
I wish I learned it when I wasa kid, so without going too deep
into it and turning it into arabbit hole.
What's the?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
what's the kind of jerry I'm I'm just so struck at
how trish and I are both sort ofchamping at the bit here well,
I completely agree with you 100,and it's a passion of mine to
see if we can get this intoschools as well.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Um, and I actually um , we've been running some
seminars for teachers, and everyteacher that we give this
information to says why didn'twe learn this in teaching
college?
So there's one way that youcould do it.
You could get it to be part ofthe teacher's vocabulary and
that way it gets immediatelyinto schools.
There are schools that aretaking this on board and doing
(20:13):
it.
So it will happen.
It is just a very slow burn,okay.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
My rather flip answer to your question why is?
Why isn't this being taught inschools?
Well, that's down to adults.
I mean, that's the short answer.
And why?
Why is that significant?
Because if you start talking tokids about you know, whatever
the topic may be, uh, there'ssomething to do with the brain.
(20:41):
If you keep it just asstraightforward, principles of
what that makes possible, orsome things are difficult, and
the more difficult because youimmediately have identification
and children are fantasticallyadept at going oh right, right,
yeah no problem.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
For example, I was talking to my eight-year-old
granddaughter and she was doingsome maths homework and I was
teaching her.
When you learn, you get newconnections in your brain.
They're called synapses.
So if you're doing your mathshomework, you're getting new
synapses.
And she just sat there and shewas sitting doing stuff and she
looked up at me and she said amI getting new synapses?
And she just sat there and shewas sitting doing stuff and she
looked up at me and she said amI getting new?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
synapses now, and what was the conversation like
in the playground the next day?
How many new synapses did youget last night?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
yeah, even the questions that get asked change,
and what's so fascinating andthis is why it really matters to
us is you're changing theterrain of expectations, and
that then means that I'm notvery good at whatever the topic
(21:49):
is.
You know, fill in the blank.
No, not at the moment.
Maybe you're not, but that'snot, you know, inherent Would
you like to be.
And so if you, if you have anyinterest in growth mindset, for
example, which you know youcould have heard of without any
neuroscience at all my god,there's so much neuroscience to
support why bother with growthmindset?
(22:12):
Because you're opening up aworld of possibilities for
anyone, at any age, any age.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So let's now get to the neuroplasticity, and I want
to take a few seconds just toshare a personal experience with
this, which was at the end of2018, my father had a stroke and
you know he was lucky theycalled it just in time, but he
had quite some days in intensivecare.
But I was at home with him alittle while after he came out
(22:41):
of hospital.
He was putting little beadsinto little buckets or things
and it was very frustrating.
My father did manual work allhis life, so it was very
frustrating for him to do thisand he was cursing and swearing
and I said to him do you knowwhy you're doing it?
He said the physio told me to.
I said well, actually, you'reprobably trying to teach your
(23:02):
brain that there might beanother way to do the things.
It's not maybe guaranteed, butyou're doing something to try
and change your brain here, notbecause the physio told you yes,
the physio told you, but Ithink there was another reason
beneath that but explain to mylisteners the power and the
value of understandingneuroplasticity you're listening
(23:32):
to leading people.
With me, jerry mur.
My guests today are Professorof Applied Neuroscience,
Patricia Riddle, and ExecutiveCoach and Leading Author, Ian
McDermott.
Coming up next, Patricia andIan unpack how your brain
balances tasks and relationships, what really happens when
(23:53):
leaders create choice, empathyand compassion, and why state
management is key tohigh-performance leadership.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Stay with us.
There's so much more to explore.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh, my goodness, where do you start with that?
So I think one of the biggestthings for me is to have a
better understanding ofpotential and to destroy the
myth that, as Ian says, it'sdownhill after a certain age.
If we understand the degree towhich we can sculpt our brains
(24:31):
at any age, then that's a greatthing to be able to think.
What does that mean?
Is possible for me?
What does that give me that Ididn't have in terms of belief,
and you know so.
For instance, one of the thingsthat we often share with people
(24:54):
is the London Taxi Driver Study,and many people have heard
about this study.
You know the idea that you canactually see that the part of
the brain increases in size whenyou learn a spatiotemporal map
of London.
Well, that's a big bit oflearning to do, but the the most
important element of that and Ithink it's one that's not often
(25:16):
stressed is that the peoplewere doing the learning in their
30s, 40s, 50s and even 60s, andage didn't make a difference to
the degree to which thehippocampus grew.
It was about the experiencesthat they were giving themselves
and taking on.
That was the thing that madethe difference.
So learning is possible at anyage, if you have the right
(25:39):
motivation and the right kind ofbelief in what you can do.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And in my work I come across a lot of people in HR
asking we need to establish aperson's potential right, and
yet a lot of it is is like thisyou know, like a finger in the
air, and they've got nine boxeswhich weren't even intended for
that.
They were intended to evaluatebusiness portfolios and they say
, ok, what's their performancelike?
(26:03):
And you know what's their.
And they put people in theseboxes.
And yet if they understood whatyou're talking about, trish,
they'd probably really wanted tolook at that aspect.
And what opportunities arepeople having to to to learn new
things?
What are the assumptions aboutthese things in the organization
?
You know, is there anassumption that you get to vp
(26:25):
and then you don't go totrainings anymore because you've
made it and stuff like that?
You know so, um, but thatnicely segues, I think, into the
, this concept you have createdcalled neuro effective
leadership, leadership, and ofcourse, with my own little
linguistic background, I goneuro, okay, brain effective oh,
wow, that's an interesting wordleadership.
(26:47):
So, as far as I've heard,you're co-authoring this book,
and the questions I would haveto get started on it is who's
the book for, what isneuro-effective leadership and
what's the kind of core messageyou want people to get when they
read this book.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Oh, can I kick off Trish?
Yes, any and all of those.
Great place to start.
So here's the background, whichI think probably puts it in
context.
As we've developed the, thetrainings which take the
(27:26):
neuroscience and give practicaltools that are how-tos that
people can learn and take awayand use, we got to a point where
we felt that we could codifythis in written form for people
who may not be able to come to atrain, and one of the really
fascinating questions of what wewould put in such a book was
(27:48):
it's got to be effective,otherwise it doesn't merit
inclusion.
What we're interested in, andhave been from the outset, is
just that does it deliversomething which is a practical
benefit that's going to bevalued to an individual, to a
team, to an organizationpreferably all three and if so,
(28:08):
we have a very simple questionwe can ask is the current way of
doing something effective froma neurological point of view?
And if we, you know, abbreviatethat to, is it neuro effective?
We have a question which is anexcellent discipline for keeping
us on track about what can wesay that we know we can now
(28:28):
offer because it's been triedand tested, and that's what the
book focuses on.
We can see many, manyapplications in different areas,
but we still start from thatplace of well, does it work?
What am I going to get and howcan I use it?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
that's the short answer and I believe there's a
subtitle is there leadingyourself and others?
Is that right?
Because actually this podcast,the tagline on this podcast, is
how to bring out the best inyourself and others.
That's what leading people, myconcept of this was.
You know, you have to startwith yourself.
So how does that then frame theneuro effectiveness?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, the reason it's the subtitle is because there's
two, two volumes, potentiallythe neuroscience of, you know,
the neuroaffective um leadershipof self and others.
We're talking about techniquesthat are important both for
(29:34):
increasing self-awarenessbecause if you're not aware of
how you're doing things, thenit's hard to help people to
trust people a bit more, tobuild empathy with others all
(30:04):
those sorts of things that areabout relationships between self
and others and then thinkingabout it too in terms of mental
health and well-being.
How do I maintain a healthyexistence while also being in
the leadership position, becauseso many leaders nowadays seem
to be suffering from overwhelm.
(30:26):
So how do we help them to buildbetter resilience for
themselves and others too.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So I have a question, then, because I'm sure, if I
was putting myself in the shoesof my listeners at the moment,
they're probably gagging forsome sort of practical examples.
What would be a simpletechnique that you could share,
that because, because of thetype of work you've been doing
and where you come across whereone, one or two simple things
that people may not be aware of,but when you, when you
(30:53):
basically say what about this ordo this, what would be one or
two things that you could sharewith our, the listeners there,
that they could even start toexplore during whilst they keep
listening to this?
Speaker 3 (31:06):
so one thing that we found that's really really
powerful is again is this new oris this empathy?
But empathy comes in two types.
So there's empathic concern Ifeel what you feel and there's
empathic understanding Iunderstand how you feel, but I
(31:27):
don't need to feel it with youand we know that, under empathic
understanding, that morecognitive level of understanding
others is linked to compassionand wanting to help people who
are in difficult situations.
(31:47):
Um, so there's a really simplething that you can do, I mean,
apart from making sure that youput yourself in other people's
shoes and take the time to do it, because it's not we think of
of empathy as maybe a soft skill, but it's not.
It's a hard skill.
It's hard in that if you'retaking the time to actually
imagine what it might be likefor somebody else, then that
(32:07):
takes a lot of cognitiveprocessing.
So it's not just I feel like it, it's I can really imagine it
and understand it, but usingthat to create better
relationships, we can talk aboutempathy.
How do I empathize with somebodyand then add the?
And this is what we'll do withit?
So I agree with you on this.
(32:30):
I'm demonstrating empathybecause I've listened to you.
I'm repeating back somethingthat's important to you.
We're in, in agreement aboutthat, and here's what we'll do.
Or I'm in agreement with youand I'm empathizing with you,
but here's the reason that wecan't do what you've asked and
that empathy with a response.
(32:50):
I was talking to somebody thathad been in a course recently
and they just said it's a gamechanger, just always starting
with empathy and then, and thenyou know, decide not giving a
really clear reason for what you, what's going to happen next,
can just take the you know thethe heat out of a conversation,
(33:13):
a difficult conversation ofcourse on an NLP level, you you
kind of have to suspend yourassumptions and your mind
reading to be able to do empathy, Would that not be?
Speaker 4 (33:33):
If I may, let me interview you on your own
podcast for a moment, justbecause there you are.
You know you're somebody whotook the program.
What have you used?
What have been particularly?
Oh yeah, I don't know, I usethat many times.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, some free coaching, Ian.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Is that what you're saying?
No, I'm just interested in thequestion you ask.
There is an experience you'vehad and you may have taken
things away and, you know, foundwell.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I quite often refer to that bit of the program as
opposed to any other bit of it,you know, because it's like
certain things resonate atcertain times with people yeah,
honestly, um, the, the, Isuppose one of the first things
that, um, I've always been,let's say, very interested,
(34:28):
since my nlp days, in thisconcept of managing your state.
You know, if you're not in this, it's this idea, like, would
you ask the ceo, how do youbecome the best version of
yourself?
And I've been a performingmusician all my life and I've
had to walk out on stages to upto 10,000 people.
Maybe the next gig's 40 people.
The 40 people is more scarybecause you can see them all.
(34:50):
And I guess it's kind of beingaware of what's going on within
my own neurology andexperimenting with, for example,
mindfulness.
I found that very, very usefulfor me.
Now I know that for some peopleit doesn't work in the way of
(35:13):
just that silence and self-aware.
I find that a fascinating thingand we know that that helps us
understand what's going on, uh,not just at that amygdala level,
but maybe on the, that wholeventrum striator rewards part of
the brain that that might alsobe a bit over overstimulated at
times.
And I, and I found that and Iuse that, for example, in
(35:35):
virtually every training courseI do, or team building or
anything, and I've had peoplesay to me do we have to do this
couple of minutes?
I said no, you see, because ifI give you some time and space,
it's quite likely your brain'sgoing to start arranging things
for you.
(35:55):
You never know.
And I'll give you an example,ian, of working with a client
not long after I did the course,and it was interesting.
It was a small business with acouple of the partners who owned
it, in the room with theseyounger people, and I said to
them so in the afternoon,roughly what time do you take a
break?
And they looked at me like well, they looked at the partners
(36:16):
first and then they looked at melike well, they looked at the
partners first and then theylooked at me.
Like I said maybe 3, 30, 4o'clock, and the partner one of
the partners said oh, you don'tunderstand.
She said if we start takingbreaks at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon, we could be in theoffice till 8 o'clock.
I said if you took a break at 4o'clock for maybe 20 minutes,
you could be home at six.
And it was that.
(36:37):
And they said what?
Because you, probably, you know,if you're your brain trying to
make so many decisions, you knowyou, you know you, maybe you're
getting stressed, you need tomaybe be able to remove yourself
.
So I just find it's just.
There's always like I teachnegotiation skills.
You know, I, I, I, I have somevideos to show what happens if
(36:59):
you get provoked.
Doesn't matter how clever youare at doing the deals and
you're stacking up stuff, ifyou're not able to to manage
yourself in those situations andyou might get provoked and
everything you, you can actuallynot be as effective as you
thought you would be.
That that's kind of that's just.
There's just a couple ofsmatterings of things that come
(37:19):
along when my kids are studying.
One of my daughters getsstressed out for exams and and
then she gets into that cyclewhere she can't then rationalize
things and then she gets moreupset and then.
So we try to get her out andmaybe get her for a walk or
something, try to get her to, to, to rest the brain a little bit
and reframe the situation, dosomething different with her
(37:41):
physiology.
But I don't know if thatanswers your question, but
that's yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Well, I think it does point in a direction of certain
things get to be moresignificant, and you know it's
going to vary person to person.
So one of the things that hasbeen important for us is just
being able to think it throughto get it as clear as possible.
So, in writing the book, we'vegot chapters that focus on very
(38:07):
particular things like what isit to develop an achieving
mindset, how would you knowyourself better, and so forth.
But also part one that would bein part two is very much about
leadership in teams.
You know, how are you going tobe able to, for example, use
neuroscience to promotepsychological safety?
(38:28):
There are things you can do.
They make a difference.
Now we could go into you knoweach of these, but one of the
things that we've done is wewanted to give ourselves the
discipline of how clear can webe?
So at the end of every chapterwe've got what have we learned
so far?
And then, how are you going toapply it for yourself?
(38:48):
That's personal andprofessionally, suggestions, and
in that way we hope to be ableto give people very practical
suggestions as to what theycould have a look at, what they
might want to take a bit of timeto investigate and how they
could get to know members ofteams, if they're in that
situation, rather better anddraw out more of the potential
(39:12):
that's there.
Because, to go back to your HRpoint, you know I think it's
really tough if you don't have away of determining, well, what
could the potential even be?
Here we're using certain kindsof distinctions which were never
necessarily designed toascertain that.
(39:32):
And well, you know you make thebest of what you got and well
you know you make the best ofwhat you've got.
But if you start from anunderstanding that, my golly,
this person, their brain, is insome ways rather like a muscle,
if you use it you get a lot of areturn, otherwise you lose a
lot, there you go, and it'sactually true, it's not just a
(39:55):
metaphor.
So could we begin to understandthat we have an extraordinary
amount to get curious about?
And that allows us to alsothink about what is it?
I'd really like to be doingthat I don't do.
Why might that be worth doing?
Because it will befantastically stimulating the
brain development by back to toTrish's granddaughter.
(40:18):
Oh, new neural connections, oh,new neurons.
Oh, it's there for everybody.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
One of the things that I notice is this tendency
and I think this goes back toyour earlier discussion about
how out of date ourunderstanding of the brain is.
But there are models out therein the business world and I
mentioned this one before wecame on but I'd like you to
maybe talk a bit about it.
Trish, is this contingencytheory thing where you know task
versus relationship and youknow, you know you have to be
(40:48):
able to navigate, you knowthere's a you draw one on on the
x-axis and the other on they-axis and then everybody should
be able to just jump into thattop box.
And when I sat, you explainedthis and you sort of and I'll
let you explain it that it'smaybe not as easy as people
would think.
When you just look at a diagramin terms of how people are
(41:08):
somewhat wired towards apropensity to one or the other
as their natural preference, itdoesn't mean they can't do the
other, isn't that right?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
So this is one of the places where the brain does
something very unintuitive, andit's lovely you start with this
idea that leaders should bereally good people, people,
people, um.
But they should also be good atgetting the job done and the
the way that the brain works isthat it brings together the, the
(41:41):
areas of the brain that itneeds to fulfill a particular
goal, and the areas that youneed to fulfill a task are very
different from the areas thatyou would need if you're going
to think about others, butyou're going to be.
You know, think think about, um, how I get my team to be doing
their best, and you know thatkind of is obvious that you've
(42:03):
got different, differentnetworks that do those two types
of of job.
The thing that's slightly lessintuitive is that when one of
those networks is operating, theother one is turned off, so you
can only do them one at a time.
You can't do themsimultaneously.
And if you're in an organizationand I'm just reflecting on your
(42:24):
organization where they'resaying, well, if we take a break
at half past four, then wewon't get home till eight, it
sounds as if and we hear this inmany organizations it's task,
task, task, task, task all day.
So you're going to be reallygreat at refining that network
and making it work really welljust because of the experience
you're having, but at theexpense of the one that you're
(42:45):
inhibiting.
You will become less good atbeing a people person.
So how do you balance those twonetworks so that you're
actually able to use botheffectively?
And this is where taking timecomes in, because your brain,
while it can't use them bothsimultaneously, can use them
sequentially if you give itsufficient time and space to
(43:06):
think that's a beautiful summary.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I hope our listeners are fantastically curious now
about how to do that, and andit'll be revealed in the book, I
guess.
Um, there's another, anotherthing that, and we're not too
far away from the end.
But there's another burningtopic at the moment and and in
the times we live in, and thisis whole idea of uncertainty and
rapid change, and, um, how canleaders apply principles from
(43:33):
neuroscience and nlp toadaptable manage stress and help
their teams navigateuncertainty more effectively?
Maybe, trish, you'd like toexplain what uncertainty does to
the brain?
To get started on this.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Okay.
So there's a very wide range ofindividual differences in our
tolerance of uncertainty, andsome people are almost enjoy
situations that are uncertainand put themselves in new
situations, often because theythey um, get a bit of a buzz out
of that.
Other people are very much.
(44:08):
I like everything to befamiliar.
I don't like uncertain.
It's not.
It makes me uncomfortable, andso, first of all, it will will
depend on where on that spectrumpeople sit.
But if you're intolerant ofuncertainty, if uncertainty
bothers you, then that can be aprecursor to anxiety and the
(44:32):
anxious mind is not functioningat its best.
Stop people.
We can't change.
Well, you can, but it's betterfor leaders to recognize that
they're going to have a range oftolerance to uncertainty within
their team.
How do I, as a leader, dealwith that?
I give people as much certaintyas I can.
I give them.
You know, if I'm describing anew task, I tell them what I
(44:54):
know, what they need to know,what to know, how I want them to
work together.
Anything that you can do toincrease certainty is going to
reduce the intolerance ofuncertainty for that job.
So it's a really basicprinciple of leadership that you
should provide as muchinformation as you can, and that
will include saying and here'sthe things that I'm uncertain
(45:17):
about, because if you'reuncertain about it too, then I
don't need to be so worried thatI'm uncertain about it.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, because that gives certainty that you're
uncertain.
Basically, and the concept ofallostatic load.
You know, it often occurs to methat if a boss has a massive
bandwidth then some of theirpeople don't with and some of
their people don't.
There could be terriblemismatching and
misunderstandings going on interms of the stress and ability
to handle a lot of ambiguity,complexity, etc.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Exactly.
I mean, I think of stress ascoming into a bucket, and the
bucket has lots of differentplaces where stress is added.
So it can be added at the work,it can be added at home, it can
be added through your friendsand family, it can be added
through things that you're doingoutside of all of that, and at
work you tend to only see thestress that's added from the
(46:07):
workplace, so you don't knowwhat else is in the bucket.
So leaders have to be reallycareful that they're not just A
imagining that everybody has thesame size bucket.
They don't.
B that they all have similarways of emptying the bucket,
because as the stress comes inyou need the ways of releasing
the stress.
Different people do that lesswell.
(46:27):
And.
C that the sources of stressare wide-ranging and come from
outside world too.
So not everybody is going to beable to do what somebody who
finds that they thrive on stresscan do.
You need to kind of figure outwhat people's particular
tolerance of stress might be.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
And Ian in your conversations with a lot of
leaders.
What are you hearing about thiswhole uncertainty and change
and stress?
Speaker 4 (46:58):
I had a very interesting conversation very
recently with a leader, uh, whohad had the experience of his
business going intoadministration, um, quite a few
years ago now, and the businesscame back and it was it's
thriving, and now it's a reallytough time, it's expanding.
(47:18):
And he was having the same kindof feelings as then and it was
it's thriving, and now it's areally tough time, it's
expanding.
And he was having the same kindof feelings as then.
And I was saying no, no, no you, this is not the same
experience.
He'd already told me it wasn'tthe same experience.
He said, um, this is unchartedterritory.
So it's like, oh, you haven'tbeen here before, but you're
(47:38):
having the same kind of anxietythat you had associated with a
different experience many moonsago.
So it's really important tounderstand that I may be having
a certain kind of anxiety, butis this the same kind of
experience or am I just failingto make a sufficient distinction
between what was then and whatwas current?
(47:59):
Now?
And very often we are in asituation where the kind of fast
thinking is such that the braingoes, ah, this is like that,
and suddenly the past is runningthe present, but actually the
present is different.
What?
(48:20):
What was then was pretty scary.
This could be scary, but it'sin an entirely different way,
and have you noticed thedifference of being able to make
those distinctions is going tobe critical.
Uncertainty comes in many forms.
One of the things that's reallystriking to me is how sometimes
(48:40):
there can be great relief insomebody telling you that
there's so much that is unknownbut you'll know when.
I know good leaders do that,but.
But that can also take the formof uh.
The I suppose, extreme exampleis is churchill, when he became
Prime Minister, addressing theHouse of Commons very early on
(49:01):
in the Second World War.
He becomes Prime Minister andhe says I have nothing to offer
you but blood, toil, sweat andtears.
And the entire House of Commonsbreathes a sigh of relief.
Okay, now we know where westand.
Do we want to play Actually?
(49:22):
Yes, yes, we do.
Now let's get on with it.
So there is something aboutjust telling it like it is can
be enormously relieving forpeople and that makes a
difference, and a leader who hasthe courage to do that has a
profound impact on others.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
And it wouldn't be surprising, given the brain's
tendency to sort of take theseshortcuts, that the person that
you're talking about would seethings as the same.
It might be just the braintrying to be efficient, because
it kind of goes well, I see thefamiliarity, and just being
efficient as a brain saying youknow it must be the same and
(50:00):
maybe that's another aspect ofbeing aware of how your brain is
processing a situation isuseful.
I have a quick question for youhere Will you be offering any
courses or training inneuro-effective leadership?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Well, in a funny sort of way, we already do once a
year.
Well, in a funny sort of way,we already do once a year.
Mid-march is usually the timeof year.
We run the SuppliedNeuroscience Program, which is a
10-day program, but not all inone big chunk.
We deliberately want it inweekend segments, two days each
over five months, and in thatprogram we start to explore how
(50:39):
can you be neuro-effective, sothat it will complement the book
rather nicely.
Will we be offering additionalprograms which give a taste of a
particular application?
Absolutely, and indeed wealready do.
Sometimes we just like to getit out there and we'll do
freebies.
We did one recently onrumination which was kind of
fascinating, and that's coveredin the neuroaffective book as
(51:01):
well.
So yes, and if anybody'sinterested, I think, just be in
touch with us through ourLinkedIn addresses.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Okay, so, coming to the end, and this is just some
final thoughts, so for leadersmaybe especially young or even
emerging leaders understandinghow their brains work for and
against them could be a realgame changer.
For leaders, and, based on yourresearch and experience, what
are the most important thingsleaders need to know about their
(51:31):
brains?
If there's one key takeawaythat each of you would like to
leave us with from your work,that you'd like the audience,
the listeners, to remember, whatwould that one thing be?
Do you want to go first Chris.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Oh, for me it would be neuroplasticity, because if
you understand that the brainhas this extraordinary just like
plasticine, it's malleable, ithas the ability to adapt
continually and is designed todo so.
It makes sense that a lot ofpeople are actually kind of
(52:06):
understimulated, which doesn'tmean they should be subjecting
themselves to pulsing lights andthrobbing speakers.
It's more just.
Is there enough in your life tostimulate you and to keep it
interesting?
Are you doing what you love?
All of that will befantastically growth-promoting,
literally in your brain, andsky's the limit.
(52:30):
How would you like to be?
Well then, get curious aboutwhat would help you move in that
direction.
What would help you move inthat?
Speaker 3 (52:38):
direction.
And I think if I was to chooseone thing, it would be that not
to be afraid of listening toyour emotions, because they're
giving you such a wide-rangingaccess to information, not only
about how you feel, but oftenemotions arise because of
(52:58):
contagion with others.
So if you can catch an emotionand think where did that come
from, it can give you a realsensitivity to something that's
changed in the room and thatwill actually allow you to think
about not only why am I feelinglike that, but is there
somebody in the room that'sfeeling like that and how might
I then want to do somethingabout that?
(53:18):
And here now we start talkingabout real leadership leadership
of self and leadership ofothers.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Leadership is like charity it begins at home.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
We could spend a whole other podcast just talking
about the contagion effect,which we won't for today.
We'll invite you back on later.
How do people get in touch withyou and do you have anything
special you'd like to offer them?
Speaker 4 (53:41):
yes, I think what we'd like to offer them is the
opportunity to to participate in, let's say, the annual program.
Please be in touch and we'llfind a special for you.
Everybody loves a special, sowe'd definitely be able to do
that.
How to be in touch?
Be in touch on LinkedIn,probably the easiest way.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
And just to say that the book is out.
It's published with Rutledgeand it will be out in June and
people can pre-register in Mayon the Rutledge site.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Great, so thanks, trish and Ian, for sharing your
insights, tips and wisdom withme and my listeners here today.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
It's been a pleasure.
I feel like we're only justbeginning, exactly.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Great fun.
Thank you for inviting us.
Thank you, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
And if that's the case, then how well suited are
our organizations or our leadersfor that new way of dealing
with uncertainty?
And what I kept found andcontinue to find all around me
is they are very, very, verypoorly equipped to do so.
We are still hanging on to thenotion that forecasts can be
(55:00):
reliable.
We still imagine that we canplan three, five years ahead and
in many, many areas, we'restill extremely poor at
innovating or innovation as acontinuous process within any
kind of organization.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Next time on Leading People.
We welcome Margaret Heffernan,acclaimed thinker, author and
speaker, to explore howembracing uncertainty is the key
to unlocking creativity,innovation and resilience in
leadership.
We've just spent time in thisepisode discussing how your
brain deals with uncertainty,but what happens when leaders
(55:47):
and organizations try toeliminate uncertainty altogether
?
Margaret argues that thispursuit of certainty is an
illusion and that realleadership comes from learning
to thrive in the unknown.
So if today's conversationsparked your curiosity, you
won't want to miss this nextepisode.
And remember, before our nextfull episode, there's another
(56:11):
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you A quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast.
Until next time.
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes that
deliver practical insights andtips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought-provoking ideas
, leading People is your guideto better leadership.
(00:44):
Thought-provoking ideas LeadingPeople is your guide to better
leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Can neuroscience help you lead better?
What if your leadership habits,assumptions and even your
decision-making style were beingshaped by unconscious brain
patterns?
And what if you could trainyour brain so you could become a
more?
effective, adaptable andimpactful leader.
(01:09):
In this episode of LeadingPeople, professor Patricia
Riddle and Ian McDermott revealhow understanding the brain can
transform leadership.
They explain howneuroplasticity acts like brain
sculpting and how you can rewirehabits, why your leadership
assumptions may be limiting yourown and your team's potential,
(01:34):
what neuro-effective leadershipreally means and how to apply it
, and how to create more choice,empathy and compassion in your
leadership.
If you've ever wondered whysome leadership strategies fail
while others thrive, thisepisode will change the way you
think about leadership andperformance.
(01:57):
So stay tuned.
This is one you won't want tomiss.
Patricia Riddle and IanMcDermott welcome to Leading
People.
Thank you Great to be here.
Great, I first met both of youwhen I trained with you in
actually 2016 on your AppliedNeuroscience and the Brain and
(02:19):
Behaviour Change course.
And, just for our listeners,you've published many books and
research papers, and you're heretoday to talk about
neuroscience and leadership andmaybe give us a little sneak
preview of what's coming up inyour new book that you'll be
publishing, I believe, sometimein the not-too-distant future,
and we'll get to all of thatshortly.
(02:39):
But first, so our listeners canget to know you a little bit
better, how did you both get towhere you are today?
What people, places or eventsor epiphany moments stand out in
your respective journeys?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So for me, I've been an academic forever and have
worked in developmentalpsychology actually, so it's
quite a long way from where Icurrently are.
But the epiphany for me was whensomebody actually a colleague
asked me why it was that she rantraining programs that didn't
(03:18):
transfer into the workplace, andcould I have a look and tell me
what was going wrong inpeople's brains so that she
could make it better?
So I went away and had to thinkabout learning and memory and
how it transfers, and I came upwith some ideas, because I'm not
that's not my area of expertise.
I took it to a colleague ofmine and said this is what I'm
thinking of saying about memoryand learning, what do you think?
(03:40):
And he looked at it and saideverything you say is correct,
but I would never have thoughtof the applications.
And for me that was the momentof thinking oh, my goodness,
there's all this stuff that'ssitting in neuroscience and
psychology that's not actuallybeing transferred and being used
usefully, and that's where Istarted my journey into doing
(04:04):
properly applied neuroscience.
So, and I spent the last 15 ormore years just thinking about
how can we get this the mostrecent research and transfer it
translated into something thatpeople can apply immediately in
their own lives.
It's not about teaching peopleneuroscience.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It's helping people to apply neuroscience yeah, and
that that's one of the greatthings that I learned from you,
and you've got a professorshiptoday, don't you?
In applied neuroscience?
At which university again?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
um at reading, but the when you get to be a
professor, you get to choosewhat your title is, and the
title I mean what I do isneuroscience, but actually what
I'm more interested in isapplication, which is where the
applied neuroscience title camefrom.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, that's probably a great segue into your
background, Ian.
I've got several of your booksfrom your NLP days here.
Perhaps you can take us throughthat journey.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Oh dear, yes, it really started a long, long time
ago.
My hair was a different colorat the time, but there you go.
Time moves on, and whathappened was originally when I
was working with clients, be ittheir individuals, families,
couples, teams.
I was interested in what worked, and that's how I ever became
(05:28):
familiar with what was known asNLP neurolinguistic programming
simply because it was lookingfor different ways of engaging
with different kinds of peopleusing different models, rather
than saying there is one way andthis is it.
And that gave rise to a kind offascination with what really
works.
And so, in my own career, Ifounded an organization which
(05:50):
was dedicated to putting it outthere, making it available to
anybody who wanted to havepractical how-tos, and the
result of that was, I felt, bothdemocratizing and demystifying,
because people began to knowwhat they could do and how they
could do it.
And guess what?
You know, success results.
(06:11):
Now, does that mean everybodyends up as Mozart?
No, it doesn't.
But can we go towards a greatercapacity that we already have
inherently?
Yes, we can, and so you know.
The years went on and thatflourished and that indeed, it's
still going.
But I was also aware that therewas this tsunami of research
(06:33):
that was coming out of the fieldof neuroscience, and I also
knew that I'm not aneuroscientist and I'm not going
to start making grand claimsthat, yes, neuroscience tells us
, tells us this, that and theother.
But I did think it would bereally remarkable if I could
demonstrate what was oftenreferred to as the magic of NLP,
(06:54):
had research backing, and Iendeavored to find some
neuroscientists who wereinterested in exploring this,
and I had a number of goes notvery satisfactory.
And then, by more luck thananything, trish and I met and it
was like boom immediately,because we both had the same
(07:20):
interest, which was this is allfine and dandy, but how do you
apply it?
And if you've got just vastamounts of research being
generated, if the researcherslove doing research, fair enough
, but that means nobody'sactually taking it out there and
saying, ah, yes, if you were totry it this way, you might get
(07:42):
a better result.
And so it was just a remarkablekind of exploration that then
began, and the first thing wehad to do was recognize ah,
these are different backgrounds.
My background originally waspsychotherapy.
So you're finding a commonlanguage in how we're going to
(08:02):
explore things and how can wetest them to see is that
actually practically useful forpeople to learn?
And so began the journey westarted.
We were thinking about this theother day.
I think it was like 15 yearsago.
For the last 10 plus yearswe've been running a program
(08:26):
called Applied Neurosciencebecause we wanted to make it
bite-sized chunks so peoplecould understand.
And here we go again todemystify and democratize it,
and so that has continued.
We've refined it over the yearsand the net result is we got to
a point of saying I think wecould legitimately make a
(08:49):
contribution now to theliterature, but maybe we'll talk
about that in a while.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah.
So I just can say for thebenefit of the listeners that I
can attest to the chemistry, yes, and I can also really endorse
the program because of what yousaid.
It's quite remarkable how manyopportunities there are to talk
(09:17):
about the brain and talk aboutwhat's going on for people in
just ordinary layman's terms,without getting too technical
well, I probably couldn'tactually get too technical, but
sometimes just to be able to tofirst notice for yourself right,
it's the self-awareness bitthat really you start to go,
okay, I wonder what's going onfor me today, etc.
(09:38):
Etc.
And then being able to alsostart to notice how people are
maybe processing a situation andgo doesn't seem to be the most
useful state that they're in atthe moment.
Maybe we need to talk aboutsomething else or reframe or
whatever so there's a whole lotof beautiful stuff that comes
out of that and I personallyfound I do quite some training.
(09:59):
Sometimes I've been asked to doa few little formal things
around the neuroscience in in.
You might be asked to do alittle thing on conscious bias
or something.
We've used a lot of Canmanstuff in decision-making courses
, but it's not even just doingit formally, it's just that
ability to have a chat about itwith people and have people go.
Oh wow, I never thought of itthat way.
(10:21):
And that's the beauty of this,I think and your course is so
good at it because it's notacademic Trish you give us a
little bit, but then you send usoff to find out how it works
and we had to do some.
Incredibly, I would call heavylifting to actually you didn't
say go away now and we'll seeyou in a couple of weeks again.
(10:42):
You went away and said go awayand go off and do something and
come back and show us what youdid.
And we were able to to learnnot just from you guys, but we
also learned from each other alot as well.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So I can endorse that a lot that's good to hear
actually a student speaks.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yes, I stay in touch with other people who've done
the course and they're all Imean mean they're pretty
enthusiastic about it.
So we'll get to some of that alittle bit towards the end,
because you might have somethingto say about it towards the end
.
But let's just get into thewhole idea of where neuroscience
fits into leadership andparticularly coaching.
(11:20):
I mean, patricia, you co-wrotea book a few years ago which I
have behind me here on theneuroscience of leadership
coaching.
I mean, ian, I don't know, Icouldn't even count take four or
five hands to count the numberof books that you've put out on
NLP.
But when we get into, how doyou both see neuroscience
enhancing coaching andleadership development and what
(11:41):
does the integration ofneuroscience offer that
traditional leadershipapproaches might be missing?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Oh, I think a neuroscientist should speak to
this first.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
On Leading People.
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(12:15):
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Speaker 3 (12:28):
So I think there's a number of ways that you can come
at this, jerry, and the firstthing I would say is that often
it's about really legitimizingwhat people already know is
working.
You know, I'm doing this thing,I don't know why it works, but
it seems to work and often justgiving people a better
(12:48):
understanding of what might bechanging in the brain as they're
trying these, these techniques,gives them a confidence and a
credibility in what they'redoing.
So I think I would start withsaying it's not about completely
reinventing either coaching orleadership.
But the other thing I would sayis that the brain doesn't
(13:09):
always do what the laypersonthinks it might be doing, and
those areas where it's doingsomething that's unintuitive
often mean that we're tryingthings one way because we think
that's the way the brain works.
But when you stop and say topeople you know, hold on a
minute, that's not actually howit's doing it, it's doing it
this way instead, it can reallykind of change people in
(13:31):
thinking oh right, okay, well,if that's the way my brain's
working, then it's worth metrying something different.
And absolutely in bothleadership and in coaching, I
think the main thing that theneuroscience and access to
better understanding of thebrain can do is increases your
(13:51):
choice.
I have so many more ways that Ican think about things because
I understand how my brain isworking and it increases
compassion, and compassion forself first, also compassion for
others, or if that's the waytheir brain's working, then I
shouldn't be surprised that thisis a response I'm getting now.
(14:12):
How, how might I help them todo something different that
would be better for them andprobably better for me in the
long run too.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I guess, ian, this notion of choice is very has
been very prominent in the worldof NLP over the years, and
being able to have choice andcreate choices and expand our
models of the world, and what'syour experience of this?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Because you do a lot of coaching at choice is in
itself, a significant thoughtshift for many people.
What does it mean to be atchoice?
You mean, for example, workingwith somebody very recently who
has a big challenge coming up.
(15:02):
My question was simply so, ifyou're going to be at your best,
how do you get to be at yourbest in preparing?
It's a very simple propositionthe idea that if it's going to
be challenging, I think I'd liketo be firing on all cylinders
when the occasion arises.
But the how-tos, those aresomething which neuroscience can
(15:26):
actually help us sayspecifically what will assist
and what will actually get inthe way.
But I think that there are someradical opportunities here
which and I'll do this as thenon-neuroscientist which are
really fundamental forunderstanding if you're a leader
(15:49):
, and one of these is that yourunderstanding of the brain,
which may be something you don'tspend a lot of time thinking
about, it's just like, well,yeah, everybody's got one, I
wish I'd use it and something,but actually the understanding
is frequently extraordinarilyout of date.
I know this because of ourinitial time together.
(16:15):
I actually asked Trish becauseshe's in a field that was not my
field.
Necessarily lay understandinglags behind specialist research,
so I'd expect there to be sometime lag, and I said to her what
would you say in terms of layunderstanding of the brain
versus current understanding,what's the time like?
(16:36):
And at the time, the firstthing she said was 20 to 30
years and I thought, good God,this is like.
I mean, basically it'sextraordinary.
But okay, then there's a lot ofreason for doing what we're
about to start doing.
However, the kicker was thatshe came back to me some days
(17:00):
later.
In fact, you should say thisTrish, what did you say?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well, at that point some of the models are 50 years
out of date.
Now make that 60 to 65 yearsout of date.
So I'm still hearing stuffbeing said that is 65 years old.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
I'm a very left-brain person.
Oh yes, I'm sure hearing stuffbeing said that is 65 years old.
I'm a very left-brain person ohyes, I'm sure you are.
What are we talking about here?
We're not talking aboutanything of any real.
It's not real.
But the reason why this mattersin this context, to answer your
question, Jerry is theperceptions that people have
shape their understanding ofwhat is possible, and therefore,
(17:41):
if you are talking about yourown development, you know what's
possible for you.
Well, it's all downhill after25, isn't it?
Or whatever nonsense you have,then that's not helpful, but
it's far more pernicious thanthat, because if you're in any
leadership role, these are theassumptions you're bringing to
the development potential ofentire teams of people.
(18:04):
You know you can write off alot of people through ignorance,
and so one of the things for uswas well, what would this mean
if you started to understand?
Let's take one fundamentalconcept, which is possibly like
the beginning neuroplasticity.
What does that do?
If you understand somethingabout that and again, I'm going
(18:26):
to keep my mouth shut for amoment and trish neuroplasticity
, I mean, who cares before?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
you answer the neuroplasticity, because that's,
that's a, that's a brillianttopic in itself.
Um, what always occurs to me isum because I sometimes joke in
my own little way in the roomwhat prevents this being taught
to children and adolescentsabout?
You know?
What prevents?
Just talk, because it seems tome like having a manual for this
(19:01):
part of you know, our anatomy,which tends to have a big
influence, would be such anobvious thing to have, not at
the very site, technical stuffalthough when they get to
biology and stuff like that andchemistry, maybe you can start
to sprinkle a bit moretechnically but what stops the
education system just teachingyoung kids this?
Because think of it, if theyembed that early on and they
(19:24):
just build on that, it would bebeautiful.
I wish I learned it when I wasa kid, so without going too deep
into it and turning it into arabbit hole.
What's the?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
what's the kind of jerry I'm I'm just so struck at
how trish and I are both sort ofchamping at the bit here well,
I completely agree with you 100,and it's a passion of mine to
see if we can get this intoschools as well.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Um, and I actually um , we've been running some
seminars for teachers, and everyteacher that we give this
information to says why didn'twe learn this in teaching
college?
So there's one way that youcould do it.
You could get it to be part ofthe teacher's vocabulary and
that way it gets immediatelyinto schools.
There are schools that aretaking this on board and doing
(20:13):
it.
So it will happen.
It is just a very slow burn,okay.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
My rather flip answer to your question why is?
Why isn't this being taught inschools?
Well, that's down to adults.
I mean, that's the short answer.
And why?
Why is that significant?
Because if you start talking tokids about you know, whatever
the topic may be, uh, there'ssomething to do with the brain.
(20:41):
If you keep it just asstraightforward, principles of
what that makes possible, orsome things are difficult, and
the more difficult because youimmediately have identification
and children are fantasticallyadept at going oh right, right,
yeah no problem.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
For example, I was talking to my eight-year-old
granddaughter and she was doingsome maths homework and I was
teaching her.
When you learn, you get newconnections in your brain.
They're called synapses.
So if you're doing your mathshomework, you're getting new
synapses.
And she just sat there and shewas sitting doing stuff and she
looked up at me and she said amI getting new synapses?
And she just sat there and shewas sitting doing stuff and she
looked up at me and she said amI getting new?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
synapses now, and what was the conversation like
in the playground the next day?
How many new synapses did youget last night?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
yeah, even the questions that get asked change,
and what's so fascinating andthis is why it really matters to
us is you're changing theterrain of expectations, and
that then means that I'm notvery good at whatever the topic
(21:49):
is.
You know, fill in the blank.
No, not at the moment.
Maybe you're not, but that'snot, you know, inherent Would
you like to be.
And so if you, if you have anyinterest in growth mindset, for
example, which you know youcould have heard of without any
neuroscience at all my god,there's so much neuroscience to
support why bother with growthmindset?
(22:12):
Because you're opening up aworld of possibilities for
anyone, at any age, any age.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So let's now get to the neuroplasticity, and I want
to take a few seconds just toshare a personal experience with
this, which was at the end of2018, my father had a stroke and
you know he was lucky theycalled it just in time, but he
had quite some days in intensivecare.
But I was at home with him alittle while after he came out
(22:41):
of hospital.
He was putting little beadsinto little buckets or things
and it was very frustrating.
My father did manual work allhis life, so it was very
frustrating for him to do thisand he was cursing and swearing
and I said to him do you knowwhy you're doing it?
He said the physio told me to.
I said well, actually, you'reprobably trying to teach your
(23:02):
brain that there might beanother way to do the things.
It's not maybe guaranteed, butyou're doing something to try
and change your brain here, notbecause the physio told you yes,
the physio told you, but Ithink there was another reason
beneath that but explain to mylisteners the power and the
value of understandingneuroplasticity you're listening
(23:32):
to leading people.
With me, jerry mur.
My guests today are Professorof Applied Neuroscience,
Patricia Riddle, and ExecutiveCoach and Leading Author, Ian
McDermott.
Coming up next, Patricia andIan unpack how your brain
balances tasks and relationships, what really happens when
(23:53):
leaders create choice, empathyand compassion, and why state
management is key tohigh-performance leadership.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Stay with us.
There's so much more to explore.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh, my goodness, where do you start with that?
So I think one of the biggestthings for me is to have a
better understanding ofpotential and to destroy the
myth that, as Ian says, it'sdownhill after a certain age.
If we understand the degree towhich we can sculpt our brains
(24:31):
at any age, then that's a greatthing to be able to think.
What does that mean?
Is possible for me?
What does that give me that Ididn't have in terms of belief,
and you know so.
For instance, one of the thingsthat we often share with people
(24:54):
is the London Taxi Driver Study,and many people have heard
about this study.
You know the idea that you canactually see that the part of
the brain increases in size whenyou learn a spatiotemporal map
of London.
Well, that's a big bit oflearning to do, but the the most
important element of that and Ithink it's one that's not often
(25:16):
stressed is that the peoplewere doing the learning in their
30s, 40s, 50s and even 60s, andage didn't make a difference to
the degree to which thehippocampus grew.
It was about the experiencesthat they were giving themselves
and taking on.
That was the thing that madethe difference.
So learning is possible at anyage, if you have the right
(25:39):
motivation and the right kind ofbelief in what you can do.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And in my work I come across a lot of people in HR
asking we need to establish aperson's potential right, and
yet a lot of it is is like thisyou know, like a finger in the
air, and they've got nine boxeswhich weren't even intended for
that.
They were intended to evaluatebusiness portfolios and they say
, ok, what's their performancelike?
(26:03):
And you know what's their.
And they put people in theseboxes.
And yet if they understood whatyou're talking about, trish,
they'd probably really wanted tolook at that aspect.
And what opportunities arepeople having to to to learn new
things?
What are the assumptions aboutthese things in the organization
?
You know, is there anassumption that you get to vp
(26:25):
and then you don't go totrainings anymore because you've
made it and stuff like that?
You know so, um, but thatnicely segues, I think, into the
, this concept you have createdcalled neuro effective
leadership, leadership, and ofcourse, with my own little
linguistic background, I goneuro, okay, brain effective oh,
wow, that's an interesting wordleadership.
(26:47):
So, as far as I've heard,you're co-authoring this book,
and the questions I would haveto get started on it is who's
the book for, what isneuro-effective leadership and
what's the kind of core messageyou want people to get when they
read this book.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Oh, can I kick off Trish?
Yes, any and all of those.
Great place to start.
So here's the background, whichI think probably puts it in
context.
As we've developed the, thetrainings which take the
(27:26):
neuroscience and give practicaltools that are how-tos that
people can learn and take awayand use, we got to a point where
we felt that we could codifythis in written form for people
who may not be able to come to atrain, and one of the really
fascinating questions of what wewould put in such a book was
(27:48):
it's got to be effective,otherwise it doesn't merit
inclusion.
What we're interested in, andhave been from the outset, is
just that does it deliversomething which is a practical
benefit that's going to bevalued to an individual, to a
team, to an organizationpreferably all three and if so,
(28:08):
we have a very simple questionwe can ask is the current way of
doing something effective froma neurological point of view?
And if we, you know, abbreviatethat to, is it neuro effective?
We have a question which is anexcellent discipline for keeping
us on track about what can wesay that we know we can now
(28:28):
offer because it's been triedand tested, and that's what the
book focuses on.
We can see many, manyapplications in different areas,
but we still start from thatplace of well, does it work?
What am I going to get and howcan I use it?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
that's the short answer and I believe there's a
subtitle is there leadingyourself and others?
Is that right?
Because actually this podcast,the tagline on this podcast, is
how to bring out the best inyourself and others.
That's what leading people, myconcept of this was.
You know, you have to startwith yourself.
So how does that then frame theneuro effectiveness?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, the reason it's the subtitle is because there's
two, two volumes, potentiallythe neuroscience of, you know,
the neuroaffective um leadershipof self and others.
We're talking about techniquesthat are important both for
(29:34):
increasing self-awarenessbecause if you're not aware of
how you're doing things, thenit's hard to help people to
trust people a bit more, tobuild empathy with others all
(30:04):
those sorts of things that areabout relationships between self
and others and then thinkingabout it too in terms of mental
health and well-being.
How do I maintain a healthyexistence while also being in
the leadership position, becauseso many leaders nowadays seem
to be suffering from overwhelm.
(30:26):
So how do we help them to buildbetter resilience for
themselves and others too.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So I have a question, then, because I'm sure, if I
was putting myself in the shoesof my listeners at the moment,
they're probably gagging forsome sort of practical examples.
What would be a simpletechnique that you could share,
that because, because of thetype of work you've been doing
and where you come across whereone, one or two simple things
that people may not be aware of,but when you, when you
(30:53):
basically say what about this ordo this, what would be one or
two things that you could sharewith our, the listeners there,
that they could even start toexplore during whilst they keep
listening to this?
Speaker 3 (31:06):
so one thing that we found that's really really
powerful is again is this new oris this empathy?
But empathy comes in two types.
So there's empathic concern Ifeel what you feel and there's
empathic understanding Iunderstand how you feel, but I
(31:27):
don't need to feel it with youand we know that, under empathic
understanding, that morecognitive level of understanding
others is linked to compassionand wanting to help people who
are in difficult situations.
(31:47):
Um, so there's a really simplething that you can do, I mean,
apart from making sure that youput yourself in other people's
shoes and take the time to do it, because it's not we think of
of empathy as maybe a soft skill, but it's not.
It's a hard skill.
It's hard in that if you'retaking the time to actually
imagine what it might be likefor somebody else, then that
(32:07):
takes a lot of cognitiveprocessing.
So it's not just I feel like it, it's I can really imagine it
and understand it, but usingthat to create better
relationships, we can talk aboutempathy.
How do I empathize with somebodyand then add the?
And this is what we'll do withit?
So I agree with you on this.
(32:30):
I'm demonstrating empathybecause I've listened to you.
I'm repeating back somethingthat's important to you.
We're in, in agreement aboutthat, and here's what we'll do.
Or I'm in agreement with youand I'm empathizing with you,
but here's the reason that wecan't do what you've asked and
that empathy with a response.
(32:50):
I was talking to somebody thathad been in a course recently
and they just said it's a gamechanger, just always starting
with empathy and then, and thenyou know, decide not giving a
really clear reason for what you, what's going to happen next,
can just take the you know thethe heat out of a conversation,
(33:13):
a difficult conversation ofcourse on an NLP level, you you
kind of have to suspend yourassumptions and your mind
reading to be able to do empathy, Would that not be?
Speaker 4 (33:33):
If I may, let me interview you on your own
podcast for a moment, justbecause there you are.
You know you're somebody whotook the program.
What have you used?
What have been particularly?
Oh yeah, I don't know, I usethat many times.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, some free coaching, Ian.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Is that what you're saying?
No, I'm just interested in thequestion you ask.
There is an experience you'vehad and you may have taken
things away and, you know, foundwell.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I quite often refer to that bit of the program as
opposed to any other bit of it,you know, because it's like
certain things resonate atcertain times with people yeah,
honestly, um, the, the, Isuppose one of the first things
that, um, I've always been,let's say, very interested,
(34:28):
since my nlp days, in thisconcept of managing your state.
You know, if you're not in this, it's this idea, like, would
you ask the ceo, how do youbecome the best version of
yourself?
And I've been a performingmusician all my life and I've
had to walk out on stages to upto 10,000 people.
Maybe the next gig's 40 people.
The 40 people is more scarybecause you can see them all.
(34:50):
And I guess it's kind of beingaware of what's going on within
my own neurology andexperimenting with, for example,
mindfulness.
I found that very, very usefulfor me.
Now I know that for some peopleit doesn't work in the way of
(35:13):
just that silence and self-aware.
I find that a fascinating thingand we know that that helps us
understand what's going on, uh,not just at that amygdala level,
but maybe on the, that wholeventrum striator rewards part of
the brain that that might alsobe a bit over overstimulated at
times.
And I, and I found that and Iuse that, for example, in
(35:35):
virtually every training courseI do, or team building or
anything, and I've had peoplesay to me do we have to do this
couple of minutes?
I said no, you see, because ifI give you some time and space,
it's quite likely your brain'sgoing to start arranging things
for you.
(35:55):
You never know.
And I'll give you an example,ian, of working with a client
not long after I did the course,and it was interesting.
It was a small business with acouple of the partners who owned
it, in the room with theseyounger people, and I said to
them so in the afternoon,roughly what time do you take a
break?
And they looked at me like well, they looked at the partners
(36:16):
first and then they looked at melike well, they looked at the
partners first and then theylooked at me.
Like I said maybe 3, 30, 4o'clock, and the partner one of
the partners said oh, you don'tunderstand.
She said if we start takingbreaks at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon, we could be in theoffice till 8 o'clock.
I said if you took a break at 4o'clock for maybe 20 minutes,
you could be home at six.
And it was that.
(36:37):
And they said what?
Because you, probably, you know,if you're your brain trying to
make so many decisions, you knowyou, you know you, maybe you're
getting stressed, you need tomaybe be able to remove yourself
.
So I just find it's just.
There's always like I teachnegotiation skills.
You know, I, I, I, I have somevideos to show what happens if
(36:59):
you get provoked.
Doesn't matter how clever youare at doing the deals and
you're stacking up stuff, ifyou're not able to to manage
yourself in those situations andyou might get provoked and
everything you, you can actuallynot be as effective as you
thought you would be.
That that's kind of that's just.
There's just a couple ofsmatterings of things that come
(37:19):
along when my kids are studying.
One of my daughters getsstressed out for exams and and
then she gets into that cyclewhere she can't then rationalize
things and then she gets moreupset and then.
So we try to get her out andmaybe get her for a walk or
something, try to get her to, to, to rest the brain a little bit
and reframe the situation, dosomething different with her
(37:41):
physiology.
But I don't know if thatanswers your question, but
that's yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Well, I think it does point in a direction of certain
things get to be moresignificant, and you know it's
going to vary person to person.
So one of the things that hasbeen important for us is just
being able to think it throughto get it as clear as possible.
So, in writing the book, we'vegot chapters that focus on very
(38:07):
particular things like what isit to develop an achieving
mindset, how would you knowyourself better, and so forth.
But also part one that would bein part two is very much about
leadership in teams.
You know, how are you going tobe able to, for example, use
neuroscience to promotepsychological safety?
(38:28):
There are things you can do.
They make a difference.
Now we could go into you knoweach of these, but one of the
things that we've done is wewanted to give ourselves the
discipline of how clear can webe?
So at the end of every chapterwe've got what have we learned
so far?
And then, how are you going toapply it for yourself?
(38:48):
That's personal andprofessionally, suggestions, and
in that way we hope to be ableto give people very practical
suggestions as to what theycould have a look at, what they
might want to take a bit of timeto investigate and how they
could get to know members ofteams, if they're in that
situation, rather better anddraw out more of the potential
(39:12):
that's there.
Because, to go back to your HRpoint, you know I think it's
really tough if you don't have away of determining, well, what
could the potential even be?
Here we're using certain kindsof distinctions which were never
necessarily designed toascertain that.
(39:32):
And well, you know you make thebest of what you got and well
you know you make the best ofwhat you've got.
But if you start from anunderstanding that, my golly,
this person, their brain, is insome ways rather like a muscle,
if you use it you get a lot of areturn, otherwise you lose a
lot, there you go, and it'sactually true, it's not just a
(39:55):
metaphor.
So could we begin to understandthat we have an extraordinary
amount to get curious about?
And that allows us to alsothink about what is it?
I'd really like to be doingthat I don't do.
Why might that be worth doing?
Because it will befantastically stimulating the
brain development by back to toTrish's granddaughter.
(40:18):
Oh, new neural connections, oh,new neurons.
Oh, it's there for everybody.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
One of the things that I notice is this tendency
and I think this goes back toyour earlier discussion about
how out of date ourunderstanding of the brain is.
But there are models out therein the business world and I
mentioned this one before wecame on but I'd like you to
maybe talk a bit about it.
Trish, is this contingencytheory thing where you know task
versus relationship and youknow, you know you have to be
(40:48):
able to navigate, you knowthere's a you draw one on on the
x-axis and the other on they-axis and then everybody should
be able to just jump into thattop box.
And when I sat, you explainedthis and you sort of and I'll
let you explain it that it'smaybe not as easy as people
would think.
When you just look at a diagramin terms of how people are
(41:08):
somewhat wired towards apropensity to one or the other
as their natural preference, itdoesn't mean they can't do the
other, isn't that right?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
So this is one of the places where the brain does
something very unintuitive, andit's lovely you start with this
idea that leaders should bereally good people, people,
people, um.
But they should also be good atgetting the job done and the
the way that the brain works isthat it brings together the, the
(41:41):
areas of the brain that itneeds to fulfill a particular
goal, and the areas that youneed to fulfill a task are very
different from the areas thatyou would need if you're going
to think about others, butyou're going to be.
You know, think think about, um, how I get my team to be doing
their best, and you know thatkind of is obvious that you've
(42:03):
got different, differentnetworks that do those two types
of of job.
The thing that's slightly lessintuitive is that when one of
those networks is operating, theother one is turned off, so you
can only do them one at a time.
You can't do themsimultaneously.
And if you're in an organizationand I'm just reflecting on your
(42:24):
organization where they'resaying, well, if we take a break
at half past four, then wewon't get home till eight, it
sounds as if and we hear this inmany organizations it's task,
task, task, task, task all day.
So you're going to be reallygreat at refining that network
and making it work really welljust because of the experience
you're having, but at theexpense of the one that you're
(42:45):
inhibiting.
You will become less good atbeing a people person.
So how do you balance those twonetworks so that you're
actually able to use botheffectively?
And this is where taking timecomes in, because your brain,
while it can't use them bothsimultaneously, can use them
sequentially if you give itsufficient time and space to
(43:06):
think that's a beautiful summary.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I hope our listeners are fantastically curious now
about how to do that, and andit'll be revealed in the book, I
guess.
Um, there's another, anotherthing that, and we're not too
far away from the end.
But there's another burningtopic at the moment and and in
the times we live in, and thisis whole idea of uncertainty and
rapid change, and, um, how canleaders apply principles from
(43:33):
neuroscience and nlp toadaptable manage stress and help
their teams navigateuncertainty more effectively?
Maybe, trish, you'd like toexplain what uncertainty does to
the brain?
To get started on this.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Okay.
So there's a very wide range ofindividual differences in our
tolerance of uncertainty, andsome people are almost enjoy
situations that are uncertainand put themselves in new
situations, often because theythey um, get a bit of a buzz out
of that.
Other people are very much.
(44:08):
I like everything to befamiliar.
I don't like uncertain.
It's not.
It makes me uncomfortable, andso, first of all, it will will
depend on where on that spectrumpeople sit.
But if you're intolerant ofuncertainty, if uncertainty
bothers you, then that can be aprecursor to anxiety and the
(44:32):
anxious mind is not functioningat its best.
Stop people.
We can't change.
Well, you can, but it's betterfor leaders to recognize that
they're going to have a range oftolerance to uncertainty within
their team.
How do I, as a leader, dealwith that?
I give people as much certaintyas I can.
I give them.
You know, if I'm describing anew task, I tell them what I
(44:54):
know, what they need to know,what to know, how I want them to
work together.
Anything that you can do toincrease certainty is going to
reduce the intolerance ofuncertainty for that job.
So it's a really basicprinciple of leadership that you
should provide as muchinformation as you can, and that
will include saying and here'sthe things that I'm uncertain
(45:17):
about, because if you'reuncertain about it too, then I
don't need to be so worried thatI'm uncertain about it.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, because that gives certainty that you're
uncertain.
Basically, and the concept ofallostatic load.
You know, it often occurs to methat if a boss has a massive
bandwidth then some of theirpeople don't with and some of
their people don't.
There could be terriblemismatching and
misunderstandings going on interms of the stress and ability
to handle a lot of ambiguity,complexity, etc.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Exactly.
I mean, I think of stress ascoming into a bucket, and the
bucket has lots of differentplaces where stress is added.
So it can be added at the work,it can be added at home, it can
be added through your friendsand family, it can be added
through things that you're doingoutside of all of that, and at
work you tend to only see thestress that's added from the
(46:07):
workplace, so you don't knowwhat else is in the bucket.
So leaders have to be reallycareful that they're not just A
imagining that everybody has thesame size bucket.
They don't.
B that they all have similarways of emptying the bucket,
because as the stress comes inyou need the ways of releasing
the stress.
Different people do that lesswell.
(46:27):
And.
C that the sources of stressare wide-ranging and come from
outside world too.
So not everybody is going to beable to do what somebody who
finds that they thrive on stresscan do.
You need to kind of figure outwhat people's particular
tolerance of stress might be.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
And Ian in your conversations with a lot of
leaders.
What are you hearing about thiswhole uncertainty and change
and stress?
Speaker 4 (46:58):
I had a very interesting conversation very
recently with a leader, uh, whohad had the experience of his
business going intoadministration, um, quite a few
years ago now, and the businesscame back and it was it's
thriving, and now it's a reallytough time, it's expanding.
(47:18):
And he was having the same kindof feelings as then and it was
it's thriving, and now it's areally tough time, it's
expanding.
And he was having the same kindof feelings as then.
And I was saying no, no, no you, this is not the same
experience.
He'd already told me it wasn'tthe same experience.
He said, um, this is unchartedterritory.
So it's like, oh, you haven'tbeen here before, but you're
(47:38):
having the same kind of anxietythat you had associated with a
different experience many moonsago.
So it's really important tounderstand that I may be having
a certain kind of anxiety, butis this the same kind of
experience or am I just failingto make a sufficient distinction
between what was then and whatwas current?
(47:59):
Now?
And very often we are in asituation where the kind of fast
thinking is such that the braingoes, ah, this is like that,
and suddenly the past is runningthe present, but actually the
present is different.
What?
(48:20):
What was then was pretty scary.
This could be scary, but it'sin an entirely different way,
and have you noticed thedifference of being able to make
those distinctions is going tobe critical.
Uncertainty comes in many forms.
One of the things that's reallystriking to me is how sometimes
(48:40):
there can be great relief insomebody telling you that
there's so much that is unknownbut you'll know when.
I know good leaders do that,but.
But that can also take the formof uh.
The I suppose, extreme exampleis is churchill, when he became
Prime Minister, addressing theHouse of Commons very early on
(49:01):
in the Second World War.
He becomes Prime Minister andhe says I have nothing to offer
you but blood, toil, sweat andtears.
And the entire House of Commonsbreathes a sigh of relief.
Okay, now we know where westand.
Do we want to play Actually?
(49:22):
Yes, yes, we do.
Now let's get on with it.
So there is something aboutjust telling it like it is can
be enormously relieving forpeople and that makes a
difference, and a leader who hasthe courage to do that has a
profound impact on others.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
And it wouldn't be surprising, given the brain's
tendency to sort of take theseshortcuts, that the person that
you're talking about would seethings as the same.
It might be just the braintrying to be efficient, because
it kind of goes well, I see thefamiliarity, and just being
efficient as a brain saying youknow it must be the same and
(50:00):
maybe that's another aspect ofbeing aware of how your brain is
processing a situation isuseful.
I have a quick question for youhere Will you be offering any
courses or training inneuro-effective leadership?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Well, in a funny sort of way, we already do once a
year.
Well, in a funny sort of way,we already do once a year.
Mid-march is usually the timeof year.
We run the SuppliedNeuroscience Program, which is a
10-day program, but not all inone big chunk.
We deliberately want it inweekend segments, two days each
over five months, and in thatprogram we start to explore how
(50:39):
can you be neuro-effective, sothat it will complement the book
rather nicely.
Will we be offering additionalprograms which give a taste of a
particular application?
Absolutely, and indeed wealready do.
Sometimes we just like to getit out there and we'll do
freebies.
We did one recently onrumination which was kind of
fascinating, and that's coveredin the neuroaffective book as
(51:01):
well.
So yes, and if anybody'sinterested, I think, just be in
touch with us through ourLinkedIn addresses.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Okay, so, coming to the end, and this is just some
final thoughts, so for leadersmaybe especially young or even
emerging leaders understandinghow their brains work for and
against them could be a realgame changer.
For leaders, and, based on yourresearch and experience, what
are the most important thingsleaders need to know about their
(51:31):
brains?
If there's one key takeawaythat each of you would like to
leave us with from your work,that you'd like the audience,
the listeners, to remember, whatwould that one thing be?
Do you want to go first Chris.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Oh, for me it would be neuroplasticity, because if
you understand that the brainhas this extraordinary just like
plasticine, it's malleable, ithas the ability to adapt
continually and is designed todo so.
It makes sense that a lot ofpeople are actually kind of
(52:06):
understimulated, which doesn'tmean they should be subjecting
themselves to pulsing lights andthrobbing speakers.
It's more just.
Is there enough in your life tostimulate you and to keep it
interesting?
Are you doing what you love?
All of that will befantastically growth-promoting,
literally in your brain, andsky's the limit.
(52:30):
How would you like to be?
Well then, get curious aboutwhat would help you move in that
direction.
What would help you move inthat?
Speaker 3 (52:38):
direction.
And I think if I was to chooseone thing, it would be that not
to be afraid of listening toyour emotions, because they're
giving you such a wide-rangingaccess to information, not only
about how you feel, but oftenemotions arise because of
(52:58):
contagion with others.
So if you can catch an emotionand think where did that come
from, it can give you a realsensitivity to something that's
changed in the room and thatwill actually allow you to think
about not only why am I feelinglike that, but is there
somebody in the room that'sfeeling like that and how might
I then want to do somethingabout that?
(53:18):
And here now we start talkingabout real leadership leadership
of self and leadership ofothers.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Leadership is like charity it begins at home.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
We could spend a whole other podcast just talking
about the contagion effect,which we won't for today.
We'll invite you back on later.
How do people get in touch withyou and do you have anything
special you'd like to offer them?
Speaker 4 (53:41):
yes, I think what we'd like to offer them is the
opportunity to to participate in, let's say, the annual program.
Please be in touch and we'llfind a special for you.
Everybody loves a special, sowe'd definitely be able to do
that.
How to be in touch?
Be in touch on LinkedIn,probably the easiest way.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
And just to say that the book is out.
It's published with Rutledgeand it will be out in June and
people can pre-register in Mayon the Rutledge site.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Great, so thanks, trish and Ian, for sharing your
insights, tips and wisdom withme and my listeners here today.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
It's been a pleasure.
I feel like we're only justbeginning, exactly.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Great fun.
Thank you for inviting us.
Thank you, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
And if that's the case, then how well suited are
our organizations or our leadersfor that new way of dealing
with uncertainty?
And what I kept found andcontinue to find all around me
is they are very, very, verypoorly equipped to do so.
We are still hanging on to thenotion that forecasts can be
(55:00):
reliable.
We still imagine that we canplan three, five years ahead and
in many, many areas, we'restill extremely poor at
innovating or innovation as acontinuous process within any
kind of organization.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Next time on Leading People.
We welcome Margaret Heffernan,acclaimed thinker, author and
speaker, to explore howembracing uncertainty is the key
to unlocking creativity,innovation and resilience in
leadership.
We've just spent time in thisepisode discussing how your
brain deals with uncertainty,but what happens when leaders
(55:47):
and organizations try toeliminate uncertainty altogether
?
Margaret argues that thispursuit of certainty is an
illusion and that realleadership comes from learning
to thrive in the unknown.
So if today's conversationsparked your curiosity, you
won't want to miss this nextepisode.
And remember, before our nextfull episode, there's another
(56:11):
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you A quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast.
Until next time.
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