Make an appointment to erase a memory

Imagine if you could wipe the memory of a bad relationship? Or a really bad meeting with your boss? Or a destructive argument with one of your kids?

And wouldn't it be fabulous if you could get rid of any memory of anything that frightens you: spiders, flying or change at work?

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that's just what Joel tried.

In real life, it still can't be done .... yet.

I talked about developments in the ability to forget in a previous post. So what about the ability to erase?

This search is moving rapidly with the increasing number of PTSD cases giving rise to both economic as well as compassionate imperatives.

There is an easy-to-read article on one of the latest neuroscientifc studies on erasing memories in Scientific American, Memories can be edited.

Mice are the subject of the experiments. It seems that distant memories are the toughest to erase. They are more resistant to change.

Bottom line in this study: 30 day old memories in mice could be deleted.

What is also interesting is the comment following the article where another scientist, Dr Kevin Corcoran describes his research where he found that remote and recent memories extinguish at the same rate. He offers an explanation about why more remote memories might be harder to erase.

From my perspective, the debate and the race to find the answer is exciting though when a solution is found, I hope that the ethical debate is equally advanced.

And it will be found. Each time I get a customized advertisement on my browser I think of Minority Report the 2002 film with Tom Cruise.  Set in 2054, advertising holograms appeared as you entered department stores tailored to your previous buying habits.

How close are we to that now - maybe not holograms yet, but tailoring, absolutely.

And can you contemplate the day when you have to do a memory scan when you apply for a new job - and undertake an erasure process if you have any memories that might make you resistant to the change and strategies planned by your new employer in the future?

Far-fetched? I don't think so. Who would ever have thought we could print body parts?

It's just a matter of time.

Communication during change - what should you focus on?

Communication during change - does anyone get it right? This research shows there is still a long way to go. Read the useful comment at end.

Communicating the 'why' and the 'how' are the most significant drivers.

But you can only do this well if you have  complete clarity on the 'why' and 'how' yourself.

In my experience many change managers aren't clear on this. How can you be a change leader without it?

Downsizing is bad for the health of employees who keep their jobs

Just been reading an article published in BMJ in 2004 on the impact of downsizing on the health of the employees who did not lose their jobs during a major downsizing.

It was a study from Finland across 10 towns following a major downsizing of municipal employees.

The results have significance for change managers today, particularly as the authors suggest that the findings may have been an underestimate of the impact on the health of the remaining employees.

This study is relevant today because while the number of employees were cut, the services provided by the municipality were not - does that have a familiar ring to it?

So job demands on the remaining employees increased, as did job insecurity but the sense of control among the workers decreased. in other words, a high work stress environment.

Their findings from their analysis of the data? There was an increase in sick leave and an increased risk of cardiovascular death among permanent employees who kept their jobs.

From the results they conclude downsizing may pose a severe risk to health.

Given the current increase in downsizing as a structural change to reduce costs in many organizations, this study underscores the need to use best practice change management practices under the guidance of skilled and effective change leaders.

In particular, leaders must understand the impact of change not only on the physical health of their people but as importantly on their emotional and mental health.

This is an equally if not more important cost saving measure in the long term, given the potential ramifications of ill health and death from poorly managed change not only on the survivors of downsizing but on the business itself.

Expecting today to be terrible?

Got a 'bad' day in front of you?  This 6 minute video can shift your mindset. Mindfully watch it, hold on to the thoughts it inspires.

Then maybe you won't have as bad a day as you were expecting after all.

Do you wish you could just forget some things (or some people!)?

Memories makes us who we are. They bring us joy, bring us pain and mostly keep us safe from harm.

At work, memories of bad change efforts often get in the way of new initiatives and derail change implementation and take up.

You've all heard the phrases: 'Here we go again'; They tried this before'; 'Just wait, it will pass'.

So any research about how to manage the impact of memories is interesting for change managers.

For PTSD sufferers, it's vitally important.

This article, Is it possible to forget? describes some research that shows there is a difference between 'high-control' people and 'low-control' and their ability to block out bad memories.

Doesn't provide us with a magic cure yet but it keeps adding more to the search for a solution to the impact of bad memories.

Are you a positive manager? If not, please read on...

Would your employees say you are mostly upbeat, mostly neutral or mostly negative?

The important word here is 'mostly'. It could mean that you are intentionally behaving this way or it could simply be a habit.

If it's intentional and you're mostly 'upbeat' then you don't need to read this Fast Company article - but you should anyway to get affirmation!

If you are not aware of how you 'mostly' are, or you're mostly negative or neutral, then PLEASE read this article. You'll be a better manager if you act on the science related suggestions.

Why positive encouragement works better than criticism

Are you Confident? Are you Smart? Are you into P & P? (Procrastination and Perfectionism)

At a workshop I attended recently, I learned a lot but I also got some interesting surprises from talking to several of the participants.

There was one guy (let's call him Dan) who quickly, though not deliberately, drew attention to himself because he was so smart, really low key, gentle, not arrogant - and, as I said, smart.

Have you come across this sort of person in your life? Their brains are so logical and considered. You (if you're like me) could be getting swept up in a new idea, a fabulous insight, a moment of clarity when suddenly, out of left field, comes this rational, logical, thoughtful, challenging question that makes you bolt upright and stop dead in your tracks thinking: ‘Why didn't I think of that? Good point' causing you to reconsider and evaluate and hopefully get even more out of the moment.

Dan asked those kinds of questions.

Smart people procrastinate

Later he and I were paired in an activity - and here came my surprise. Dan told me his biggest challenge was procrastination. He wanted to write on a subject that was a bit ‘out there'; a new approach to science fiction but he couldn't quite get around to it. He'd start then walk away. He couldn't stick at it.

He'd go to his study to write but then get side tracked into checking his email, following up a query from someone else, remember that he needed to do something else in the office, create a list of things to do, deviate off into checking something on a website etc etc and then suddenly the day was over and he'd got no further with his writing.

And this had been going on - not for months, but years.

I was really surprised. I had make this sub-conscious assumption that because Dan was smart, he was confident in his own abilities and would just go ahead and ‘put it out there'.

But as he talked about his situation, it became clear that Dan was concerned about putting ideas down on paper that he wasn't convinced were 100% right.

So rather than go with a 90% conviction that his ideas were good, he didn't do anything at all towards his dream goal.

Confident people procrastinate

Surprise number two was similar. Again paired up in an activity, another participant, someone who I knew as a confident successful colleague (let's call him Liu), asked me to help him work through an issue - again it was procrastination.

In this case, Liu was completing some media work, creating three sets of CDs. Although he'd made several CDs before, he thought these were the best he'd done. They were all recorded and edited. The contents listed, the artwork almost completed but Liu couldn't get around to finalizing the production details for the duplicator to generate the finished product.

He told me there was probably only about another 4 hours work in the project. But instead of completing it, he found himself watching replays of the rugby, working on other projects, playing with his son, simply finding plenty of other things to do rather than the very thing that he most wanted to do - or so he said.

Neurotic Perfectionism

The problem with these conversations were that they were too close for comfort! I recalled speaking with a friend from Western Australia many years ago about this very subject and she described it as neurotic perfectionism. And so I confess: I am a sufferer.

The conversations with Dan and Liu got me wondering again: what is it that holds us back from starting or finishing certain things? What is it that makes us knowingly procrastinate - and then, and here's the worst part, beat ourselves up for doing it?

And why is it that so many people seem to share this predicament? The more people I talk to about my growing interest in this topic - the more people say to me: 'when you find the answer - let me know!'

Is it perfect?

Well I wonder if no matter what excuses or reasons we use, the real answer comes down to this...fear of failure. If we set ourselves really high standards, a state of perfectionism, then if what we produce is not ‘perfect' by our standards, then we see this as failure. And rather than risk failure and disappointment, we don't do it at all.

Or perhaps we don't know when to finish, to say that what we've been doing really is good enough now. We don't have the courage to draw a line in the sand and say: OK that's 85% of total perfection - it's enough; I'll now complete the project, tick the box and move on to the next one.

It's our amygdala again

A wonderful friend gave me a book by Lafferty and Lafferty called "Perfectionism: A Sure Cure for Happiness" (1996 Human Synergistics, Inc). It's an easy read and an insightful book on the subject. I recommend it.

Here's one sentence that made me sit up and take notice:

"Perfectionism is a personal defense system that originates in overcompensation for an overall deep sense of not being worthwhile."
 
And another:

"The origins of perfectionism rest in the perceived inability of the child to ever do well enough: to be acceptable, and to be seen as loved and important. Perfectionists believed they could not please some important figure in their life, and are symbolically still trying."
 
Does this sound like The Almond Effect® to you? It did to me.

I don't know what might have caused the proclivity for procrastination for Dan. But when Liu and I talked, he reflected on his early childhood as a "new Australian" in the days of the White Australia policy and people whispering about the ‘Yellow Peril". (My grandmother spoke like that. She would never eat Chinese food and sadly, even rejected a gift from my brother when he was 10 years old because it had "Made in China' stamped on the bottom. Decades on I still remember that.)

Liu recalled that as a young boy and even as a young man, he never felt he would be good enough, would never get the blond blue-eyed girl of his dreams (he did!) and always felt like a second class citizen.

I asked him whether this made him as afraid of success as he was of failure? His answer: "If the CDs are as successful as I believe they could be, I'll probably feel like a fraud!"

This certainly got me thinking that procrastination could be as much about the fear of achievement, about feeling not worthy as about fear of failure.

I wish I'd said something then

And I wondered if the fear of looking stupid, looking foolish, not living up to someone else's expectations, not being good enough carried through into our reluctance to speak up at work, to challenge our colleagues, our bosses, to ask questions in meetings, to put our hands up for projects and new roles?

I've come to the view that procrastination (if it's not simply laziness and I doubt that it is for most people I've spoken with) really must stem from fear. And if we do procrastinate, then the one thing we mustn't put off is trying to understand what we are afraid of, and assess whether the fear is warranted or not.

Be a STAR

I'm applying my STAR technique to unravel what's going on.

• Stop and catch yourself allowing fear (new or old and habitual) preventing you from doing what it is to want to start, say or complete. Notice when it happens and what you do when it does. What do you feel when you ‘walk' away, at the time? Later in the day?

       Think about where it's coming from? Where did it all begin? What are and have been the consequences? Does the degree of fear and the consequences warrant the outcomes so far? Is this what you want to continue to do going forward? What's the worst thing that could happen if you put your fear on hold, turn your almonds (amygdalae) down (because you can't turn them off), feel the fear and do it anyway? What's the best thing that could happen? 

       Act Just do it. Choose something you have been procrastinating about - and don't put off deciding to do this!

 

       Rewire When you've achieved even one step closer to your goal, give yourself a pat on the back. Well done. One less step to go. Let it sink into your brain that you have made progress and that it went OK. Rewire your brain to the feeling of achievement rather than the fear of failure. 

What to do next: do this now

Choose just one thing: for example having the conversation about your workload with your manager, facing up to a difficult situation with a team member about the progress of a project, talking to your partner about something they say to the children, even a task as painful as sorting out the belongings of someone you've lost to cancer. It doesn't matter whether it's major or a minor thing - just choose something that you beat yourself up for not doing.

Then set yourself a deadline, decide on your reward for doing what you are going to do - and just do it. No more planning, no more being sidetracked, no more worrying about carrying out a little more research, consulting with another person, doing the ironing, preparing for next weekends BBQ, just do it.

 
They don't have to be big steps - just one at a time. Work out who has been holding you back. Mentally thank them for helping you to achieve your best but let them know you can do it without them now and do even better things that they will (or would be) proud of.

And when you achieve that outcome that you have been procrastinating about - make sure you collect that reward you promised yourself. It's not an indulgence - it's the way the brain's neurons learn that the new pathways are the better ones.

PS Help me with my research on this

If you have any examples of procrastination that you think may be due to fear of failure or fear of success or indeed some other reason, then I would love to hear from you. Happy to offer some thoughts about how to deal with it if I can - especially if you're not sure where it's coming from. Confidentiality 100% guaranteed. Click here.

Can you say NO to your boss?

What have the deaths of 18 month old twins and a murder-suicide got to do with saying no to your boss?

Quite a lot if you ask yourself - how could this happen?

Some years ago, the twins died, apparently from malnutrition, and their bodies left in their cots for over a week. The alarm was raised only when their 11 year old sibling noticed the smell.

The murder-suicide happened after the perpetrator mailed a stream of letters to the media warning of his intention.

Another example - surveillance camera footage from China showed a two year old knocked over and dying on the road. 18 people passed this child before anyone stopped to do anything to help.

And in Connecticut, USA in a similar horrible incident a 78 year old man was left lying in the road after being hit by a car, ignored by bystanders and motorists alike. It made me giddy with disbelief to watch it.
 
What was your reaction to those stories?

Mine was - didn't the neighbors notice anything? Why didn't the media do something? What were people thinking to leave the any injured child or a paralyzed man lying helplessly on the road? These were my thoughts but the critical question is, would they have translated into any action on my part? On your part?

The Power of Fear

Let's consider some other situations.For example:

• What do you do when you hear the alarm go off in a neighboring property? Do you call the police or choose not to get involved? An Australian 000 operator - that's emergency services like 999 (UK), 911 (USA), 111 (NZ) - said on the local radio that the majority of calls to 000 about burglar alarms were not concerns that a robbery might be taking place but complaints about the noise!

• What would you do if you suspected that your brother or sister might be dealing in drugs?

• Why do you put off having that important conversation with your spouse about the spiraling credit card debt?

• Why do you put off having that important conversation with your spouse about what's happening to your relationship?

And at work:

• What would you do if you saw your manager instructing staff to ‘cut corners', putting employees' safety at risk to reduce costs?

• What would you do if you saw a fellow employee falsely trading in foreign exchange options - to the tune of $118 million dollars and getting a performance bonus of over $100, 000 for his work? (This was what happened in 2005 at NAB.)

• What would you do if your managers were both ignoring potentially catastrophic warnings from you and other engineers about the dangers of launching a spacecraft on a really cold day and failing to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors? Click here if you want to know where this happened.

• What would you do if you strongly suspected that your most successful salesperson was sexually harassing a colleague but no formal complaint had been made?

• What would you do if your boss asked you to do something that was:

1. Ethically but not legally wrong? 
2. Against the best interests of the shareholders
3. Contrary to the strategic direction of the company?
4. Didn't contribute to the strategic direction of the company
5. Required you to work such long hours (for the 4th week in a row) that your family life was beginning to fracture?

Are we callous? Or are we afraid?

Have you, have we, lost confidence in our ability to get involved, to tackle the really difficult situations in our lives? What holds us back?

Are we fearful and therefore so protective of our self-interest that we don't step in when we should because we are concerned for the consequences?

How prepared are we to accept responsibility for what goes on in our own lives and in our community, our workplace?

Our ‘almonds' (amygdalae) have a lot to answer for. When we find ourselves in such situations, The Almond Effect® mobilizes and propels us toward actions that ensure our ‘survival'. But how many of the examples I have given truly put us in physical harm's way?

Most of them, and particularly the work ones, raise questions about our values and our ethics and how far we are prepared to confront our fears to act? How comfortable are you living with the knowledge that you did not act.

If you find yourself saying: ‘I should have...', then it's time to think and focus some more on what held you back.

The impact of fear on company culture

Clearly these are conversations that go to the core of who we are and what our companies stand for. But they are hard questions. I wonder if such courageous conversations had been held and resolved, would the outcomes have avoided the corporate collapses like HIH, Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Qwest, Dynegy, CMS Energy, Tyco, Peregrine, Sunbeam, Baptist Foundation of Arizona?

Would employees, shareholders and all the other stakeholders have been spared not only financial devastation but also the very high personal and professional cost?

Most of these companies were destroyed by a culture of unethical conduct, greed and dishonesty. But surely not everyone in these companies subscribed to these cultures? So why didn't they speak up? Or did they just leave?

Tips for saying no to the boss

Standing up for yourself, your company, your department, your team or even for the best interests of the boss themselves, can be hard. There is a good chance it will set off The Almond Effect® just thinking about it!

So there are a number of components to the preparation to be able to do it.

The first is to manage your own reactions. That's where STAR comes in.

STOP - Catch your fears. What is it you are feeling? How is it going to express itself? Blushing, stuttering, passivity, anger? What emotions could you be dealing with when you speak up?

THINK - Why am I feeling this way? What in the past history of my dealings with this boss, or any boss, has caused me to experience these emotions? Where did they come from? Are the situations the same? What's different? What were the consequences then? What would be the consequences now?

ACT - Prepare yourself. There are many ways you can do this. For example, rehearsing, visualizing, and calming exercises. For resources for more ideas click here.
 
REWIRE - When you've had the conversation with your boss, whichever way it went, talk it over with your mentor, coach, partner, friend -anyone who can help you analysis what worked, what didn't, and what you would do differently in future.

And write it down somewhere so the next time you want to say ‘no' to the boss, The Almond Effect® won't get in your way.

Managing upwards - a free guide for you

In addition to STAR, the most effective way to be able to say ‘no' to the boss and keep your career and yourself intact are to:

• build your credibility
• earn the respect of your boss
• understand where, when and how they like to hear ‘no'

For more information and a short PowerPoint I've prepared that gives more information on how to do this, click here.

Managing your fears - an essential work and life skill

Identifying and managing our fears has major ramifications for the way in which we live our lives - far beyond how we respond to a shadow in a dark lane or a noise in the grass.

And managing our fears in the workplace is an essential success factor both in the short and long term. Step one is to recognize when our fears are holding us back. Step two is to do something about it.

Please feel free to forward this to a colleague

PTSD may be a consequence of where you live.

We usually think of PTSD in the context of war, dreadful car accidents or other scenarios that evoke horror.
What if PTSD could be a consequence simply of where you live?

This is an interesting article on PTSD and your postcode.

Changing the Old Guard in IT

Do you agree with this approach?

Do you ever feel like a fraud?

If you ever feel like a  fraud, an imposter - maybe in a job, doing a presentation, leading a project?

If so, please watch this.

You'll learn what you can do about this - simply and clearly.

And pass the link on to anyone else who feels (wrongly)  scared they might be 'found out'.

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are  TED talk video

The world's best computer?

Check out this list of 10 things your brain does on automatic





Your amazing brain

Great exercise for helping people manage feelings during change

This is a worthwhile talk on managing the human side of change from Jason Clarke, an innovation practitioner.

If you just want the exercise, it starts at 4.07

Don't let past memories sabotage you at work

Warning: what you don't consciously remember could mess with your career

Never forget that your unconscious is smarter than you, faster than you, and more powerful than you. You will never know all its secrets. Cordelia Fine in "A mind of its own"

Have you ever seen people at work react to something in a totally illogical way?

OK, I know that's a dumb question but it is rhetorical!

It is interesting to look at this in connection with our emotional memories. The role that emotional memory plays in our everyday interactions and reactions is profound. Not only do our emotional memories cause us to react to perceptions of physical threat but also to certain people and events as well.

The emotional memory function is part of our brain's emotional centre, the limbic system. That is also where the amygdala is, the part of the brain responsible for our instant emotional responses, our ‘I wasn't thinking' reactions.

We subconsciously use our emotional memories to help us recognise threats to our survival. I sometimes think of these memories as stored in our brain's ‘database of nasty things'. Emotional memories are made up of experiences, events, thoughts and feelings shaped and defined throughout our lives. When we form these memories in our childhood, we often do so with limited and inaccurate perception. Then these distorted memories may come back to haunt us in our adult lives.

When a situation or a person triggers an emotional memory of a threat, our brain goes into overdrive to protect us. Often this reaction is outdated, over the top and not even related to the present circumstances.

It's what I call The Almond Effect®.

Her new boss reminded her of her brother

Take this work scenario: Kylie had just been promoted. She had done such a great job in her time with the company that she was asked to train and manage a group of new staff. This meant a move in offices and a new manager. Kylie had heard great things about her new boss and was eager to impress.

Kylie arrived at the new office and was greeted by her new manager. At first, she was a little unsure of what to make of him. She was instantly intimidated which was unusual for Kylie, she even felt a little scared. She found it hard to communicate and was lost for words several times in their first meeting.

This was her emotional memory connecting the past to the present. Her new boss reminded Kylie of her eldest brother who throughout her childhood was dominating and physically abusive.

Kylie was petrified of her brother and those feelings flooded her brain when she met her new manager. This kind of emotional response is the brain's way of recognising and reacting to a perceived threat. The problem is that this threat, although real once, is not relevant to the present situation.

Sadly, after a few weeks, Kylie left the office emotionally shaken and convinced she could not work for her manager. She turned down the promotion and went back to her old job.

The Almond Effect® had taken its toll and it wasn't until sometime afterwards that Kylie realised what had happened. Even then, knowing how her brain had sabotaged her, Kylie said she would still feel uncomfortable if she had to work for the new manager in the future.

Don't let past memories sabotage the present

Can you relate to Kylie's experience? I can. I recently worked for a client and I thought it quite odd that I found it difficult to make ‘small talk' face-to-face with him. It was really weird because we had been exchanging emails and having phone conversations quite successfully for many months before we actually met.

I couldn't work it out so I simply reminded myself that sometimes you have to work with a person who for no obvious reason you don't really connect with on a personal level, but that's life and you get on with the work, professionally.

It was only when we were having coffee one day and the client moved in a particular way that I ‘saw' the image of a person from my childhood. The penny dropped and the reasons for my feelings became clear. He reminded me of someone who also had caused me great distress when I was much younger.

When I shared this in a workshop one day, one of the participants also had an ‘ah ha' moment and said: "I hadn't even thought of it before. I hate the fact that because of the recent re-structure, I had to change workstations and now I don't have a window. And in a CLM (career limiting move), I kicked up a real fuss.

I've just realized that when I was at school..." and then she told us about an emotional memory to do with sitting by a window, that she realized must have been subconsciously at work, in theory to protect her but in fact causing great unhappiness.

Fascinating isn't it? Think about situations or people who might be irritating you. I wonder if they are triggering an emotional memory buried deep in your limbic system? It might also be happening in your relationships outside of work.

Now you know, let it go

Becoming aware of what you are remembering and the feelings associated with that memory is the big first step to take back control over The Almond Effect ®.

Take time to revisit the memory and ask yourself whether it is appropriate that the memory still controls you. It's unlikely so take time to tell your limbic system, thanks but no thanks for the future. Retrain your amygdala that this situation or person is no longer a threat. Get your logical, rational thinking brain working.

Unless...

One final word - sometimes that ‘gut feel' or intuition that you can't put your finger on, may be coming from an emotional memory. If no amount of logical self-talk gets you past your concerns, they may be real. So talk to someone else and seek assistance to work out where the concerns are coming from. Then you'll take the appropriate action for the situation.

Please feel free to forward this to a colleague

It's not fair!

How many times have you said: ‘it's not fair'? How many times have you heard others say it? How does it make you feel when you sense injustice? How does it impact your energy and commitment levels? What impact do you think it could have on an employee's level of engagement with their employer?

Let me tell you about Jane. We were talking about bullying and harassment at work as she was considering lodging a grievance.

She told me that her boss was always asking her to do things that were not in her job description. She said:

"It's not fair. She isn't capable of doing her own job yet they promoted her. Now she asks me to do the work she should be doing but that's not what I am paid to do nor do I expect to do it. I would be happy to help out but she is so awful to me. It's just not fair. She gets more money than me, got promoted and then hassles me to do her job!"

Our fair brains

Neuroscientists have been conducting experiments for over 25 years on what happens in our brains when we experience something as being fair or not fair.

This is interesting research. So often we see people become demotivated and not perform to their best because they perceive an unfairness eg: that someone is getting paid more than they should; that someone has a promotion that they didn't deserve; that someone got the blame or bore the brunt of management's wrath for something that wasn't their fault; that someone was asked to stay back late at work.

Demotivation means less willingness to change, lower levels of commitment, lower productivity, poor energy levels and as for creativity, innovation and initiative - well, what do you think?

An Ultimatum

The original experiment in this field is the Ultimatum game, first reported as far as I can see in 1982. It's been repeated many times by many different researchers and the results seem to come out the same.

Here's what happens:
Two participants, A and B, are given a sum of money, say $100, to divide between themselves. A has to decide how to split it up. Whatever offer A makes, if B accepts it then they both get to keep their share of the money. If B refuses A's offer, neither gets anything.

What would you offer if you were A and what would you accept if you were B? The experiments have shown that if A offers B around half, ie $50 then B will accept. And at that time, B's brain's reward circuitry (including the amygdala) lights up. They feel OK about the deal.

However if A offers a smaller amount, eg $20 - B will typically refuse.
Curious isn't it? You would think that if B was acting rationally, B would take the view that something is better than nothing and take the $20.

Instead, what happens is that an area of the brain associated with disgust and pain lights up at the perceived unfair deal. Indeed, some Bs reject the offer outright so that both A and B lose the lot!

When an B does accept a low portion of the $100 and gain something rather than nothing, and even though the offer is perceived as unfair, the experimenters report that B's fMRI scans show that an area of the brain associated with self-control lights up - the prefrontal cortex.

This is the same part of the brain that we help people learn to engage to be a STAR (Stop Think Act Rewire) in response to The Almond Effect®, when our amygdala sends us a false alarm.

It's the principle that counts!

The interesting thing is that our brains probably react in the same way as in the Ultimatum Game whenever we feel we have been taken advantage of. We may feel we've paid too much for a car, a home, a new suit or even the laundry detergent!

I experienced that the other day, when I discovered that I'd paid $50 more for a vacuum cleaner than I needed to because I didn't notice the department store across the road had the same vacuum on ‘special'.
In these situations our brain senses it wasn't fair.

And it seems to me that there is a struggle going on between our pre-frontal cortex - and our emotions, ie between being practical and logical vs. a sense of what's right, fair, just. Emotions vs. self control - sounds like The Almond Effect® in another of its guises to me.

As a former barrister, I would love to see research into what's happening in the brains of litigants who outlay a fortune in the legal system spending far more than the original amount involved saying "it's the principle that counts". I suspect the results would show their limbic (emotional) brain is much more activated than their prefrontal cortex - just as in the Ultimatum Game.

It's not the money

So let's go back to Jane. Jane was on a very good salary and enjoyed working for the company. She loved her work. What she didn't enjoy was that sense of being put upon and being taken advantage of.

Unfortunately too, the manager had some issues around the way she managed Jane and, deep down, had her own fears and insecurities about taking on a role she didn't feel qualified for. She had never received any people management training and was way out of her comfort zone. That's another Almond Effect® story for another day.

Jane ended up filing a grievance and she and her manager are scheduled to have a mediation discussion in the coming weeks.

Injustice and performance

In some organizations I have been involved with, ‘give them more money' has often been the response to deal with issues of poor engagement, demotivated staff, unhappy staff, change fatigued workforces, sub-optimal teamwork - even staff who say they are being harassed or bullied.

What we know from how our brain works is that this is never going to provide a complete answer unless the perceived injustice is truly about financial inequities.

The application of neuroscience research makes it clear that what we have to do is to start exploring what's going on in people's perception, with their emotions - and these are not capable of quick fix ‘rational' responses.

Learning about The Almond Effect® and the STAR model for developing self control is just the beginning.

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Is it OK to swear at work?

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a !@#$%

So said Rhett (Clark Gable) to Scarlett in ‘Gone with the Wind' in 1939. This line was voted the number one movie line of all time by the American Film Institute in 2005.

One reason for its infamy was that it contained a swear word - just about unheard of in a movie or on-stage in those days.

Fast forward to today: swearing is commonplace - on the street, at work, on TV, at the movies and on stage. In fact I just saw "Riflemind" by Andrew Upton - and by the end of that play I wondered if there were any words in the English language other than foul ones!

While it's acceptable to many, some people are still uncomfortable with this form of communication. (If you need to some alternative ways to express angst at work, look here).

But maybe you should keep on or even take up swearing. What if it's good for you?

Swearing at work - a stress management tool?

Organizations have a range of approaches to swearing at work. Some workplaces don't directly address it. In others, a code of conduct might require employees to treat each other with respect, courtesy and without harassment. Or a term of the employment contract might be to uphold the values, integrity and reputation of the company.

The problem is that such general wording in policies can cause problems as everyone has a different standard, and the whole issue can become very subjective and very personal.

Let it all hang out - it's good for you

So it was interesting to read some research that says swearing at work can be of benefit to staff; that the use of expletives helps employees let off steam, boosts morale and can reduce stress. In fact, Yehuda Baruch, professor of management at the University of East Anglia warned bosses that any moves to prevent workers from swearing could have a negative impact.

Fascinating assertion. So how far do you go? Is it OK to swear out loud in the lunch room? At a meeting? At a peer? At a junior staff member? At the boss? At the customer?

The professor answers with this: "In most scenarios, in particular in the presence of customers or senior staff, profanity must be seriously discouraged or banned."

"Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing. The challenge is to master the art of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet with their own standards."

Not helpful Professor - better look at their amygdalae

Personally I don't think that's too helpful as a guide for managers. So I looked to see what I could find out about how the brain processes swearing to see if there are any clues there. Steven Pinker in his book "The Stuff of Thought" (Allen Lane) says that swearing makes the brain pay attention.

Pinker considers that words' literal meanings may be concentrated in the thinking part of the brain, the neocortex, especially in the left hemisphere. But their connotations are not just in the thinking area but linked to the amygdala, which as we know is a primitive area of the brain that helps to give memories emotional content.

The research reports that in brain scans, the amygdala lights up when a person sees an angry face or hears an unpleasant word such as a taboo swear word. These evoke emotional responses and even reading a swear word causes the brain to involuntarily sit up and pay attention. In other words, what I call The Almond Effect® in action.

FCUK

And I realize now that this reaction is exploited by retail clothing brands such as FCUK (French Connection).

Every time you use or hear a swear word or something that  looks or sounds like one, your limbic system quickly assesses what it's hearing and gives an emotional whack to the person who hears it.

Do we want to allow emotional whacking at work?

Well we don't allow physical whacking at work, so why would we allow or encourage more ‘mental' whacking at work than already goes on? If we encourage people to swear at work as a way to manage stress, could we be doing more overall harm than good?

Even if the swearer is using the language as part of their everyday vocabulary and/or does not mean it aggressively - we can't know how it will impact on anyone hearing it because we don't know how the listeners' amygdalae react to swearing.

What's acceptable?

I asked some people how they felt at work about people swearing around them or to them and they gave quite complicated responses. For example Greyer said it's OK for people to swear if they are just saying ‘s***' or the equivalent when they are late, get their finger jammed, receive an email from their boss and so on. 

But Jaime said he hates it when people are talking about others and saying things like: What an ‘a*!@#$%^". Or that f*** *** etc. Reeta said she couldn't care less.

Then Greyer added the swearers don't even have to be aggressive when swearing to make her feel really uncomfortable. It can just be their everyday language but all the same, Greyer hates it.

These and many more examples just confirmed for me that, whether swearing at work is acceptable and useful as a stress management tool, it is so context and individually driven as to be almost impossible to resolve.

Why don't you ask the people around you when, where and with whom wearing is and is not acceptable at work. I am sure you'll get a huge range of responses.

Add the look on their faces

Usually when people swear, the accompanying look on their face is one of anger, irritation, annoyance, embarrassment etc. All these looks are fear-based expressions. And that can be a challenge. Some other research confirms what we are probably already aware of: our brains process a look of fear on someone's face much faster than any other expression.

Here's how the researcher, Dr David Zald, a psychologist from Vanderbilt University in Nashville put it: "Fearful eyes are a particular shape. You get more of the whites of the eye showing. That may be the sort of simple feature that the amygdala can pick up on, because it's only getting a fairly crude representation. That fearful eye may be something that's relatively hardwired in there."

So the angry face (or swear word) may trigger The Almond Effect in others. And we know that emotions are contagious. So if someone is swearing, even if they are not afraid, their words may trigger off fear reactions in others and the consequent aggressive/defensive reactions, i.e. feelings of discomfort, annoyance, irritation or even anger.

Stress relief or fear provoker?

Most workplaces encourage communication, teamwork and empathy. Swearing at or around others doesn't seem to me to be a good enabler!

I think that Professor Baruch's warning that any moves to prevent workers from swearing could have a negative impact may be true for the individual who needs to deal with his or her ‘Almonds' but if they need to swear I'd be encouraging the stressed worker to find a private space and not let it all rip in front of anyone at all.

Apart from the apprehension it might cause in others, it also makes you look like someone not in control and with a very limited vocabulary.

The better option for managers

So do you personally swear at work? Is that what you want others to do? Do you have any explicit boundaries in place? Do you know how swearing affects others in your team? Are you sure when you say: it doesn't bother anyone?

Remember from discussions on mirror neurons that your staff will take their behavior cues from what they observe their bosses doing?

So stay calm yourself. Model what it means to be emotionally intelligent enough to consider the impact of emotional outbursts on others and how that might make them feel and react. Show how it is possible to stay in control without swearing or doing anything that sets off a fear reaction in others.

Remind yourself that emotionally intelligent leaders are the ones who get their people to perform and remain engaged.

Work with your team on dealing with the stress or angst triggers and situations that trigger their amygdalae in the first place. Get them to identify the stress points. Coach them in ways to avoid stress altogether. Keep it in perspective. Breathe. Count to 10. 

Of course, you could just say that's all too hard so ‘@#$%^ it!" J

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What do you do when they say 'We've tried that before'?

"We've tried that before"  "Here we go again"


These two phrases torment every change implementer's life. They usually signal negativity to the change that you want to instigate. 

And these words are not only used by change resistors at work. I'd guess many of you have heard them or even used them yourself at home! 

Researchers such as Lila Davachi who study the way that memories are formed and later recalled, say that it is rare that we accurately recall exactly what happened in the first instance. This is because a memory is not a single function or brain system/network. 

For example, even if you were close to and witnessed a powerful event like 9/11 or your colleagues made redundant in a restructure, your memory of it might not be as clear as you thought. 

Is your memory as accurate as you think?

There's a great illustration of this written by Greg Boustead in Scientific American How the brain remembers 9/11
 
It is an example of Davachi's explanation at the NeuroLeadership Summit in the USA that memory is never an exact playback of the video of the experience. Rather it is a reconstruction of the event drawn from many different parts of the brain. 

And because memories are not stored in a single location, when we ‘remember' something, we may not remember or recall accurately all the elements of the event. 

This topic was discussed at the World Science Festival 2011 in the session on The Unbearable Lightness of Memory
 
"One of the primary functions of memory is to be able to use our experience of the past to be able to act adaptively in the future" - Elizabeth Phelps 

"When we remember an event from the past we are drawing on information that we've actually experienced BUT sometimes we're combining that incorrectly with other things that we may not have experienced. These mistakes can have important consequences, especially in the legal world." - Daniel L. Schacter 

We can increase the durability of a memory if it has an emotional connection

Some work has been done to show that memories formed in the presence of negative emotions are more likely to be recalled clearly.

Think about your holiday last year. You probably don't recall the detail of the logistics that went well. But you will definitely recall where and when it went wrong. 

For example, earlier this year I travelled in Europe and Africa. I can barely recall the details of the check-in counters in most airports but I can remember the one in Morocco. I clearly recollect that the check in woman in Marrakesh said: Would you like me to check this through to Johannesburg for you? 

And that was the last I saw of my bag for three and a half weeks! 

I can easily bring to mind the emotion, the frustration I felt that my bag was lost. And the memory or the whole saga is triggered every time I see an Air France plane or advertisement - guess which airline I flew? 

But it would be fascinating to see if my memory of the check-in woman's words and how the situation was ultimately resolved is accurate. 

Overcoming past memories of change

The job of the amygdala is to watch out for signals that might compromise our safety and survival. That's what The Almond Effect® is: when the amygdalae confuse the actions and behaviours of others in a non-life threatening situation as a threat to our physical survival and cause us to act accordingly with one of the 4 F's. 

If you add this together to what is known about memory recall, then you have to have a plan for what can you do when you hear words of resistance based on perceived history. 

Your goal is to reduce the fear, anxieties and stress being stirred up by past memories. Until you do that, the limbic system and especially the amygdalacreates a smokescreen which logic and reason will find hard to get through. 

First step

As a first step, my suggestion is that you simply accept that their negativity is being triggered by memory whether it is accurate or not. It won't help if you tell them they've got it all wrong. That's an appeal to their logic at a time when their evolutionary survival instincts are on red alert. 

Instead ask them and any others who were around at the time of the previous events, what happened previously or what recollections are triggering their views that it's all been done before. Then check that against any known facts about the event. 

Maybe they were right on the money but I'd bet that their recall of the event will reveal differences between what was happening in the past and what you are proposing now. If they were right then you've got some valuable information to work on to ensure that your change activity this time is different and won't arouse the same negativity. 

Explain the difference

But if you can show them the difference and explain in positive terms why what is being proposed now is different to what they recall happened last time, you've enhanced your chances of change success. 

Until a pill is marketed for eliminating particular remembrances that we'd prefer to forget, it's worth operating on the premise that many of our recalled experiences are based on the feelings we had at that time, not necessarily the facts. 

Learning how to deal with these emotions that accompany change will significantly enhance your ability as a change leader.