More and more of todays work is powered by teams. In fact, according to research from Ken Blanchard Companies, nearly 90 percent of todays workers say that they spend a third to half of each day working in teams. Yet other research finds that 86 percent of employees and executives cite lack of effective teamwork and collaboration as the source of workplace failures. Add the challenge of remote teams and cross-cultural communication, and its no surprise that teams can make or break the competitive advantage of any organization.

Recent discoveries in neuroscience illuminate how we can build better and more effective teams. But in many cases, we are working against our biology and inadvertently setting teams up to fail, rather than harnessing the synergistic potential that exists.

Our brains are wired for connection, helping us create meaningful bonds and distinguish friend from foe. But how we build and manage teams can activate those brain structures for either trust and collaboration or conflict and competition.

While technology makes it possible for us to work with others through a video screen or phone, our brains were built for in-person interactions. Our brain reads meaning and intent in others through micromuscular changes in the face as well as body language and pheromone signals. Much of this information is lost when we are not in person, and even video loses the third dimension that can make the difference for accurately reading anothers meaning. When teams are in the early trust-building stage of their time together, prioritize in-person connections. If you cant, then you need to counterbalance with more frequent and in-depth interactions.

Leading a team requires both emotional intelligence and the ability to bring out the best in a group of others. Yet most team leaders are selected based on their successes as individual contributors, something that might actually harm the growth of the team if they don't know how to shift from performer to facilitator. Instead, look for the people who are already natural facilitators and amp up their team-leading abilities through training and coaching.

Study after study has shown that psychological safety is the key differentiator for thriving teams. Harvard Professor Amy Edmundson defines it as a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves. Thats a tall order and all aspects are deeply rooted in our biology. The way in which a group of people is brought together and then set up to work together can either activate trust or build a climate of conflict and blame.

Working in teams can be challenging because we are bringing together a diverse range of work styles, skills, motivations, and personalities and then expecting them to work cohesively. But we make it more challenging when we undermine the motivation for working through our performance review process. The members of any team need to be held equally accountable for the success or failure of the teams efforts. Thats the only way they can be authentically motivated to work through differences as well as recover from mistakes. When we get this wrong, we can activate learned helplessness, something that can cripple a function or organization for years.

During my session at ATD 2017 in Atlanta, Ill debut my latest research about the brain, and how to harness human biology to enhance collaboration, trust, productivity, and engagement. Well also explore why meaningful metrics of inclusion stem from working in groups. Youll leave this interactive session with new strategies for intentionally building the professional capacity of teams across all functions of their organization.

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Better Together: The Neuroscience of Teams - ATD (blog)

Two months ago, Accera registered a late-stage flop for its much-derided brain food candidate AC-1204 in Alzheimers, but now the company is looking to doggedly keep going, and has taken on neuroscience veteran Judith Walker, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), as its chief medical officer to try and make this med work.

Walker comes to Accera from biopharma service provider QuintilesIMS, where she was VP of product development for drugs in neurology and pain; previously, she was senior director of medical affairs at Tevas neuroscience unit. She also served a stint at the neurology unit from German Merck unit Serono.

She has the credentials and the experience, but she will need it, as she faces a mammoth task: her new employer has charged her with leading its efforts on AC-1204, following its failure in March (and adding to the pile of failed Alzheimers medicines across the biopharma industry for the last decade), and trying to do it with a drug with that comes with some questionable science.

In the recent phase 3 failed study, Accera enrolled more than 400 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimers and randomized them to receive daily doses of AC-1204 or a placebo.

The idea was to improve scores on an Alzheimers diseases scale by addressing the slowdown in cerebral metabolism associated with the condition. AC-1204 is designed to restore the energy supply to the brain by giving it a source of ketones to top up the dwindling power it derives from glucose.

In phase 2b, a subgroup analysis of patients who lack the APOE4 gene gave Accera the confidence to move into phase 3. But, like many big names before it, Accera has found it impossible to turn a hint of potential in phase 2 into success in phase 3.

Accera, again following a well-trodden path, has however refused to let the setback scuttle the program, and plans to keep going.

Prior to the results from the first phase 3, Accera was gearing up to start a second late-stage study that would tee it up to win approval in 2020. The plan now is to finalize the clinical development strategy for AC-1204 and discuss next steps with FDA. Its website still touts 2020 as the year slated for a potential approval.

That talk with the FDA will put Accera in the room with an agency that has slammed some of its activities. Accera began life as a developer of Axona, a product it marketed as a medical food for use in Alzheimers.

FDA hit Accera with a warning letter in 2013 on the grounds its marketing materials caused Axona to be classed as a drug. Accera continues to market Axona as a medical food for Alzheimers, but has tweaked its website since the warning letter.

Axona and AC-1204 both provide patients with a source of caprylic triglyceridealso known as fractionated coconut oilthat is intended to increase the availability of ketones to the brain. The potential of the therapeutic approach has enabled Accera to pull in more than $150 million from backers including Nestl, according to SEC filings.

But this candidate has been met with much derision from bio-Twitter; Walker, however, is betting her career move that it will work out.

She said in a statement: Accera has one of the few drugs in late stage development for Alzheimer's disease which addresses a differentiated and well-validated target. I am delighted to be joining Accera at this exciting time in the program.

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After failed phase 3, Accera appoints neuroscience vet to help revive fortunes - FierceBiotech

Tossing and turning all night is the epitome of crappiness. If you've already tried the usual recommendations for heading into Dreamland--for example, turning off electronics, meditating or wearing a sleep mask--it might be time to try one more fix. According to neuroscience, writing out a to-do list before you head to bed might be just what you need to finally drift off.

The ability to get to sleep depends to a large degree on your body's ability to switch from your sympathetic nervous system, which tells you to be alert and physically at the ready, and your parasympathetic nervous system, which tells you to rest and recuperate. Techniques like meditation and deep breathing are often very helpful in facilitating this transition, with physical cues from the body telling your brain you're safe and can take a break.

But stress is a sneaky and dastardly little bugger. As David Spiegel, M.D., director of the Center on Stress and Health at Stanford School of Medicine, explains, stress activates your body's fight-or-flight response and keeps the sympathetic nervous system engaged. Subsequently, your brain doesn't want to shut down.

For many people, not having a game plan for the next day is part of the stress they experience. "When will I time find for that report?" "What if Joe comes in and gabs at me for half an hour again?" "How can I make my presentation better?" But when you make a to-do list, you force yourself to think about and prioritize everything that is on your plate. Sometimes just having that basic direction can be a relief. But take it one step further. Once you know what the priorities need to be, break them down into the steps you need to take to make them happen or reach your goal. Making your priorities actionable takes some of the uncertainty we all hate out of the future, which helps you feel more confident, capable and secure. With those feelings solid, stress levels stay under control, your sympathetic nervous system backs off and you can relax into sleep.

Based on the above neuroscience and psychology, using a to-do list is not all that different from using a worry journal to vent your frustrations and concerns, a technique that's been proven to reduce stress. But it's distinct because, as Joe Ojile, M.D., founder and CEO of the Clayton Sleep Institute in St. Louis, MO and a board member of the National Sleep Foundation, notes, worry journals don't give you an actionable plan for how to solve whatever problem you're having the way that a to-do list does

Writing a to-do list and coming up with action points forces you to make decisions rather quickly. Although it might seem counterintuitive, research indicates that there's good reason to go with your gut in decision-making. Not only is your instinct trustworthy, based on subconscious emotional memory and concepts, but fast decision-making has been shown to lead to more ethical outcomes and better confidence. To-do lists thus are a tool you can use to get past the bottleneck lots of choices sometimes bring to the creative process and overall productivity.

Secondly, when you go from awake to sleeping, your brain wave frequencies slow down. But this doesn't mean your brain isn't working--itmerely means that it's in a different mode. Slower brain waves are associated with creative thinking and imagination, so if you finally get more sleep thanks to your to-do lists, you might conjure up innovative concepts and solutions from in your subconscious. Finally getting a good night's rest can improve health and mood, too, leaving you more ready to collaborate, go out on a limb and tackle work issues.

As you give to-do list writing a try, keep in mind, insomnia isn't always related to stress alone. It's always good to talk to your doctor if your sleeplessness has become an ongoing problem, as it can connect to underlying health conditions. Similarly, stress from trauma or similar issues might require help from a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist. When in doubt, always talk it out.

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The 1 Thing You Need to Write Down Every Night for Better Sleep, According to Neuroscience - Inc.com

Im what some people call a neurogeek, passionate about everything related to our brains, from the way they shape our behavior to the way they interact with technology.

Most of you readers probably assume that people like me belong to the scientific and the medical worldsthat we live, eat, breathe, sleep and operate in hospitals and research labs, isolated from the business world. And certainly theres plenty for us to do there, given the societal impact of brain health. According to the Society for Neuroscience, the Kavli Foundation and the Gatsby charitable foundation , the cost to the global economy of neurological and mental-health disorders such as dementia and Alzheimers disease, including healthcare expenses, loss of productivity in the workplace and impact on families, reached $2.5 trillion in 2010, and could reach $6 trillion by 2030. By then, the economic burden of brain health will be higher than those of cancer, diabetes and respiratory conditions combined .

But neuroscience and neurotechnologies matter far beyond their scientific and medical applications. We are not just our brains, of course. We interact with physical, digital and social worlds that are in turn impacted by how well our brains function, from performance at the workplace to personal relations. That fundamental truth has opened a wealth of interest in neuroscience, in leadership sectors far beyond medicine. Ill illustrate where that interest comes from, and why, in essays I call Your Brain On Business.

The military offers just one example. In 2014, President Obama only half-jokingly announced that the U.S. government was building Iron Man , in the form of a "smart armor" known as TALOS. Soldiers of the very near future will be equipped with brain-computer interfaces allowing them to simultaneously control armor-like exoskeletons and rely on powerful databases, enabling them to be stronger, faster, and more resistant while making optimal decisions.

Science fiction? Ask the hundreds of millions of TV viewers who, that same year, witnessed a paraplegic man kicking off the Soccer FIFA World Cup in Brazil , moving the ball with help from his mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton. For me and a lot of the kids who grew up reading superhero comics, this was one of the coolest things ever. And even if we were far from Iron Man territorythe kick was gentle and slow, the equipment bulkyin the public eye, the neurotech revolution had started. And heres a sign of how quickly things move in neuroscience: Earlier this year, another paraplegic man, Rodrigo Hbner Mendes, became the first person to drive a race car solely with his mind .

Some might even argue that mind controlled driving is not as impressive as making paralyzed people move their limbssince for neuroscientists, controlling objects thanks to cutting-edge brain-computer interfaces has become quite common. What is noteworthy in Hbner Mendes driving performance is that the device he employed to control the race car a portable and wireless wearable headset monitoring brainwaves manufactured by Emotiv, a San Francisco-based company that I advisecan be ordered online for the price of an X-Box console.

In fact, its already being used by thousands of gamers to move their avatars in virtual worlds with their mind, freeing their hands to shoot monsters. Others use the headset to monitor their sleep or meditate. The automotive industry is using it to monitor the level of attention of drivers and have cars stop automatically or sound an alarm when the drivers start falling asleep. It is being used in other sectors where attention to information is a life-and-death matter, by airline traffic controllers and nuclear plant operators. What was science fiction not so long ago is now just a couple of clicks away from everyones mailbox.

And yes, this is a big business. For devices alone, Neurotech Report projected a $7.6 billion market in 2016 that could reach $12 billion by 2020. And todays hardware market is just the tip of the iceberg, as illustrated by an analysis of more than 10,000 IP filings worldwide by market research firm SharpBrains, in a report to which I contributed . The overall financial impact of such neurotechnologies is tremendous. Overall, if you include the medical uses of neurotech, other devices, and all the businesses that can benefit from brain-related technologies, this is a field that's generating well over $150 billion in revenues annually.

I hope youre beginning to understand why my life as a neurogeek does not consist of being locked in my research lab 24/7. Over the past 15 years, I have helped scores of partners apply neuroscience to improve their efforts, working with public authorities to improve preventive medicine campaigns , with health-care providers to better understand the behavior of caregivers and patients, and with the retail industry to assess the gap between what consumers say and what they really do while shopping . Ive used neuroscience to improve safety measures in transportation, even in nuclear plants, and helped banks train their staff to deal better with stress and improve decision-making processes while trading. Ive been able to do all of this thanks to insights from behavioral and brain sciences and portable neurotech that allows to collect on-site data. I guess Im a neurogeek with a strong business twist.

And Im far from the only person thinking this way. The true revolution has just begun. In just the last few weeks, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg revealed that, in their own way, each is investing time, effort, and significant money to improve our lives with neurotechnologies.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla, announced that he is launching Neuralink , a company "developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces." This new breed of neurotechnology will allow the merging of the human brain with the power of machines in order empower humans to keep up with artificial intelligence. We are not only talking about being able to beat computers at chess again but to boost our information processing and creativity--to accelerate medical discoveries that cure cancers, for example. And at F8, the developer conference for Facebook, the company shared that its working on scalable neurotech that will allow silent brain-to-brain communication .

When one man who has disrupted the energy, automotive and space industries, and another who connected nearly 2 billion individuals in the same social network, make major moves in neuroscience, somehow it feels like science fiction is evolving into history, and that our lives are about to change in unprecedented ways.

Olivier Oullier ( @emorationality ), PhD, is a neuroscientist and a strategist.

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This Is Your Brain on Business - Fortune

A two-week international workshop on neuroscience opened in Tehran on April 29 sponsored jointly the International Brain Research Organization and Tarbiat Modarres University and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Specialists and experts from the US, Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Iran as well as students from regional countries are attending. Similar workshops have been held in the past by the Tarbiat Modarres and Shahid Beheshti universities and the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in cooperation with international experts. This year, however, the event is more specialized and deals with newer realms of the science. Besides, fewer applicants have been admitted and the duration is longer so that participants would have in-depth and qualitative learning about the latest advancement in the field, said Yaqoub Fathollahi, research deputy at Tarbiat Modarres University, IRNA reported. In recent years, PhD and post PhD students as well as young faculty members from China, Turkey, India, Pakistan and Indonesia have shown interest in the event. Over 100 researchers registered for the current workshop but only 14 from Iran and regional countries were accepted, said the official. This years event is focusing on the effectiveness of research projects and their role in the development of neurosciences in the region. The workshop will close on May 12. IBRO is the global federation of neuroscience organizations that aims to promote and support neuroscience training, teaching, collaborative research and advocacy around the world. More than 80 international, national and regional scientific organizations constitute IBROs Governing Council, which together with the five IBRO Regional Committees, addresses the needs and advances the work of individual scientists and research communities. IBROs mission is to develop, support, coordinate and promote scientific research in fields related to the brain; promote international collaboration and sharing of scientific information on brain research throughout the world; provide for and assist in education and dissemination of information relating to brain research. Most advanced workshops of the IBRO in Asia have so far been hosted by Japan, China and South Korea.

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Foreign Specialists at Neuroscience Workshop - Financial Tribune

Facebook announced last week that it is researching and developing a neural interface that would allow people to type using their brains instead of their fingers. Users could type 100 words per minute with a silent speech system, enabling paralysis patients to communicate more efficiently with the world around them.

The neural interface system would not broadcast a users every thought onto the platform. Rather, it would work with the users thought process by sharing or typing only what he or she commands it to.

Facebooks 10-year game plan, published on its newsroom blog, outlining new technologies they want to create for the future of the platform.

This is about decoding those words youve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain, a Facebook newsroom blog post about its F8 2017 future of technology event said. We want to do this with non-invasive, wearable sensors that can be manufactured at scale.

The neuroscience behind this technological advancement has existed for over 10 years now, Dr. Henry Mahncke, the CEO of Posit Science, said in an interview with MediaFile.

Dr. Mahncke, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from University of California San Francisco (UCSF), studies and creates software based brain training programs. These training programs test for brain plasticity, the brains ability to change itself at any age or any condition.

The brain is not fixed like a computer chip; it is constantly rebuilding and reorganizing itself, Dr. Mahncke said. When you learn to play piano, you are literally rewiring your brain. Everything you do or learn causes those changes.

A 3D brain scan from Posit Sciences Brain Image Gallery, depicting a brains connections and pathways between neurons.

Dr. Mahncke explained that Facebooks project does not want to open up a users skull to implant some sort of device, but would instead use a device to read his or her thoughts with a sensor. This kind of technology uses Near Infrared light (NIR) and a sensitive camera to focus on a specific part of the brain to detect activity. According to Dr. Mahncke, the camera would make strong guesses on what you were thinking by penetrating your skull with a particular wavelength of light.

I think weve entered a time where a lot of basic research of neuroscience is being realized, Dr. Mahncke said. Now its not just in a research setting, there are real world applications for it. We are entering a really fun and exciting age of applied neuroscience.

Dr. Mahncke also said that social media is here to stay, and believes we will create many more ways to share information in social media in the years to come. He added that the future of science and media are linked, but said it was hard to predict which will win and advance faster. He is excited to see the results, when or if Facebook lets this technology loose to the market.

One thing that interests me about these technologies [is that] there is a brain training component of them. A person is going to need to learn to control their brain activity in order for the camera to read them accurately. You will end up teaching yourself to organize your brain activity so the machine can read them most accurately. Its another way we have begun to adapt how we think to make it easier for the machines around us to work with us.

Facebook has been slowly moving from functioning as just a social media website to functioning as a technology company as its impact and innovation grows. Its innovations now have weight and legitimacy akin to Apple Inc. and other major technology influencers. With this potential technology, the way we communicate could change drastically in unforeseen ways. To Dr. Mahncke, what Facebook has begun to do is a neat next step in human cultural evolution in parallel with technological development.

Originally posted here:
Facebook Explores Neuroscience For Next Typing Revolution - MediaFile

Alongside its first-quarter financials today, Pfizer also sneakedin details of its discontinued projects, this year, which includes meds from its CV and metabolism pipeline and from its neuroscience unit.

The ax swungin the last few months forPF-06291874, a midstage med in testing for Type 2 diabetes;PF-06815345 for hyperlipidemia;and PF-06412562 for cognitive disorders, andPF-02545920, a PDE10 inhibitor in phase 2 for Huntington's disease saw the chop inthe first quarter.

Its diabetes med was a glucagon receptor antagonist, while its hyperlipidemia candidatewas, according to its FY update last February, new in to its pipeline for phase 1 testing, but with precious few other details about its MOA. The same goes for PF-06412562, also a phase 1 candidate, in its neuroscience and pain unit.

The phase 2 Huntington's disease candidate, out of its neuroscience department, was a small molecule NME that had orphan status in the U.S. According to clinicaltrials.gov, the: "Study terminated on 15 Dec. 2016 due to study A8241021 showing no significant difference on primary endpoint between PF-02545920 & placebo. No safety concerns."

In its financials, Pfizer also revealed that it spent $1.7 billion in R&D in the first quarter, a 1% decline on last year.

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Pfizer cuts neuroscience meds from pipeline - FierceBiotech

David Jonathan Brown pled not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of professor Bosco Tjan on Wednesday. He also reaffirmed his not guilty plea in the use of a knife in Tjans death.

Browns mental state will be evaluated by Risa Grand, a forensic psychiatrist for the Los Angeles County Superior Court and former assistant clinical professor at USC.

Brown, a graduate neuroscience student, is charged with first-degree murder, including a special allegation of using a deadly and dangerous weapon to kill Tjan.

If Brown is found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could be sentenced to life in a state mental health institution, according to Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman. If he is found guilty of first-degree murder, he could serve from 25 years to life in prison. If Brown is found guilty of second-degree murder, he could serve a lower sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

Brown was arrested at the scene of the crime in December, and police said Tjans murder was driven by a personal dispute. He worked in Tjans lab and had taken a leave of absence for personal reasons last year, according to the New York Daily News.

Browns next preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 21.

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Student enters insanity plea in killing of neuroscience professor - Daily Trojan Online

When his criminal trial begins next week, attorneys for Andres Andy Avalos, a Florida man charged with murdering his wife, a neighbor and a local pastor, will mount an insanity defense on behalf of their client because, as they announced last summer, a PET scan revealed that Avalos has a severely abnormal brain. In March, shortly after an Israeli American teenager was arrested on suspicion that he made bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the U.S. and abroad, his lawyer declared that the teenager had a brain tumor that might have affected his behavior. Both cases are part of a growing movement in which attorneys use brain damage in service of a legal defense.

To support such claims in court, lawyers are turning to neuroscience. The defense brings in hired guns to testify that brain scans can identify areas of dysfunction linked to antisocial behavior, poor decision-making and lack of impulse control. The prosecution calls their own expert witnesses to argue that what a scientist might observe in brain scans shows nothing about that persons state of mind or past actions.

The truth is that even the most sophisticated brain scans cannot show direct correlations between brain dysfunction and specific criminal behavior, nor can they prove whether someone is legally insane. What neuroscience can show is that a persons decision to commit a crime or to do anything in life for that matter is triggered by a series of chemical and electrical interactions in the brain. It can also show approximately where those interactions are occurring.

Consider the case of Charles Whitman, who killed 14 people from a perch atop the Texas Tower at the University of Austin in 1966. (He killed his wife and mother the night before.) In a note he left before going on his killing rampage, Whitman wrote of having severe headaches and suggested that an autopsy might reveal a physical anomaly.

He had a brain tumor, it turned out, the size of a pecan. It was nestled between the thalamus, which relays sensory and motor information and regulates sleep, and the amygdala, which is associated with emotional regulation and behavior. Many of Whitmans family members and friends wanted to believe the tumor was responsible for triggering his actions. Yet a doctor reported that he didnt think the tumor was related to Whitmans psychiatric complaints or headaches, and certainly not to his homicidal rampage.

Texas Gov. John Connally called a state commission to review Whitmans case. In its final report, the commission allowed that the tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions, but said that it could not establish that the tumor actually caused the killings.

The tumor, then, didnt change Whitmans standing. As long as a person understands the difference between right and wrong and can appreciate the nature and consequences of his or her actions, he or she cannot be found legally insane. Whitmans crimes took care, planning and forethought. It would have been impossible to prove that the tumor qualified him as legally insane.

Its not yet clear if the lawyer representing the Israeli American suspect will submit evidence of his brain tumor in court, but it is clear that the teens actions required forethought and premeditation. He used Tor, a type of software that allows users to hide their computers identifying IP address. He also disguised his voice, an indication that he knew what he was doing and that there would be consequences if he was caught.

Though decades of research tell us that brain damage can alter peoples behavior and impair their ability to make sound judgments and rational decisions, in the legal realm, thats not enough for a successful criminal defense. There is, however, one limited area in which neuroscience can be applied appropriately and responsibly in the courtroom: sentencing.

Our judicial system has long recognized that people who suffer from psychiatric or mental illnesses should not be treated in the same way as their mentally healthy counterparts. Medical diagnoses of psychiatric conditions or cognitive impairment are considered mitigating circumstances that raise the possibility of alternatives to harsher punishments. Neuroscientific evidence can be used to support such diagnoses.

Although the legal system should recognize the value of neuroscience, it must also understand its limitations and guard against its abuse. When neuroscience is applied responsibly, it can mean treatment instead of incarceration, life instead of the death penalty.

Kevin Davis is a Chicago-based journalist and author of The Brain Defense: Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in Americas Courtrooms.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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Why are lawyers using brain damage as a criminal defense? The science doesn't support it - Los Angeles Times

In a world full of change, just keeping up has become a full-time occupation, according to Dr Jenny Brockis, medical practitioner and author of the book Future Brain.

Rapid technological advance requires us to incorporate new ways of thinking and doing, and has led to the automation of many tasks.

This can result in the generation of an undercurrent of anxiety and fear, of losing our job, of becoming irrelevant, and fearing the future, she said.

According to Dr Brockis, looking beyond potential threat and towards potential opportunity is where the adaptive leader can exert significant influence.

Influence comes from understanding how the brain perceives novelty; its preference being to seek familiar patterns, she said.

While curious, the brain has to decide very quickly whether this poses a potential threat or reward.

Dr Brockis added that because our evolution has depended on our ability to stay alive, the brains default setting is to assume danger first and ask questions later.

The brain savvy leader looks for ways to minimise the threat response and promote the towards-state of possible reward, she said.

The importance of this lies in the findings of neuroscience that shows how a towards-state promotes a more positive mood and better access to the pre-frontal cortex, helping us to think well, learn effectively and get on better with others.

"Reducing threat influences our level of adaptability, boosting resilience and capability."

Dr Brockis outlined how adaptability includes three core components: curiosity, mindset, and emotional regulation.

Curiosity

Curiosity is the enquiring mind, asking how things can be done differently, improved upon and corrected if necessary. The curious leader recognises they dont have all the answers and is willing to ask questions, listen and ask for help. Curiosity contributes to critical thinking, examining the information available, checking its validity, and our own biases and assumptions to facilitate the best decision.

We make sense of our world using our own set of lenses, filtering information against the backdrop of our values and belief systems that evolve during our childhood and are carried forward into adulthood. The attitudes we adopt whilst deeply embedded can be altered thanks to our wonderfully plastic brain that enables us to develop new patterns of thinking and habits to supersede those we identify as being less helpful.

Working in an environment where thats the way we do things here is great for consistency and worked well in previous eras where employees expected to work according to a set of rules. However, it leaves little room for innovation or adoption of new technologies.

Mindset

A fixed mindset means we see the world in a black or white dimension with no room for any shades of grey. Being content with the status quo means theres no incentive to do things differently and avoids that nasty risk of failure.

The adaptive leader with an open mindset looks beyond the boundaries of their own knowledge and experience to seek new challenges and possibility, comfortable with the notion that failure simply reflects what didnt work and provides the opportunity to improve next time.

Emotional regualtion

The ability to regulate emotion is a skillset frequently underestimated in its power to influence good decision-making and faster problem solving. Emotion underpins our best cognition. The adaptive leader looks to promote a positive workplace atmosphere that enhances collaboration, contribution and creativity. Adaptive leadership is the continuum that effectively navigates resistance to change and promotes possibility thinking by disrupting the status quo.

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How neuroscience boosts leadership skills - Human Capital