Brain Leaders and Learners

Consider countless hours wasted on counterproductive meetings, where the upshot’s  little more than routine announcements. Not surprising that meetings work against the human brain. 

How could you transform  your next meeting into a treasure trove of talent such as Paul Sloane suggests here for an  innovative takeaway?

Human brains come equipped to build and sustain innovative cultures where design leads to profitability.

Want to revitalize your next meeting to trump innovation brainpower?

1. Survey workers to identify toxins that drain brainpower.
2. Create teams to propose  workplace wellness opportunities.
3. Invite feedback to unleash brainpower beyond cynicism.
4. Collaborate tone tools to turn around broken practices.
5. Welcome solutions and alternatives from those who differ.
6. Ask 2-footed questions to engage curiosity.
7. Discuss broken systems with solutions in mind.
8. Reconfigure meetings to motivate more brainpower.
9. Encourage disagreement that builds goodwill.
10. Facilitate innovation with the brain in mind.

Here are 25 further ways to reboot brainpower and add innovation in transformed meetings. Could your next roundtable  raise the bottom line?

Who’d  guess that mere facial expressions at a meeting can limit or enhance everybody’s takeaway.  We saw it in action last night at the State of the Union Address, where some participants grimaced at most of the President’s speech, and refused to participate in anything but naysaying, and cynicism.

The purpose of this blog is not to cast blame on either party, but to look at both sides in terms of the lost tone skills and toxic workplaces in our country.

How so?

Tone is the body language of communication at any meeting, with skills vital to help people disagree with dignity. Serotonin rises with positive tone – to help people build goodwill even among those who differ.  Grimaces and cynicism increase cortisol and prevent learning from following on the heels of opposing views expressed at the best meetings.

Would you agree though, that good communication escapes too many modern meetings?

When research and tone skills work together to benefit meetings:

Disagreement becomes art when it draws together differences to help people  find common ground in controversial issues. Check out tone tips to disagree at your next meeting. In contrast, see subtle barbs from dissenters who  lack tools to disagree.

Tone takes different shapes in different settings, and yet can lead to growth or devastation in meetings. With digital sessions increasing, for instance,  online tone is also critical for building high performance climates. Survey your tone skills to see if you work in an organization that disagrees well, and cultivates healthy communication across differences.

Opposing views appear impossible at some meetings. Or can you trace tone problems to the root of  organizational failures?  Einstein put it this way … “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment.  Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”

It doesn’t need to be that way. 

Here are a few tone tips for disagreeing in ways that build goodwill at meetings.

1. Affirm another person’s thoughts before sharing your views on the other side – to show that you really heard, sorted, and valued them. (notice I did not say agree with them)

2. Thank people for different ideas presented and show how you’ve tried or considered them further. Toss your own ideas into the ring to show and explain differences you see.

3. Share personal experiences respectfully as another angle to think about together – rather than as a need to replace the original ideas that were presented. Remember you are looking to stir and learn from diverse sides of the issue.

4. Ask two footed questions… rather than offer your own opinion too quickly. . For instance…  Have you thought about…? What if…? Could another possibility be …?

5. Add unique ideas to the mix – to inspire with confidence – more as part of a good discussion – than a need to top the original points. Make sure you support your best ideas with concrete examples to help people see possibilities presented.

Congratulations, you have just used differences to segue into a broader vision for your workplace – one that draws in multiple talents.

See further tone tips for meetings that value and learn from others’ ideas in ways that engage diverse views – and even disagree with some. What mugshot will you bring to the next meeting?

Before you pony up $50,000 or more for an MBA degree, it makes sense to check out what you can expect back for your investment. Recession begs us to rethink business schools, and to consider if the value of degrees have plummeted along with home prices and salaries. As Joe Gerstandt reminds us we need a new kind of leader. If you agree, you’ll likely also agree that renewed leadership requires a new kind of MBA. One that few business schools currently offer.

How so?

Imagine MBAs who suddenly added  innovative tactics for a new era to your organization. If well-equipped leaders facilitated cutting edge initiatives with more brain in mind. Your organization would know these new MBA leaders by sharply increased profitability and worker morale where they worked.

In a brain based program transformed  graduates would come into your organization with current business plans patterned after highly successful local, national and global leaders, such as:

• Talent – Bill Conaty leads business talent management.  Conaty raised the level of HR internationally, and convinced other business leaders to spot credibility of HR as an answer to unleashing talent as human capital.

• Finances – Jeffrey Sachs calls for a complete change in economic strategies for a crowed planet. In spite of the wonderful insights of President Obama, Sachs offers, we are still dealing economic lies and abuse in the back rooms of government and Wall Street.

• Curiosity - Ursula Burns leads Xerox from tired traditions that sagged in sales to position it back among top organizations, with the challenges that come from asking Where to from here? By stirring curiosity for answers in co-workers, Burns finds answers that many CEOs tend to miss.

• Innovation – George Lucas comes with creative insights for the future of cinema. Lucas never really wanted to make money, but passionately wanted to make art.  In art you make an emotional and innovative connection to people. Innovation for Lucas, involves telling stories to the population in a meaningful and emotional way.

• Tone - Eric Massa solves business problems with statesman-like tone that engages opposing views, while finding courage to speak out against cynicism. Only by using tone skills for tough times, can leaders facilitate innovative ideas from diverse angles so that all can both teach and learn from others who differ.

• Organization – Gary Hamel offers unique management innovation plans that would revolutionize MBAs. Hamel stated in the world business forum 2009,  To succeed in the future, organizations are going to have to find ways of energizing people, so that they bring not only their skills, expertise and diligence to work, but they bring their passion and their initiative as well.

• Change – Ann Mulcahy takes charge and draws others into change. Mulcahy faced critics and cynics alike – to embrace changes that brought Xerox back from the brink of disaster and held it in archaic practices with exclusive privileges for a few leaders at its top. By launching innovative change, Xerox is back in the race as a strong global player.

You likely have leaders in mind that qualify even more for some of these slots and we’d love to hear about them. But back to the opening challenge of why buy an expensive MBA. We are drowning as a business community,  and to revive we need to create a new kind of leader,  and pass it on to the next generation of business school grads.

Many old school skills taught in current MBA program, remind us that  a new kind of leader is urgently needed. In future posts, look for innovative suggestions for teaching MBA programs with brains more in mind. It won’t be easy to accomplish in some current campuses, nor is it a task for the faint hearted. Yet the urgent need for a new kind of leader, compels us to rethink how we can develop highly effective business leaders for a new era.

Could reconfigured MBAs carry our business world back from rags of broken banks back to riches of human achievement?  Could  leadership that models a new tone for tough times, for example, offer Wall Street’s answer to an innovative future for management? Perhaps more importantly, could a new breed of MBAs open main street’s surest segue to creative progress?

Imagine leaders who build brilliant inroads that reconnect humans to innovation through technology, management,  social media, and institutional change. How so?

Leaders would begin to address the narrowing gates to resources. We still have a long way to go!

Innovation today is tenaciously blocked by bureaucrats with power, or dismissed by politicians without vision of  innovation’s new roles for humanity. Caught in hierarchies where vision fades to the right or draws to the left, but rarely reaches progressive greens, Hebbian leaders tend to prevent innovation’s steady trajectory toward future wins.

Opposite innovative MBAs, stand Hebbian counterparts,  who appear unable to renew with the brain in mind, and incapable to override the brain’s default to ruts. What’s the solution?

Imagine the active place innovation would leap to within a facilitation style leadership, that came to business from cutting edge MBA programs, armed with innovation  in your area.

For years I attended toxic meetings where one guy yammered on and one  fellow worker turned off his hearing aids. It’s the only time I can remember wishing for Gordon’s hearing disability.

That’s how bad these meetings were. People moved back and forth  from bored to bitching, while Gordon slept with his eyes open and the rest of us envied his ability to escape through a switch on his ears.

Have you attended meetings that left you feeling dumber at the end?

If so, you’ll likely see the benefits of  calling a meeting the best brains in your company literally run to. It’s likely no surprise to you that most meetings literally work against the human brain, and therefore detract from your organization’s productivity. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are 5 steps to reconfigure your next meetings by facilitating with the brain in mind.

1. Question in ways that draw in new ideas and advance old ones with new leverage from reconfigured angles. Ask 2 footed questions so that people are drawn in and problems get solved. Ask for instance, If you could change one practice in your department this week to raise the bottom line, what would you change?
2. Target so that you collaboratively set one goal to improve a problem area at work. Identify one area that needs improvement by facilitating as many voices as possible on the possibilities that carry mutual dividends. Look at problems with solutions in mind, and you’ll find your goals grow bigger than any one leader, as enthusiasm springs up from many angles.
3. Expect in ways illustrate criteria most can agree to. List what’s required to ensure the change you plan to instigate. Common criteria may include: a). Date that action plan is to be completed; b). Cost allowed for improved practice; c). Evidence the new routine gets improved results; d). Assurance that all team members contribute; e). Teachable takeaways to share across the company and beyond.
4. Move resources so that people’s multiple intelligences become brainpower tools for growth in the area identified. Check out Dr. Robyn MacMaster’s cool suggestions for brainwriting at meetings, for instance.
5. Reflect in ways that sustain growth in the area of change by asking,  Where to from here? on a weekly or monthly basis.

It’s important to note that these steps to brainpower meetings that more can live with, require a skilled facilitator. A leader with acumen to draw from diverse intelligences that build a finer organization for all.

How will you open your next meeting so that more brainpower emerges?

A critic is a person who points out blunders, in such a way that simple mistakes look like launching pads for a global disaster – all fueled by your few faults.

Critics in today’s toxic workplaces often compare fault finding skills to a unique and higher intelligence, when in reality, criticism requires less brainpower than most people realize.

Opposite critics though, stand skilled facilitators who capitalize on neuro-discoveries, welcome ambiguity, and stir passion for newly discovered talents.

Take your pick!  Would you rather work alongside the well known  critic or cynic in your organization, or interact with a skilled  facilitator like Dan Isenberg over at Harvard Business Review. Dan opened a lively discussion on dangers of entrepreneurial passion, and then guided widely diverse views as curiosity-building-tools for new insights to replace old assumptions.

It’s often the difference between infighting or innovation at work, and the choice depends  on a person’s focus. Think of it this way -  your brain actually builds new neuron pathways for each criticism or innovation engaged. Why then do critics  jump in so fast on their mission to damn the dumb?

Slip into any area that could be deemed a mistake, and you’ll you spot  critics who  rush  in to strike out errors, much like a fire hose douses unwanted flames. A lifetime of work with both critical and facilitator leaders, showed me 10  common causes  that lead people to critique, criticize, correct, or outright  clobber a bloke at work.

Reasons  differ, yet critics  follow somewhat similar patterns:

1. Facts appear wrong or missing to critics and as a result they feel it’s vital to set folks straight and make records right.
2. Brainy comparisons to right and wrong, prompt  critics to refuse being outwitted by misinformed plebs and underlings.
3. Positions of power appear  available to critics who spot most errors and make these known to leaders.
4. Feedback forms come with the job and critics assume that these require a certain percentage of negative responses.
5. Opposing views confuse  issues and so critics favor one correct way, which is usually their own and often uninformed.
6. Errors offer a platform for critics to pontificate their perceived finer approach to whatever topic arises.
7. Personal reflection for growth takes mental skill -  and blame comes far easier to a cynic, than does self-reflection.
   
8. Bloom’s taxonomy that claims water-tight facts are the lowest form of knowledge, is disbelieved by critics, who insist that correct facts are highest, and depend on critiques to amend.
9. Promotions are at stake and critics qualify for some leadership roles more  than their victims, if they showcase others’ flaws.
10. Critics like to appear smarter and it helps their  genius-like status to prove others dumber than themselves.

Brain related research by Suzann Pileggi suggests that thriving relationships accentuate the positive and broken relationships tend to look more for flaws.

To focus more  on  talent and offer intelligent innovation that critics lack,   facilitators:

1. Look for more linguistic intelligence. Want words to come easier, poetry to mean more, speeches to ring truer, or books to yield more wealth? Then play with words, do crosswords, compete in scrabble, debate, or offer to speak to a local club. Search for new ideas on the internet, write a blog, or tell your best idea in 140 letters or less, and and that too will boost your linguistic brainpower. What could you do today, to gain even more mastery over language?

2. See more musical intelligence. Want music to move and shake your creative projects? Pop on Gregorian Chant to pop you out of stress. Play Bach or Handel to plan your next creative project. Toss tunes from Shumann, Chopin or Liszt into your romance and watch it grow. Or gain inspiration from Soul, Blues or Calypso. Don Campbell shows how to gain musical intelligence to jack up productivity, or to improve your moods on a bad day?

3. Spot intrapersonal intelligence. Need intuition for better decisions, common sense for keen insights, contentment in your own company, simple ability to laugh more on a busy day? Thanks to neurogenesis, we now know this intelligence too will grow with use. Panic a bit too fast? Feel sidelined a bit too much? Run from risks or new adventures? Grow sad when others celebrate family ties? If so, you’d enjoy a heaping dose of intrapersonal smarts to add contentment and turn those tougher days around. Plan a lunch alone at your favorite digs, practice smiling to improve a mood, ask a question to your day, or plan a risk today that would ratchet up contentment.  Simply put, whenever you do tasks related to introspection or personal intelligence, your brain begins to rewire brainpower for a more clever you.

4. Highlight bodily kinesthetic intelligence. Would you like to dance, better? Then step and move beside a person who dances well. Want to move with coordinated grace? Then shuffle and stretch in ways you hope to grow more memory within body muscles themselves. It’s much the same for skills intelligence to smack a tennis ball with greater ease, or put together furniture with finer flare. Do it to grow it. Then watch for wonder as the brain kicks into kinesthetic mode or shifts into movement gears that zap alive with use, regardless of age or limitations that hold too many folks back.

5. Check for mathematical or logical intelligence. Why not start a schedule to plan your next week, since sequencing and patterning is at math smart’s core. So’s organization at the heart of math IQ as is seeing the bigger picture. Like other intelligences mathematical genius grows more through math ideas that take you feet first, and then on new flights – with use. Mistakes add growth in math, yet schools use errors as arrows to kill a brain’s best. Even Einstein said that Education’s what remains after one’s forgotten everything learned in school. Have you found ways to use and grow logical mathematical, in spite of limitations learned at school?

6. Observe visual or spatial intelligence. Grab a paper along with anything that writes and sketch your funniest memory in the last few weeks? Attend an art class, and learn to paint. Visit galleries, surround yourself with images that teach you more about life, or create an avatar to show your thoughts to an online community. Graph ideas, select visuals to explain life, or take photographs to record the week of people you value to use your spatial intelligence and to develop more through use.

7. Find interpersonal intelligence. Interview a person you know to discover what makes that person smart? Ask, “How are you smart?” rather than the more traditional question “How smart are you? Narrow that person’s narrative about personal intelligence into one or two words, and you have already grown intelligence interpersonally. Would you agree that people high in interpersonal intelligence will come away with amazing insights here? Or can you see how the exchange itself offers opportunity to expand one’s interpersonal acumen?

8. Draw on naturalistic intelligence. If you spend excessive time breathing in refreshing scents of spring, surrounded by sounds of brooks running, or captivated by natures’ change for different seasons, you likely possess good amounts of naturalistic intelligence. You’ll gain more though, by using patterns and designs found outside to solve problem faced in any situation. Soil types, animal or tree patterns, or rock formations – all amount to nature’s wisdom.

For better balance than fault-finding, why not take brainpower to new levels.  First, survey your own multiple intelligences to see what’s stronger and what acumen you’d like to expand. Then, plan one activity a week to include a strength you most enjoy. Watch for critics though, because they tend to ambush any leader who takes such a risk for the sake of growth. Have you seen it?

Hello friends and colleagues!

Please join me over at wonderfully motivating community led by Huffington Post writer, Gail Goodwin, on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at InspireMeToday.com!

On Monday, the 18^th I’ll share invited insights from my experiences in an exclusive 500-word article – Act Like a Genius – on the best things learned in life full of beneficial nuggets for you! Gail hosted an audio interview on brain insights at the same site which shows how to get more brainpower up and running strong.  Would love to hear your nuggets too!

While  visiting InspireMeToday.com, Gail Goodwin invites you to sign up free daily inspiration email and free 44 page eBook Secrets to Soaring. These motivational gifts are there to inspire and encourage you on your 2010 journey.

On behalf of the InspireMeToday.com family, thanks for joining me on Monday, Jan. 18th. Greatly appreciate you!

Stay blessed in the New Year,

Ellen

How come  “Barak Obama” messages appear in my email box often, and yet no response comes back from the White house to my carefully crafted responses?

Perhaps a more urgent question is – How big a gap separates your idea of  democracy and your lived experience? For most people the concept of democracy holds brainpower possibilities beyond all forms of governance. Only for a few, though is  freedom by the people for the people. To be effective democracy must include  interactive communication and benefits for all. Do you mix social equity or brainpower from all  people groups, into your conversation or leadership?

Toss equity and collaboration into leadership and democracy’s innovative sprigs suddenly pop up at every juncture.

Why then, are so few leaders democratic as a lived experience?

Democracy requires leaders to hold a crown over any group’s head, and then cultivate a climate where all people work together to grow into its regality.  Problems arise when leaders appear unsure about what to do with many voices, especially those that express opposing views. To live democracy is to don the kind of tone that builds goodwill even among those who disagree.

As more people speak and feel heard, it takes skilled facilitators to ensure people’s wisdom constitutes the better part of all decisions made. That’s democracy’s brainpower, and very likely the part that won it such fine reputation.

No wonder lived equity  leads to peaceful resolutions, even for tough problems. See democracy in your leadership?

Over 30 years  in brain based renewal,  showed me several reasons why renewal cannot win in certain workplace conditions. I’ll admit that naivety in  younger years, prompted me to believe deteriorated settings could turn around in spite of barriers. Over time though, I observed some settings that simply cannot perk up  because organizational toxins contaminate their talents for innovation. It’s a brainpower thing. Transformation is not possible, if you consider dangerous directions of certain anti-innovative neuron pathways at toxic settings. How so?

Power struggles, like Rochester’s current mayoral demands to rule education, preclude urgently needed change. Fighting egos add cortisol, increase poor tone, and mentally divert brainpower away from progressive pathfinding.  While secondary schools fight for control, like Rochester NY currently  fights for mayoral power, brain renewal cannot improve learning. Why not? Learning transformation, with the brain in mind, is more about facilitating rewired minds – where adults and teens collaborate  mental benefits for all. Brain based workplaces reconfigure to favor facilitation of multiple intelligences in all, rather than demand more power for one man.

Fear of failure opens the door for bullies and cynics to lock out innovation and tromp all over  renewal initiatives. It takes courage and curiosity in action – to open spigots of dopamine that fuels adjustments at work.   High octane fuel for brain based risks.  In contrast,  fear forces brainpower into decline, like it did to the head of a university department who recently wrote  about an onset of sinking numbers on campus, and dwindling morale among staff. I want to introduce brain based strategies, and a new innovative program, he said, but added, I cannot do so for another year. When I asked why, he shot back,  because we’re up for accreditation this year! You could hear fear echo through anxiety in his words. No wonder his leadership provoked failure, and forfeited freedom. That’s fear’s mental role, and he played it well.

Imagine the level of worry that prevents genuine renewal, and dwindles an organization down to merely meet bureaucratic certification demands.  Is there nothing more to modify, create or extend for the high performance minds at work? Brow beaten leaders  complain about nosediving dividends, as fear shifts their focus away from an urgent need for systemic change. We’ll likely get more calls from similar leaders, whenever some new speedbump detracts their focus away from transforming visions and detracts from life-changing destinies they once held for renewal. Have you seen it?

What holds your organization back from leading innovation with the brain in mind, for a post-recession era? Perhaps a better question is:  What mentally charged traits have you seen work best for innovation and against workplace toxins?

Where does a workplace begin to renew? Why not try on a few brain based solutions that diminish toxins and promote innovation.

The other day Gail Goodwin and I tossed around brain insights here on WebTalk Radio and Gail’s curiosity inspired innovative insights from every angle. Current brain applications  flew back and forth as Gail’s unique brand of curiosity unfolded brainpower like magic spawns a sense of wonder.

It’s not surprising that Gail’s known as an Ambassador of Inspiration in that she facilitates new ideas by skillfully prying beneath everyday assumptions to unleash the stuff of innovation.

She inspired me to reflect on innovative marks of the kind of curious brain she cultivates and lives:

• Curiosity that leads to innovation differs from IQ, in that it’s  stirred by gifted facilitators and sparks serotonin chemicals for creativity.

• Curiosity is more evident in Gail’s kind of genius persistence that overrides ruts and optimizes opportunities for innovative solutions.

• Curiosity engages more of the brain’s plasticity because those who change and create based on new insights,  rewire faster for renewal.

• Curiosity draws from a wider sense of intelligences to engage dynamic and diverse pathways toward innovative adventures.

• Curious leaders prefer and prosper from a position of guide to the side, rather than grasp the standard sage on the stage.

• Curiosity is the antithesis of cynicism and the handmaiden of innovative  neuron pathways that shape a brilliant brain.

• Curiosity runs from lectures that deliver facts from a speaker’s mind without touching the innovative listener’s mind.

• Curiosity seeks  patterns that show how frogs develop from eggs to tadpoles, to create solutions for life’s changing faces in other areas.

• Curiosity reflects frequently to take innovative risks, grow multiple intelligences, and avoid stagnation at every turn.

When was the last time you asked somebody, “What’s most exciting about your work? Are you curious about what separates innovators from those who simply play it safe? Thoughts?

25 words to reboot  brainpower and zap your 2010 with innovative facts from brain sciences: 

1. Invent and share a refreshing solution to a stubborn work problem – solve a  difficulty that leaves you bored or in a rut at work. Brain fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by daily choices,  then stored in brain as a reality.

2. Uplift your work area with natural lighting.  Brain fact: Environments influence brainpower, and a healthy workplace inspires people to transform problems into solutions.

3. Thank a fellow worker for a personal accomplishment.  Brain fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled and extended by serotonin chemical hormones.

4. Give somebody the gift of forgiveness, and let go of a grudge. Brain fact: Anger, fear, and frustration  are fueled and extended by cortisol chemical hormones.

5.  Propose alternatives to an observed annoying habit.  Brain fact: Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to much more of the same.

6. Act the person you want others to see in you, and that you’ll become. Brain fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and  take shape, or grow based on what you do.

7. Vary your background sounds and add music for more motivation. Brain fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity.

8. Stir curiosity and engage others.  Brain fact: Lectures and talks work against listener brains and benefit speaker intelligence while neglecting  listener insights.

9. Shift routines up daily. Brain fact: Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains with sameness.

10. Include differences as assets.  Brain fact: Diversity training commonly fails people  mentally  because it shows inclusion as a deficit model – rather than as assets.

11. Sleep well in order to perform well. Brain fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or peak performance, based on how you activate and manage them.

12. Research and open mentally to new and different ideas daily.  Brain fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing you know and learning increases in less time.

13. Change on regular basis.  Brain fact: Your brain’s basal ganglia stores old facts and creates ruts, while working memory holds few new facts and leads change.

14. Survey and engage more strengths. Brain fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all, used by few, and can be cultivated daily with regular use as mental tools.

15. Create rather than criticize. Brain fact: Cynical or critical mindsets literally block creativity, limit talent in you or others, and stomp out innovation.

16. List key facts as guides and reminders.  Brain fact: Memory can be outsourced to help you remember more, and to free your mind for  focus on the moment.

17. Inspire novel young ideas. Brain fact: Plasticity enables people of all ages and backgrounds to rewire the human brain in ways that keep it younger and more agile.

19. Encourage you and others often.  Brain fact: Encouragement changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, and ratchets up tone for profitability.

19. Communicate with care, openness and honesty. Brain fact: Meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from message spoken.

20. Integrate from ideas and people across many fields.  Brain fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems with the brain in mind.

21. Relax and practice letting worries go.  Brain fact:  Stress literally shrinks the brain, and tone in communication acts as a silent killer.

22. Seek genuine and lasting relationships. Brain fact: Greet  colleagues through speaking people’s names, to offer spike in well being or awareness in person’s brain.

23. Risk innovation one step at a time.  Brain fact: Inspire creativity and invention through teaching others at the same time you also learn and create yourself.

24. Collaborate to propose solutions. Brain fact: Create new neuron pathways collectively and add  solutions to workplace  problems  encountered.

25. Celebrate those who differ mentally. Brain fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually, for instance,  in ways that few optimize.

How could these few applications from facts about your brain increase workplace brainpower and toss more innovation into 2010?

The human brain comes with unique equipment to build and sustain innovative cultures, where design leads to profitability. How so?

1.  Kindle and design an idea. Just as the iPod started with an innovative  idea,  Steve Jobs and others continue to design Apple products that revolutionize communication. Fast Company celebrated the last decade’s 14 biggest such design moments, all of which unveil the original ideas that rolled into products with possibilities. How does it happen? Your brain’s hippocampus releases a shot of dopamine in  response to novelty. Anthony Grace at the University of Pittsburgh describes a feedback loop that involves a chemical and electrical interactions between dopamine and novel or unexpected events. This lively process appears to lock in memory, as it also engages the amygdala where the brain processes emotional information that feeds innovation.

2. Mimic creative people. Believe it or not, you can literally adopt another person’s innovative talents by observing them. It’s also true that while innovation may be more vital than ever at your workplace, individuals  who think act and build differently often remain at a premium.  That’s where the brain can help out, so that more people learn innovative tactics that generate profitable designs.  How so? Mirror neurons show how innovative cultures come from imitation – and this video on mirror neurons illustrates how we watch and mirror the culture others live. Deep inside your brain cells are neurons that will fire in reaction to another’s beliefs as they roll into activity. See any new opportunities for innovation where you work,  as they play out in mimicking an innovator’s actions?

3. Link opposites together and build from both sides. Need a breakthrough to top up the creativity on a project? Then build an innovative culture of connecting opposites in ways that few non-innovators think to connect. If you’ve ever benefited from unique insights, you’ve likely also seen opposing viewpoints from high-performance minds,  that beg to differ. So why then, do disagreements about opposing views so often break up relations, terminate innovative projects, shut down brilliant people, promote racism, and even ignite wars? Tone is the brain’s best approach to tame an amygdala in ways that harness innovative energy. Rather than take potshots at people, consider disagreements as tools to build goodwill across differences, and diversity becomes the hottest neuron pathway to innovative solutions. Designs that come from engaging genius thinkers, are the same offerings that prosper a wider community.

4. Create a round table to brainstorm a process. The other day I facilitated a round table of leaders from many fields, and after many unexpected angles tossed into the mix, we came up with a renewal project that none of us could have masterminded alone. Have you experienced ideas piggybacked onto others from alternative positions?  Innovation, whether from arts or science, embodies mysteries to ponder. It’s that place that bubbles over in a circle where no brain is left behind. It’s where brilliant solutions tend to flow from pools just outside of prevailing thought, where people build beyond limitations. It’s where a culture of innovative thought hooks difficult facts onto ordinary experiences people live – so that learning increases in less time, with innovative designs as visible results.

5. Collaborate with a person who differs. Innovation rarely waits for situations to improve but shapes dendrite brain cells by outside worlds that spark mental growth based more on what you do than what’s done to you. The opposite of toxic workplaces is a climate of creative collaboration where innovative leaders engage opposing views to discover another design built from different angles. To work together is to listen to new ideas and to engage another’s talents. Innovative partnerships tend to work better when different players share in a common vision, and when the outcomes and expectations are clearly defined.

6. Reward talent. In too many workplaces problems go unsolved while some of the finest minds are left outside of the innovative process. In order to bridge the gap between the multiple intelligences people bring to work, and the problems that need solutions, organizations reward people for refreshing new ideas. As part of that process why not survey your unique intelligences to see which talents you have up and running innovatively. As people at work awaken new intelligences for innovative designs, offer a reward for teams who use most diverse perspectives on a refreshing and profitable innovation.

7. Pose two-footed questions. The best way to integrate innovation into your firm’s existing practices is to question ways that lead away from creative solutions. Start with stubborn problems, and toss in a two-footed question that probes the solution from angles of fact and interest. I am presenting an MBA course on innovation to several senior faculty at a university business school  in New York next week, and I plan to challenge leaders there with the question: What will  innovation look like in the 21st Century, and how can your business school promote creative intelligence through top facilitation of business brainpower? What two-footed question would launch your next innovative offering?

8. Capitalize on tone tools for tough times. Innovation gets lost in climates where toxins such as bullying or intimidation exist. It can happen faster than lightening strikes an iron rod in an electric storm. When stress or negativity shoot down the best ideas, and innovators wonder whether it’s a lot less stressful to hang up their cleats in favor of doing bare routines, tone tactics act like a vehicle to tug innovation back into play. It helps to invite an example of good tone from a gentle, and effective leader, and discuss how to offer olive branches back and forth at work. Or why not ask other innovators at work what tone they hear in your words and compare their responses to what your words meant to convey.

9. Start social network discussions. Recently I started a back-and-forth on Twitter to toss around insights and brain facts about multi-tasking as it affects innovation. Research shows that multi-tasking works against innovation because it bottle necks the brain’s ability to focus or innovate. Just as all brains wire differently though, I wanted to see how people view multi-tasking as it relates to their own innovation.  Social networks add new colors and textures to innovative brainpower because people hold up lived experiences to the rainbow for another look.

10. Run from cynics. Have you noticed how stocks rise when people speak hope? Or have you seen financial markets nosedive when naysayers spout doom? Luckily pools of innovative brainpower lie beyond the sea of cynicism. This trend hinges on the fact that hope adds serotonin to spark curiosity and fuel the brain. Cortisol, on the other hand, shuts down originality, and increases fear of failure. Make sense? When cynics spread fear, brainpower shuts down before innovation stands a chance.  When creators spark curiosity imagination kicks in genius.

Bravo! This article, Innovation, Design and the Human Brain,  was selected as a top leadership blog at Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog.

Transform Workplace Tone

Transformation comes to circles where tone is valued and good tone ensures transformation. Sound like a winning duo for those who enjoy change and go for growth?

When respect is evident and differences welcomed,  tone simply ensures that possibilities get more communicated than problems presented. Transformation hinges on rolling out different insights, from people whose common agenda connects to an outcome that benefits the wider community.

Peter Block, author of Community, the Structure of Belonging, suggests that restoration comes first to small groups where people seek to create something together. Have you found that?

In contrast to creativity sparked in small groups, self interest tends to wield a toxic tone, that insists on one-sided answers. It’s often a straightforward choice at work – intolerance and one up-ship of those who differ, or  good tone that welcomes and includes all.   Relegate peripheral places to those not chosen to belong, and you have already ushered in toxic tone. Luckily choice works both ways when it relates to tone at work.

Create the kinds of conversation which tends to question more than offer water-tight answers, and good tone tends to follow. Enlist people’s curiosity more than merely deliver advice, and tone will spark new insights that can change and improve a group’s direction forward.

Have you  surveyed your organizational tone lately?

It’s Christmas — a time for giving! It’s also recession – a time for surviving!

Few would deny that when people give freely from the heart, everybody wins. And yet the very thought of Christmas  this year touches people’s hearts in a new way.  Because of lost jobs or growing  debts, even the most generous givers feel unable to offer  gifts to show that they care.

Leaders tell their employees they cannot value personal efforts with gifts, and people tell families to expect far less. Have you seen it too?

Here at the MITA International Brain Center we suggest  giving from the brain in ways that reflect heartfelt intelligences. Gifts need not cost money when giving draws from personal resources, banked within your brain. How so?

Gifts flow from each intelligence so that those strong in:

Verbal intelligence may inspire and send a note of cheer or thanks to a person often passed over.

Musical intelligence may help you organize a Carol sing-along for shut-ins.

Mathematical intelligence may suggest and help to build a budget for a struggling client, or organize a get together for employees to ring in the season.

Spatial intelligence may create a brilliant Christmas or holiday card – based on another’s most successful 2110 design idea – giving credit of coarse.

Kinesthetic intelligence may help to build a train station or doll’s house  with needy kids to donate to a children’s hospital.

Interpersonal intelligence may match up  mentors  with teens for a look at the best career options for the coming year.

Intrapersonal intelligence may offer a poem or personal reflection to inspire holiday memories to help  folks through tough times.

Naturalistic intelligence may take another family on an adventure to secure a tree and then replant another tree as a sustainable opportunity.

How will you explore possibilities for meaningful gifts, within multiple intelligences, in spite of the current recession?

Blessings to all!

It happens faster than you can wrap your head around replies, much less pause for peaceful solutions. Tonic or toxin? Poor tone shoots poison at others, and often wings back in the same form it was sent. Have you seen it escalate lately?

Like 8 ounces of Vodka mixed into 2  ounces of orange juice, toxic  communication zaps your amygdala before you can blurt out a decent defense. How so?

He tells you he’s a listener – even advertises it as his tag line on a blog – and then interrupts you constantly on a busy day. You retaliate by ignoring him when he asks a reasonable request.

She insists she’s happy to buy lunch, only to report  later to friends that you’re as cheap as a counterfeit two dollar bill. You retaliate by dropping her her off the list for your holiday extravaganza.

Even the most even-keeled communicator will admit that there are more than a few days when they wonder whether it might be a lot less stressful to hang up their cleats in favor of  more passive roles.

Some 2 million American workers are victims of workplace violence yearly. Like the Vodka hidden in a whisk of orange juice, cruelty often starts with poison tone, and escalates pollutants such as racism – sip by sip. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In most relationships, not every interaction is filled with peaches and cream.  There are many days when you  wonder whether your words or actions can accomplish anything, and others when you will sense that you just took a bullfrog leap in the wrong direction. 

Consider These Less Than Tonic Times:

• A top performer where you work supports one way only and marginalizes  intelligent peers who differ.

• You call a meeting to identify tone skills at work and the aggressive team stays away to avoid the topic.

• In spite of knowing how to target agreement in disagreeable settings, you lose it it and blast a novice for a minor mistake.

• You avoid emails from a partner who worked hard to negotiate a financial risk because you fear more financial failure.

• A workplace cynic took a swipe at your top project idea just when the  firm was about to buy in.

• Your annual feedback showed more than a handful of work situations where tough times found you sniping back at peers.

• Your best efforts to improve a situation peacefully are shouted down by a colleague who claims to disagree with respect, and calls for tougher measures.

• Your hottest competitor announced unprecedented growth through inventions that require cooperation across differences, a trait lacking where you work.

A Few  Suggestions for Surviving Tough Tone Days:

• Start a social network to offer opportunities for networking with good tone, and offer sessions to discuss benefits of online tone.

• Watch for tone problems around holidays, from people who struggle with intimate or healthy relationships. Set up a contest and offer a reward for the team with top tone skills.

• Reinvent even a small part of the workplace that is no longer profitable, by suggesting a practice that offers benefits from tone growth.

• Praise a leader who models the courage to use tone that others admire.

• Brainstorm ways to tame an amygdala before it snipes back, and gather examples from fellow workers to illustrate how tone adds tonic or toxins.

• Invite an example of good tone from a gentle, and effective leader, and discuss how to offer olive branches at work.

• Ask others at work what tone they hear in your words and compare their responses to what your words meant to convey.

• Speak out when local or national leaders misuse tone for selfish gain or corrupt outcomes.

A Bottom–Line from Poor Tone  to Genius:

Not that silver bullets exist for bad tone days, yet the best thing that builds tone is to find solutions that leave no brains behind.  On bad days remind yourself that no human is invincible, and yet all make choices that balance the brain’s angel or devil parts of tone in ways that require evidence in practice.

Rather than mistakenly believe that you can do no wrong, learn and teach tools for tone.  Exchange that sea of cynicism for renewed brainpower that engages voices on the other side of even the most controversial issues.  That’s the tone that fueled Einstein’s brainpower to persist and invent.

After being told to avoid fatty foods and simply wait for stomach problems to heal, a close friend of mine failed to pursue vital tests for cancer, and died prematurely as a result. Have you seen a person linger only to meet peril in return?

Brain waiting

Another friend waited  rather than phone back  when her cousin slammed down the receiver, after disagreeing about family problems. After  reflection, no action seemed a better option than possibly triggering further confrontation. The result? The following month, her cousin paid for a weekend family holiday where old wounds were exchanged for refurbished family friendships.

When to act and when to wait? Do you tend to hang back or do you act on the spot when troubles mount? Ever wonder about your brain’s role in each??

Why not share your stories of waiting or acting. Would love to hear them. I’ll respond with a few brain benefits from waiting and a few benefits from acting in each situation. Your turn ….

When colleges cultivate entrepreneur brainpower they reinstate American leaders into competitive global markets.  Yet  university faculty who continue to deliver facts for past eras,  in lock-step lectures,  tend to engage fewer gifted entrepreneurs.  New horizons continue to pound home the message — Innovate or Die! Yet who would’t agree with Rocco Tarasi’s conclusion that:

No industry is more in need of innovation than education.

Increasingly, college students  ask how to  harness brainpower for entrepreneurial leadership. We’ve all experienced moments at work where innovators build tall ladders and climb toward new targets. It takes learned courage to climb and entrepreneurial skill to operate at the top. Could teaching innovative skills become a more central part of higher education’s currency? I call them smart skills in MBA classes I teach.

Whether you toss the dice with personal money or lay down your good  name on innovative  front lines,  some form of risk often arises on the way to winning ideas. Struggle describes most entrepreneurs while  supports seem more distant than not. Have you seen it? An entrepreneur on one side,   in tug of war with adventure on the other, and few solutions evident on either.

What  Could University Offer Entrepreneurial Leaders?

Mark Henricks, a writer at Entrepreneur.com reminds us of 5 winning facts about the entrepreneur’s brain that can make or break a business. Unfortunately Hendricks’ keys go ignored at most universities. Do you agree?

1. Your brain is both your biggest constraint and biggest competitive advantage. Depending on how you manage it – your brain buries your chance for success … or catapults you to a win. For instance, drugs such as Prozac’s and others help people to lift moods, improve memory, ease learning and impact entrepreneurial leadership. New anti-sleep drugs can actually help you to focus better. But what about drugs that lift your brain to heights and then drop it to its doom? University could roll research that pumps  facts out daily – into tactics that benefit entrepreneur practices in both states. Simply put, exchange lectures for gifted exchanges through brain based practices.

2. Brain research is bigger business that most people realize – Those who attend colleges that ignore this trend and stick to business as usual may be shortchanged when entrepreneurial opportunities open. “Annual federal neuroscience funding still tops $4 billion. And private sources including VCs are getting into the act, funding startups to commercialize drugs and procedures for modifying our brains and the way they work.” University could model and teach entrepreneurs how to renew with the brain in mind.

3. Many top entrepreneurs also show signs of ADD. Daniel G. Amen, M.D., a brain researcher and director of Amen Clinics showcases several unique aspects of entrepreneurial brains. “These are people who take risks, need people to help them stay organized, don’t like working for other people, have a lot of energy and are good at multitasking.” University could extend mental models that leave no entrepreneurial brains behind, because they differ.

4. Potential exists to enhance memory for all of us. Researcher Tim Tully studied the gene that controls memory and learning and then developed a drug that may help humans learn faster and remember better. Mice with age-related memory problems regained the memory of much younger, alert mice, Tully discovered. Universities could help entrepreneurs stoke novelty that stokes memory.

5. Entrepreneurs help improve bottom line benefits to any business by making work a brain-enriching place to be. Entrepreneurs benefit business when leaders offer employees more opportunities to teach one another and when features such as music enhance a workplace. A brain listening to music is one that enhances productivity. “University of California, Irvine, researchers found that people who listened to Mozart before taking a pattern-recognition test improved their scores 62 percent after two days of practice. Those who spent the time in silence improved just 14 percent.” Universities could enrich entrepreneurs’ learning through transformed settings.

Complete the survey here to answer the question … How are entrepreneurial brains cultivated where you study or work? Is your entrepreneurial offering toxic or well?

“I use less than 20 percent of my brain on the job,” a health care worker told me a few days ago. Another neighbor lost his ability to sleep, and speaks of constant frustrations at work. Are you hearing similar stories?

Few people find fulfillment at work these day, while profits continue to plummet into recession’s abyss, and leaders hold fewer answers than snowflakes in summer. Have you seen it?

At the heart of the problem despair deepens for leaders or workers willing to watch profits continue to free fall.

Here are 5 Surefire Steps to Slower Profits:

1. Ignore problems of morale to profit’s peril.  Solution? Identify  toxins at your workplace based on this survey, and your organization’s scores will inject new zip that transforms innovation into productivity.
2. Take talent for granted and watch productivity sputter and stall. Solution? Pinpoint your workplace talents through multiple intelligence survey, and watch workers develop skills from their strengths. Or spot peers begin to shore up weaker intelligences at work.
3. Reward ruts and routines and potholes occur by default. Just ask those colleagues who neglect incentives for improved pathways.
   Solution? Radically reconfigured approaches, can reconnect workplace practices to life lines in productivity.
4. Rarely  measure progress and you automatically track rough roads toward dead-end deficits. I contrast lack of measurement to  clearly stated targets that reboot brains since you spot the difference between loss and gain.  Solution? Accurate measurement, most would agree,  is much like train tracks along which innovation’s engine chugs toward new peaks. Does it happen where you work?
5. Complain, blame, and vent until cynics and bullies find fodder in fellow workers’ faults. Solution? Collaborate an action plan, and you are well on you way to steady gains. Look at problems with solutions in mind, and then match people’s  intelligences to tasks that pound paths toward growth. Toss time-lines into the mix, and you’ve revved up progress at breakneck speeds.

How is your workplace shifting from toxins to talents for the sake of profit?

Canadian Alanna Mitchell, this year’s winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in public policy named brains as the secret to better schools. Not all agree.

Mitchell recalled a Minister of Education who asked a neuroscientist: “The brain? What does the brain have to do with education?” In my renewal work across many countries I heard similar surprising statements. Have you heard it?

Mitchell argues for centuries of scientific discoveries about human brains to be applied to teaching. From her award winning series on applying brain discoveries at school, here are ten key points to ponder with teens brains in mind:

1. The reason schools aren’t quickly shifting to a brain based teaching approach is because it’s still a secret, unknown to most educators and policy makers, and perhaps more importantly, to parents. Do you agree?

2. Some academics and bureaucrats are dead set against changing current practices, according to Mitchell. Neuroeducator,  Zachary Stein of Harvard University calls it, simply a failure of imagination.

3. Teachers patrolled like prison guards in one middle school where Mitchell spoke, looming over teens whenever they showed the least bit of enthusiasm. One teacher shuffled to the front and suggested the questions be dropped in favor of telling teens what they were to know.

4. Teens and teachers’ brains still continue to grow new synaptic connections and replace lost neurons. A key part of learning is the process of pruning those synapses to make them work faster.

5. Neuroscience tells us that the brain is a platform upon which intelligence can be built, rather than the determinant of a fixed intelligence. As organs, brains expand, and should be treated as something to improve, than than prove. Psychologist Guy Claxton, at the University of Winchester sees schools’ role to help that expansion happen.

6. Warring fields of neuroscience and education are merging into an international movement, that is gathering strength in US,  Europe, Japan, and Australia.  Here at the MITA International Brain Center,  we agree with the Mitchell’s quote from Howard Jones:  Neuroscience on its own is completely without meaning. It has to be integrated with psychology and what we know about education.

7. When Harvard launched their Mind, Brain, and Education Program at their graduate school of education,  faculty couldn’t agree for a long time, that the term, brain, should even be in their title.

8. Teens or adult brains hold somewhere between 100 trillion and 500 trillion synapses, and can prune as well as build new ones throughout life. In effect, the more synapses, and the more efficiently they connect, the smarter you are. The key to learning is to find different ways into brains that value multiple approaches, and avoid cookie-cutter methods.

9. There are no textbooks at an Australian science and mathematics school. The entire school is founded on the adolescent brain and how it learns. Mitchell found that it’s what teens could look like if their biology were taken seriously.

10. Teens and young adults undergo vast brain changes in their frontal cortex, that are rarely considered as factors that impact their learning.  This part of the brain – where the highest level thinking and analysis take place, is laying down white matter, or myelin.  This fatty sheath insulates nerve fibers so they can communicate more quickly.  Teens need relevance because their brains are geared to understanding systems. Ask them, for instance, how to build a well for clear water in Africa.

Jim Davis, principal at Australian Science & Mathematics School demonstrates what teaching teens could look like if their brains were taken seriously. Davis recommends a brain shift among grown ups: showing faith in the teen’s powerful, growing neural networks and in their biological imperative to move their world forward.

Do you agree with Alanna Mitchell’s award winning insights from experts?  Or with Davies’ conclusion: If we do that, then all sorts of magic can happen?

If so, what’s holding your school back from bringing the secrets of brain into teen’s  learning through rejuvenated secondary schools?

Government Funds Promote Failing Secondary Schools

People say stimulus money simply creates new layers of bureaucracy that prolong broken secondary school programs. My question is: How will the White House Campaign to Promote Science and Math Education support teens to climb new mental  peaks?  Will successful schools proliferate through fast growing charters?

President Obama’s recent announcement to help high schools excel in science, technology, engineering and math should  bypass broken secondary schools that resist growth.

Could Stimulus Funds Help Current Teen Crisis?

Fortunately these White House initiatives will bring in innovators such as MacArthur Foundation and technology industries that offer prizes for innovative video games that teach science and math. However, what about fears that government initiatives do little to address the crisis of teacher quality?  Poor secondary school curriculum leaves far too many teens  in crisis situations.

Often, I walk through poorly funded and well-funded high schools that look more like they were crafted for yesteryears, that rewarded misplaced high school teacher priorities.  Mark S. Schneider, vice president at the American Institutes for Research, expressed concern for many of us, that White House initiatives have, “,,, nothing to do with the day-to-day teaching.”

Funds used to Protect Teachers Tend to Neglect Teens

While bypassing stagnant bureaucracies that protect teachers and neglect teens, why not take advantage of the novelty that stokes brainpower, in this White House initiative. Let’s capitalize on working memory that holds only a few new facts at any one time, by supporting less memory work and facilitating more active engagement.  That would be a first step to higher motivation and achievement for all teens.

Too little money is not the problem with education – in spite of what those who lead  broken schools suggest. Renewal runs deeper than money and growth often pays for itself through mind-bending leaders who risk change.

Teens Come to Class Brimming with Talent and Leave Empty

In contrast,  the rampant unchecked anger and frustration felt in many secondary school communities literally robs a community’s currency such as creativity, talent, and innovation.  Teens come to class daily with amazing mental resources such as natural drugs of choice for turbulent times, and multiple intelligences.  Secondary teachers possess outmoded skills and so are unable exchange students’ lived experiences into dividends that will fund their futures.

Regardless of age or background, renewed teachers could spread generous doses of encouragement that alters the brain’s chemistry through tone tactics and through increased serotonin or decreased cortisol. It’s more about finer school vision, than lack of teen talent, that prevents teens from competing well in science and in arts.

Toxic Secondary School Communities

After years of hearing about toxic work settings in secondary schools, I have finally given up on most public systems. We hear leaders admit need for renewed approaches,  yet then go on to say they see no hope for learning renewal because of policy snares. From one you hear about outmoded state demands, from another it’s blamed on parental apathy. In most, it’s really a failure to recognize the brain’s keen ability integrate what works well – with what teens need to reboot for a fast changing world.

Filled with tenured, but tired faculty – today’s broken secondary systems cannot or will not lead teens forward for finer performances. If renewal is meant to race teens to the top, as the White House claims,  it will need to draw from more robust brainpower than today’s demoralized secondary school teachers who seem content to cover content, for even a cat covers its content as one frustrated parent put it. It’s no longer my belief that rejuvenation can be found in bloated, broken systems.  Some will continue to support flawed approaches that resist change like cats run from fire. Hopefully others will join the White House campaign.

Risk Renewal that Reboots Teens’ Brainpower

1. It’s time to step bigger and risk solutions outside pools of prevailing thought that leaves too many brains behind.
2. It’s time to create stimulating  settings where stagnant systems no longer grind teens through outmoded rules that hold back innovative engagement. Many youth could even help lead change forward, and all can engage many more of their unique  intelligences to offer mind-bending solutions to current problems.
3. It’s time to run past cynics who rewire brains daily to kill incentives and time to rev up brainpower that prepares teens for more peak performances beyond their schools. Let’s enable leaders for a new day in learning, one that hooks complex facts onto ordinary experiences for brilliant growth.
4. It’s time to rejuvenate brainpower beyond the mental snares of  those who resist innovative approaches to move teens’ intelligence up a notch today. Rather than wasted efforts to reclaim lost high school brainpower, it’s now time to bypass low-performing schools and build a better approach where teens can win.
5. It’s time to  redirect youth past educational organizations that protect bureaucratic barriers, and race them beyond stubborn bureaucrats that refuse to reclaim brainpower for learning and growth. Let’s shift approaches, not merely add time to already wasted school days.  Hopefully the White House initiatives will not lead more of the same and expect improvements, as Miami low-performing schools discovered.
6. It’s time to rebuild trust and power-up innovations such as those who are joining forces to sponsor and promote math and science.  To enhance success for teens is to offer new hope in ever changing worlds that have already bypassed broken secondary schools.

Below are 51 reasons to risk renewal that reboots teen brainpower!

Related blogs written recently on Secondary School Renewal:

1. No Brain Left Behind

2. MITA Brain Manifesto for Renewal

3. Death of Education – Dawn of Learning

4. Secondary and University with Brains in Mind

5. Parents’ Brains Belong at Secondary School

6. Renew with the Brain in Mind

7. Move Brainpower into Reconfigured Learning

8. Retention Lost in Lectures

9. Call for Simplicity that Adds Intelligence

10. 2 Footed Questions Lead Change

11. A Brain Based Dream

12. Talker or Brain Based Mentor at University?

13. Secondary Schools for Higher Achievement (1)

14. Myths that Shape Secondary Schools (2)

15. Math and Science Can Leak Brainpower

16. Higher Education Reinvention

17. Brainpower Response to Universities in Crisis

18. MITA Brain Renewal for Leading and Learning

19. Could Neuro-Discoveries Transform University?

20. Less Art for More Science

21. Renewal Runs Deeper than Dollars

22. Question Broken Systems with Solutions in Mind

23. Hidden Traps Undo Brainpower

24. Brain Related Renewal – Experts to Teens

25. Values for Brain Powered Climate

26. Renewal Races Teens to the Top

27. Reclaim High School Brainpower

28. Albany Blocks Brainpower while NY Burns

29. Tenure, Brainpower, and Pillars of …?

30. Reinvigorate Brain for Learning Dividends

31. Expect Neuron Pathways to Dynamic Solutions

32. Brain Related Renewal – Experts to Teens

33. A Brain’s Proclivity to Integrate

34. Steven Wiltshire’s Spatial Intelligence & Yours

35. Marks of Brainpowered Workspaces

36. Why Brain Based Approaches?

37. Move with More Intelligence

38. Mix Music and Movement

39. Reflect Change with Smart Skills

40. Reflect for Brainier Online Results

41. Reflect – Then Bolt from Meetings!

42. Reflect on Life-Changing Brain Facts

43. Reflect – then Leap like Lauren

44. Move Intelligence Up a Notch Today

45. Move to Replace Broken Systems

46. Move Tone Tools to Open Opportunities

47. Expect Value Added with Name Calling

48. Expect Active Participation by Facilitating

49. Expect Calm Under Pressure?

50. Urgent Call for Innovative Interactions

51. Higher Education Reinvention (Describes MITA)

Have you noticed how many top writers and thinkers, like Liz Strauss and Robyn McMaster, have entered the blogosphere lately? More than 75,000  new blogs pop up every day … according to Technorati. 

The number of blog sites in China reached 182 million in November with more than 162 million people  visiting blogs.

We can all name dozens of amazing thinkers and shakers here, and those are from only the few sites we cotton onto daily.  But what do top bloggers share in common?

I’ve observed  5 shared habits that shape effective blogger brains:

Blogger brains comes alive when:

1. Visitors stop by to leave their views.  Have you seen your messages come to life with a new twist an unusual turn?  Or do you write the next entry differently when two-bits of  wit-‘n-wisdom bumps a hot idea to the next heat level?

2. Human capital toss valued exchanges  into the ring to add interactions and zip that mere scores or pings cannot offer.

3. Inspired ideas,  images, and applications pop up like popcorn ready to serve and share with eager diverse crowds.

4. Small rewards pay it forward. It could be in the form of a badge,  a cup, or just a few words that lift a compelling thought up to the rainbow for another look.

5. Readers learn something new, from somebody new,  about a mind-bending insight that’s new.  Or at least presented a zinger yet to be explored – that holds promise to improve or shake up our world.

Blogs not only change the way we think, act, and do business, they stir curiosity so that we come alive in one  another’s worlds. I think that’s the part that really shapes the best bloggers’ minds. What do you think?