The scary part? I keep finding articles that provide support for theories I came up with independently. That's not a ego-boost, but an alarm; the question that will always gnaw at me is, "am I unconsciously seeking validation for my own opinions?"
So long as I keep questioning myself, I think I'll be okay. None of us is perfect - at least, not on our own.
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Part 1 of a series on neuroscience and innovation
Humans are animals. While we like to think we’re captains of our destiny, we’re far more driven by instinct than we know. In many ways, we’re just glorified apes, even in business.
Neuroscience business expert Janet Crawford
For over a century, the overriding philosophy in business has been that rational decision-making is better business. Irrational decisions, on the other hand, were to be avoided. We’ve probably all seen bad executive decisions made based on miscalculated fears, misperceived threats, or misdirected loyalties.
Today, science is teaching us that the bifurcation between logic and emotion is not so clear cut. There is business value lurking in what appears to be irrational. Think of the intense devotion of startup teams in Silicon Valley. Think of the culture that surrounds iconic companies like Harley-Davidson. Think of the passion of Apple fans camping out overnight to be first in line to buy a new product.
Given what science is revealing about the human brain, what are the implications for business? Janet Crawford is one of the world’s pioneers in applying neuroscience to business. Her firm, Cascadance, leverages biological design to improve individual and team performance. I’ve had the honor of working with her in creating Rainforest Architects, a workshop to train leaders on how to spark their innovation ecosystem by applying techniques from Silicon Valley.
Below is part 1 of an extended conversation with Janet. Over the course of this discussion, we dig into human nature, explore how biology affects innovation, and give you practical tips to increase the innovation in your ecosystem.
Q: Why does human nature matter in business?
Janet: Business is best when the people providing goods and services feel passion and commitment to what they are producing and their customers feel they’ve received value. The operative word here is “feel.” When we use the term “rational” in business, we usually mean dispassionately data driven and informed by explicit measureable criteria.
Q: Why do we care so much about rationality in the first place?
Janet: Our love affair with the rational world goes back 600 years to the Scientific Revolution, which set in motion not only an epic blossoming of human innovation, but also a series of beliefs about human nature that in large part are being dismantled by recent neuroscience discoveries.
The Brain runs the world in ways we can't easily detect
Q: But what’s wrong with rationality as a goal in business?
Janet: The problem is that most of what we view as being rationally determined isn’t. Viewed from the lens of brain science, emotions are elegant shortcuts that allow us to sort through reams of implicitly stored (i.e. outside consciousness) neural patterns and generate feelings that guide us toward or away from a course of action. Without emotion, we are biologically incapable of making decisions. Logic is often the last step in the process. The conscious intellectual brain steps in to produce a rational backstory to justify impulses generated in the murky corners of the unconscious mind.
Q: Can you give an example of that interplay between logic and emotion?
Janet: How many times have you left a data-soaked, death by PowerPoint meeting unable to identify anything faulty with the “facts,” yet left with a feeling that something wasn’t quite right? Your unconscious mind might indeed be letting you know there’s a pattern that doesn’t fit. Equally, it could be that the presentation was sound, but that it overwhelmed the limited capacity of your rational mind, while failing to satisfy your biological need to feel emotions like trust, acceptance, and excitement.
Q: Why are humans designed so “imperfectly” in this way?
Janet: We come preloaded with deep programming, generated from a long tribal evolutionary history on the plains of Africa. Our DNA tells us to distrust strangers and those who are “different” from us. We see this behavior even in infants nine months and younger. We resemble our primate cousins when it comes to status-seeking behaviors. Power displays like puffing out our chests causes surges of testosterone, translating into increased confidence in both subject and viewer. Soothing touch works on our oxytocin systems, enhancing measures of trust. These are but a few examples of a vast repertoire of unconscious behavioral influences. The point is people act on these feelings of trust, distrust, confidence, etc. and will find ways to make the data confirm their felt experience.
Q: But aren’t our rational selves still in control at least most of the time?
Janet: Most neuroscientists would agree that well over 90% of our behavior is generated outside of consciousness. We are more slaves to our biology than we realize. Our rational minds represent a very small layer floating atop a vast well of unconscious drivers. Business leaders who understand biological programming and can leverage it possess an enormous advantage.
Q: Can you give an example of how biology affects the innovation process?
Janet: Sure. There are two main areas where biology affects innovation. First, human neurology is built to resist change. After all, if we’re alive, most of what we’ve done to get here has worked! In order to conserve the status quo, the brain generates feelings of discomfort when we try new things or attempt to change. This is counterbalanced by other systems, driven by dopamine, that reward exploration and discovery.
Q: How does that counterbalance work in the brain?
Janet: It’s a balancing act. When we experience too much stress and threat, the tendency is to retreat into habitual known responses. When we feel sufficiently (but not overly) secure, we venture into new territory. The prefrontal cortex, the area resting just behind your forehead, is key to innovative thought. As Dr. Amy Arnsten of Yale University puts it, “it’s the Goldilocks of the brain….it wants everything just right.”
Q: What’s the second way that biology affects innovation?
Janet: Second, at a fundamental brain level, innovation is the intersection of previously unrelated neural patterns. We are pattern-making creatures. From the time we’re born, our brains are busily encoding any useful and repeating relationship between objects and events to which we’re exposed. Since the brain possesses very little capacity for conscious attention, it uses these patterns to automate our responses to the environment as much as possible.
Q: So our brains create patterns to make sense of things. That’s an efficient way to deal with our environments, right?
Janet: The great news is that this works marvelously most of the time. The downside is that we sometimes automate patterns that may have limited utility or which are outmoded hand-me-downs from another generation or set of circumstances. Also, our neural patterns are constricted by our unique circumstances and by what we’ve paid attention to. There’s way more data in the environment than ever makes it onto our neural maps.
Q: So how do new patterns get formed in our brains?
Janet: In order to create new intersections, it’s crucial that we cross-pollinate by engaging with diverse people, activities and experience to provide the raw materials for serendipitous insight. Just like in venture capital, most of these intersections will go nowhere. The more diversity in the system, however, the more “weeds” will flourish and the greater the likelihood that some of them will be useful!
"From a sheer physical perspective, we humans are a wimpy lot."
Q: Are humans designed to innovate?
Janet: Humans are marvelously unique among the animal kingdom in that we’re the only species designed to imagine a future that doesn’t exist today and to coordinate action with other human beings to make our visions reality. No other species manipulates the environment to make life easier in quite the way that we do. It’s what has allowed our species to dominate the planet and grow to 7 billion strong. It’s also what drives us to build businesses and engage in commerce.
Q: Are human beings, therefore, the perfect animal?
Janet: From a sheer physical perspective, we humans are a wimpy lot. Most other mammals are stronger and faster. An isolated human on the African Savannah will likely become dinner on fairly short order. But, we possess two amazing superpowers – imagination and the ability to collaborate and pass down learning through language.
Q: How did you first realize that our biological selves and our rational selves were not the same?
Janet: I grew up on a military research base in the middle of the Mojave Desert. My father was a well-respected rocket scientist and I spent my childhood surrounded by gifted scientific minds. Even from the perspective of a child, it seemed obvious that highly rational thinkers often behaved in ways that were anything but. Later, as a manager of scientists and engineers, my experience was confirmed anew.
Q: What was your first insight into the power of neuroscience to explain human behavior in business?
Janet: In the mid 1990’s, I was introduced to the concept of an “amygdala hijack.” The amygdalae are two small almond-shaped structures in the brain that among other things, monitor environmental and social threats and allow us to respond reflexively when perceived levels get too high. They figuratively hijack our volitional choice by redirecting behavioral control to more primitive responses such as fight, flight and freeze. This small bit of neuroscience went a long way to explain the defensive posturing, shutting down and avoidance I’d seen in the business world.
Q: What other ideas have inspired you in this work?
Janet: Around the same time, I read two pivotal books, Descartes’ Error and A General Theory of Love. These books changed the way I thought about human nature and illuminated my understanding of why people act in, as MIT Professor Dan Ariely aptly puts it, “predictably irrational” ways. I was hooked. Since then I’ve become a student of the behavioral sciences, reading research, attending social and cognitive neuroscience conferences and connecting with researchers.
Q: Do you consider yourself a scientist or a business expert?
Janet: I consider myself to be both. My company, Cascadance, works with cutting edge business leaders to build leadership practices and cultures that leverage the best of our biology. My original training was as an environmental scientist. I worked in that field for over a decade, both as a practitioner and a leader, transitioning into business consulting and executive coaching in the mid 1990′s. My background in environmental science has not only given me a wonderful systems perspective on human behavior, but also gave me the strong grounding in science necessary to read original neuroscience research and ask critical questions. As in any concentrated field of study, many neuroscientists are unable to see the larger implications of their work. I see myself as a bridge and translator between the research and its enormously useful real world applications.
"It’s in play where we often gain access to our vast unconscious warehouse of neural information."
Q: What are some simple steps people can take to be more innovative, based on biological thinking?
Janet’s suggestions:
1. Take care of your biological instrument – The areas of the brain involved in innovation are particularly sensitive to sleep deprivation, poor diet, lack of social connection and stress in general.
2. Expose yourself – to new and different ideas, disciplines, cultures and environments. The tendency in business is to hunker down, focus, and try to get as much done as possible in as short a time as we can. If we can’t think of a reason that something needs to happen, we deem it a luxury or waste of time. Great innovations happen when there’s a large pool of seemingly unrelated content to pull from. We have to set time aside to cross pollinate even if we can’t see the immediate application.
3. Be inclusive and create safety – People outside the system bring fresh neural patterns. People within the system often think and see in much the same way. Unless there are practices that allow diverse elements in your ecosystem to intersect, and unless you’ve created the safety to prompt people to speak up, vast amounts of insight will remain undiscovered.
4. Create forums where people can play and prototype – All mammals play, and it’s in play where we often gain access to our vast unconscious warehouse of neural information.
Victor W. Hwang is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley with T2 Venture Capital. He is co-creator of Rainforest Architects, a workshop for leaders seeking to create their own innovation ecosystem based on techniques from Silicon Valley. The next program is on April 22-24, 2013.
