Communicate under Attack

Sep 1st, 2010
by eweber.
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How do you handle personal attacks?

It could be anything from a boss ignoring your ideas, to a peer who respects you in public – only to destroy  you behind your back. Has it happened to you?

It’s easier to teach brain-compatible tone skills to others, than to model them in tough situations we all face daily. When research and  brain compatible communication skills come together, though, the day moves out of the trenches with amazing agility.

If  you’ve suffered unfair financial loss in the past 2 years, you’ll agree there’s plenty to gripe about if political discussions emerge.

Communicate Under Attack

Nevertheless, disagreement becomes an art that draws together differences when you help people to face tough or controversial issues. Whenever you apply tone to disagree you can brace your brain from subtle barbs a few folks toss into the ring when you least expect attacks. Some call it a lack of  civility.

Whatever you name it, most would agree, that tone takes different shapes in different settings. Fewer people however, spot how  basic tone skills can spark brainpower as armor when they’re  under attack. It’s also fuel to lead hot topics well before attacks stoke angry responses back.

With social media growth,  online tone is more critical than ever, and yet you often see people throw barbs at others – however subtle -  in the name of critical thinking. Yikes – it’s more like kill-the-diversity thinking!  Survey your tone skills to see where your communication strength and weaknesses lie.

Tone skills impact innovation

In successful exchanges, learning comes from disagreements that showcase opposite angles of an issue. The result? Innovative solutions that create wins for the wider community. Here are a few tips for disagreeing in ways that build goodwill. It’s a daily choice though to use tone for tonic or toxins in tough times.

Have you seen a person who lacks tone skills jump into the fray demanding that one side only exists? Believe it or not – that one person, because of harmful chemicals such as cortisol, can trigger toxic reactions that store these in the amygdala. It’s why toxic workplaces destroy any hope of innovative solutions for an entire group. The opposite is also true.

An organization that disagrees well, is often one that prospers and you can trace tone strengths to the root of many organizational advances. Einstein reminded us how this occurrence remains rare, because, “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.

5 Basic Tools to tackle tone problems

If you tend to spark toxic  disagreements or run from conflicts – start with these basics:

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, you might ask: Have you thought about…?;  What if…?;  Could another possibility be …?.

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

In any talented circle, differences  can segue each participant into a broader vision for an innovative workplace.  Good tone draws in and welcomes multiple talents for solutions across differences in tough times.

Why allow poor tone to  shut down voices when a few communication tactics will jump-start brainpower we so desperately need to rebuild  broken systems we all face daily?

Once tone takes a group discussion down – let it go

Check out this hilarious video to show how men and women let go of stuff differently  A close friend and colleague of mine cleverly uses the term, “Let it go!” to address life’s tougher and more hard-hitting conflict issues.

When one discusses with the brain in mind, it usually works well over time to drop things and move on. That’s because to replay it, makes it worse and stores negative results for future negative replays. We’ve all made mistakes – and each time we open keen opportunities to use strategies that allow for genuine growth from those mistakes.

For example:

• When people diminish your life’s beliefs – do you let it go?
• When people take you for granted or criticize – do you let it go?
• When younger peers get celebrated for less than you do – do you let it go?

The brain holds on and can even create a meltdown for several reasons. Stored mental barriers within the brain’s amygdala make it harder for some people to let go. You’ve likely noticed others  rewire their brains’ plasticity to adjust and move on quickly – in refreshing ways, and with far greater ease. Like any newly acquired skill, it’s difficult at first and grows with use.

Tone skills at the MITA Brain Center

Politics and religion discussions highlight good or poor tone skills faster than less controversial topics. Yet, observe the difference, when every push forward holds people as the highest capital.  Or watch the wonder of communication tactics that serve as tools to build goodwill across differences. In both cases, mind-bending ideas emerge in ways that surprise a group with innovative adventures forward together.

It’s why brain based tone skills are central to  MITA’s Manifesto, and it’s how innovative leaders work with rather than against human brainpower. Can you see how ideas reach deeper and wider in a safe, integrity filled and challenging community? What do you think?

Posted in: General.

25 Ways to Boost Brainpower in a Recession

Aug 29th, 2010
by eweber.
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How are you riding rough waves of recession at work? Perhaps you’re looking for  opportunities that fit your skills. Keith Hall, commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Stats, spoke to Boston Globe staff  this week, about the severe recession that left us down 8.4 million jobs. An unprecedented occurrence in US history.

25 Ways to Boost Workplace Brainpower in a Recession

If yours was one of those lost jobs, or if your retirement plan shrunk, severe recession may be too mild a term to describe the chaos you face. Based on newly discovered facts about the human brain’s ability to reorganize itself, however, intelligent individuals are repositioning themselves for a predicted coming upturn of events.

Brain experts would say – they are also developing intrapersonal intelligence as tools to tackle workplace challenges and win.

Consider  brainpowered responses to win during the toughest ride of recession, by rebooting your brain to  join the ranks of high-performance minds:

1. Slap somebody on the back. Notice new ideas, support the smaller parts of innovations. Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by choices often made in tough times. Stressed or bored minds, default back to broken routines.

2. Lighten up. Increased light lowers melatonin and increases focus, as healthy settings help people to transform problems and broken pieces into creative designs that work.

3. Trust the differences. People engage one another’s best ideas through generating trust so that differences emerge as dividends.  Pelle Ahlerup, U of Gothenburg showed that countries where people have greater trust in others perform better in a number of areas and have higher growth.

4. Tame the tiger within. When anger, fear, and frustration are fueled by disappointments or disagreements,  innovation is stomped out by cortisol – chemical hormones for fury. To tame your brain’s amygdala is to rewire moods in your favor, freeing you to lead calm solutions under pressure.

5. Affirm speedily but blame sparingly. Venting or blaming derails brainpower needed for solutions. Affirm what’s working and you’ll create new neuron pathways to much more of the same.

6. Do something different – learn something new. Innovation comes from those who shift things up, and test-drive better approaches at work. Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and take shape, or they grow IQ-  based on what you do.

7. Whistle while you work. Research shows growth in people’s focus and attention to excellence through melodies in baroque, for instance.  Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity.

8. Walk the talk! Implementation is central to success. Lectures and talks that deliver facts, work against listeners’ brains and benefit speakers’ intelligence mostly. Apply it to learn it

9. Stretch but don’t shrink your brain. In contrast to innovators, Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains. Recent research described in Dawna Markova’s book, The Open Mind, shows we can become creatures of new habits at work if we are open minded and willing to stretch for new possibilities.

10.  Profit from differences. Too often diversity training works mentally against benefits because of its deficit model approach. Inclusion, on the other hand, leads to innovative differences with mutual benefits and mental prosperity.

11.  Check your speed. Brain waves can bring either sleep or move into peak performance, based on how they activate at work. All four brain wave levels (beta, alpha, theta and delta) serve value to innovative stages.

12.  Hook to the brain. Tie even difficult facts onto one thing you already know and learning increases in less time. Innovative workers engage new knowledge with ease. The frontal region switches the state of the brain between “learn” and “remember modes in a brief period of time (ScienceDaily 2009).

13.  Live outside the box. Multiple approaches abound as people exceed prescribed standards from many unique approaches.  Multiple intelligences are common to all innovators, used by few staunch traditionalists, and develop IQ daily in innovative settings.

14.  Raise IQ daily. Multiple intelligences are common to all innovators, used by few staunch traditionalists, and develop IQ daily in innovative settings. When activated, each intelligence can be located in specific regions of the human brain, (1999) as described by Gardner in Intelligence Reframed. Each intelligence develops with use.

15.  Run from cynicism. While encouragement motivates innovative brainpower, the opposite is also true. Cynical mindsets block creativity, impact talent, and stomp out innovation.

16.  Remember working memory fast forgets. Memory can be outsourced – through creating lists for example –  to help you  remember, and yet free the mind for focus on more collaborative initiatives.

17.  Burn strong, don’t burn out. Plasticity enables people of all ages to rewire the human brain for innovation that keeps brainpower younger, smarter, and alive through interactive learning.

18.  Thank somebody. Encouragement changes chemistry of brain through raised serotonin, criticism tears down through spreading cortisol.

19.  Mean what you mutter. Just as meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from what is said, transparency opens segues to creative contributions at work. People who are openly transparent and vulnerable build trust in both employees and customers.  Trust is a part of the intrapersonal intelligence, and is developed as we build healthy relationships that shape character.

20.  Toss new talents into work. It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems innovatively with the brain in mind. How might being social and being smart go together? “As people engage socially and mentally with others,” finds Oscar Ybarra (2008) “they receive relatively immediate cognitive boosts.”

21.  Adopt tone tools for tough times. Poor tone acts as innovation’s silent killer, and shrinks the brain through stress, good tone cultivates brainpower when you need it most.

22.  Use  names more. Greet a person warmly through speaking that person’s name, for a spike in personal awareness, within the human brain. See ties to innovation in tough times at work? PET scans show a strong cerebral flow change when you hear your name spoken and it plays a positive role as you process “self.”

23.  Teach at same time you learn. You retain 90% more through teaching others at the same time they learn a thing. So wisdom and invention spreads and grows in this way. To learn, apply  and teach a new task, the brain ‘sculpts’ new connections (2010).

24.  Solve something! People create new neuron pathways each time they add an innovative solution to any problem encountered. The opposite is also true, focus on problems leads to more of the same. Your ability to infer and apply new solutions leading to an “aha” relies on the brain’s frontal lobes (2010).

25.  Prize women and men’s differences. Women’s and men’s brains differ biologically and intellectually in ways that few optimize, but ways that jettison innovations forward when valued. Though women have more white matter and men more gray matter, they produce equivalent intellectual performances, a UCI study shows (2005).  Unlike gray matter, which peaks in development in a person’s twenties, the white matter continues to develop, and peaks in middle age (Sowell et al., 2003)

The human brain takes new directions in times of recession, through innovative approaches that boost brainpower for an upturn of events. Ever notice how when predictions of well being swoop – so also do the markets sink? The opposite is also true. Ready for an upturn of events?

Posted in: General, brain facts, build talented communities, change direction, intrapersonal.
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Brainpower for the Worst of Times!

Aug 25th, 2010
by eweber.
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Money and health problems create an amazing reason to feel down, look at the negatives, and give up. Recession proves it daily. In the midst of hopelessness, we admire folks who find ways to lead innovation, and spot solutions. We’re drawn to those who guide others to a finer place. It’s often lonely to look for lights in so much dark!

Brainpower for the Worst of Times!

Paul Bach-y-Rita, famous for his work in neuroplasticity,   tells of his father’s crippling stoke in New York. After a month’s therapy and little progress, medical experts assured the family that no more could be done, and suggested Bach-y-Rita be sent to an institution. Brains cannot repair themselves every medical leader argued and nothing else could help their 65 year old father to walk or talk again.

The scholar went from well respected professor at City College in NY to complete dependency on others for his basic needs.

One son George brought his Papa back to Mexico and began to teach him to crawl again. Using the wall to support his limp shoulder, Bach-y-Rita, inched along clumsily for months, as he and his sons created marble games to play on the floor that required a reach and movement. Cynics in medical schools warned that this was wasted time, and neighbors criticized the Bach-y-Rita family when their papa crawled outside, saying, “They are treating this old man like a dog.”

With every spark of progress, the boys persisted more to help their papa do acts on the opposite side of his weakness and loss.

Then progress began to show, as the brain reorganized itself to take over where damaged parts destroyed abilities. After many more months of crawling and learning to talk again, and through the same painful building of new neuron pathways for language to take over where damaged brain cells failed, Bach-y-Rita returned to teach at City College in New York, at 68, and three years after his stroke.

We can improve our lives in difficult areas, and reshape prosperity, when we recognize the brain’s proclivities to progress. When we simply act and persist on the other side of loss.

Younger son, Paul’s life was shaped by what he described as seeing with our brains and not our eyes, as his papa’s brain reorganized itself for new directions. He went on to explain a great deal of the foundations that move research forward today in areas of plasticity – or the brain’s ability to rewire and find solutions when cynics and naysayers shout words of doom and disaster.

What areas are weakest for you in this tough climate of loss and change? How could your brain’s plasticity help to reorganize itself to become the solution you seek today? How might you find inspiration to move forward, as one Mexican family did in their worst of times?

Money and health problems create an amazing reason to feel down, look at the negatives, and give up. Recession proves it daily. In the midst of hopelessness, we admire folks who find ways to lead innovation, spot solutions. We’re drawn to those who guide others to a finer place. It’s often lonely to look for lights in so much dark!

Paul Bach-y-Rita, famous for his work in neuroplasticity, ( http://xrl.us/bhv7vn ) tells of his father’s crippling stoke in New York. After a month’s therapy and little progress, medical experts assured the family that no more could be done, and suggested Bach-y-Rita be sent to an institution. Brains cannot repair themselves every medical leader argued and nothing else could help their 65 year old father to walk or talk again.

The scholar went from well respected professor at City College in NY to complete dependency on others for his basic needs.

One son George brought his Papa back to Mexico and began to teach him to crawl again. Using the wall to support his limp shoulder, Bach-y-Rita, inched along clumsily for months, as he and his sons created marble games to play on the floor that required a reach and movement. Cynics in medical schools warned that this was wasted time, and neighbors criticized the Bach-y-Rita family when their papa crawled outside, saying, “They are treating this old man like a dog.”

With every spark of progress, the boys persisted more to help their papa do acts on the opposite side of his weakness and loss.

Then progress began to show, as the brain reorganized itself to take over where damaged parts destroyed abilities. After many more months of crawling and learning to talk again, and through the same painfully building of new neuron pathways for language to take over where damaged brain cells failed, Bach-y-Rita returned to teach at City College in New York, at 68 and three years after his stroke.

We can improve our lives in difficult areas, and reshape prosperity, when we recognize the brain’s proclivities to progress.

Younger son, Paul’s life was shaped by what he described as seeing with our brains and not our eyes, as his papa’s brain reorganized itself for new directions. He went on to explain a great deal of the foundations that move research forward today in areas of plasticity – or the brain’s ability to rewire and find solutions when cynics and naysayers shout words of doom and disaster.

What areas are losing for you in this tough climate of loss and change? How could your brain’s plasticity help to reorganize itself to become the solution you seek today as one Mexican family did in their worst of times?

Posted in: Lead change, MITA approaches, act opposite of problem, aging brain, brain chemicals, broken systems, build talented communities, change, cynic, finances, hope, innovation, invention, leadership, money, neurogenesis, plasticity, renewal.
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5 Surefire Torpedoes for Innovative Brainpower

Aug 22nd, 2010
by eweber.
4 comments

You may find it interesting to discover that one can flick on a molecular brainpower switch, and disengage innovations.  It’s done daily – any time – any where.

Handy to know? Perhaps for those who’ll  snipe at change-agents this week,  before they lead others forward. How so?

Surefire Torpedoes for Innovative Brainpower

Here are 5 surefire torpedoes for downing innovative brainpower where you work:

  1. Pop new innovations to sink them before they float. Toss darts much like people burst circus balloons. Or just snipe that the new idea stinks, before any competition runs with it.  Either way you’ll extend cortisol chemicals into team circles, like storm clouds cover a  summer sun.
  2. Run with cynics and support naysayers. Shove your way into every innovative circle you spot. Tell people you’re there as a critical thinker for a cover,  then arm yourself with killer tone to take out peers who differ from you on any topic raised. Affirm no innovation you hear, and remember to shoot from the hip whenever a soft spot’s in sight.
  3. Argue fast, foul, and often. Hurl a deluge of hard core research facts to support your one sided-views. Talk constantly –  don’t  listen ever, and ignore people who disagree. Be sure to avoid any questions at all costs. Rely on dopamine to survive your boredom when others suggest strategies for change.
  4. Push rock-solid opinions about pretty much everything that pops into mind. Don’t try to tame your brain’s amygdala, so when it overheats – people will know you’re angry as hell, and then few will tangle with your sacred cows.
  5. Back the bullies – so they don’t go after your back when you least expect it. Remember to disagree with nothing a bully spouts, regardless of how you feel.  In fact you’ll want to vent when they vent, and defend nobody they shut down or crinkle.

Continue to fire these torpedoes,  at least once a week, to ensure  you preempt all innovations that sprout at your workplace.

Don’t try to take advantage of novel improvements that  do slip past your poor tone though –it may already be too late to change.

Posted in: General, innovation, invention, tone, toxic workplace.

25 Marks of Innovative Brainpower at Work

Aug 19th, 2010
by eweber.
1 comment

People differ on what innovation looks like, and few agree on how it transforms work. Hutch Carpenter asked 25 people to tell what innovation is from their perspective – and got back 25 different responses. Most people do agree that innovation sparks higher productivity for a competitive edge.

Marks of Innovative Brainpower at Work

Any marks for invention potential where you work?

Check scores for innovative brainpower in your organization,  and tell us what it would it take to nudge people to new peaks:

  1. Workers show enthusiasm for new ideas, and express support when others propose quality innovations. Brain Fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by choices, than a reality. The stressed mind, lacks innovation and defaults back to boring routines. ___ √ ___ x
  2. Work areas come well lit, and welcoming.  Brain Fact: Environment plays a part in innovation, as healthy settings help people to transform problems and broken pieces into creative designs that work.___ √ ___ x
  3. Communication rocks. People engage one another’s best ideas through generating trust so that differences emerge as dividends. Brain Fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled and extended by serotonin chemical hormones for well-being. ___ √ ___ x
  4. Conflicts yield to calm. Brain Fact: When anger, fear, and frustration are fueled by disagreements,  innovation is stomped out by cortisol – chemical hormones for fury.
  5. More  solutions than problems win in a day. Brain Fact: If venting is bad for the brain, proposed solutions lead to innovation. Both create  new neuron pathways to much more of the same. ___ √ ___ x
  6. Change is on-going and expected. Innovation is highly valued, and renewal constantly transforms the culture at work. Brain Fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and take shape, or grow based on what you do. ___ √ ___ x
  7. Music selections sustain focus for innovative results. Research shows growth in people’s focus and attention to excellence through melodies in baroque, for instance. Brain Fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity. ___ √ ___ x
  8. Implementation is central to learning. Experiments with data predominate over delivery of facts . Brain Fact: Lectures and talks work against listeners’ brains and benefit speakers’ intelligence mostly. ___ √ ___ x
  9. Seniority comes with innovative offerings rather than years of service. Regardless of age, innovative brainpower grows with daily use.  To stop learning and or stomp on growth is to kill a brain’s plasticity. Brain Fact: In contrast to innovators, Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains. ___ √ ___ x
  10. People contribute to renewal from highly diverse backgrounds and beliefs at all leadership levels. Brain Fact: Just as diversity training commonly works mentally against benefits because of its deficit model, inclusion leads innovative differences. ___ √ ___ x
  11. Wide variety exists so that exercise and quiet reflection gain import.  Brain Fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or move into peak performance, based on how they activate at work. All four brain wave levels serve value to innovative stages. ___ √ ___ x
  12. Learning remains highly relevant to many. Brain Fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing a person already knows and learning increases in less time, and innovative workplaces engage new knowledge with ease. ___ √ ___ x
  13. Ruts appear rare – while  invention frequently finds a marketplace of new ideas. Brain Fact: Basal ganglias store facts and create ruts, working memory holds few facts and leads innovative change. ___ √ ___ x
  14. Multiple approaches abound as people exceed prescribed standards from many unique approaches. Brain Fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all innovators, used by few staunch traditionalists, and develop IQ daily in innovative settings. ___ √ ___ x
  15. Peer pressure boosts creativity,  innovation is launched where cynicism is blatantly absent. Brain Fact: While encouragement motivates innovative brainpower , the opposite is also true. Cynical mindsets literally block creativity, impact talent, and stomp out innovation. ___ √ ___ x
  16. Learning approaches are mutually shared and memorized facts give way to meaningful connections at work. Brain Fact: Memory can be outsourced to help people remember, and to free the mind for focus on a more collaborative innovative process. ___ √ ___ x
  17. Senior workers learn from upstarts in symbiotic teaching-sharing settings. Brain Fact: Plasticity enables people of all ages to rewire the human brain for innovation that keeps brainpower younger, smarter, and alive through interactive learning. ___ √ ___ x
  18. A spirit of encouragement supersedes distrust. Consensus and active team building lead to innovation for raised profitability.  Brain Fact: Encouragement  changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, criticism tears down all through spreading cortisol chemicals. ___ √ ___ x
  19. Trust is evident through transparency in innovative communications. Brain Fact: Just as meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from what is said, transparency opens segues to creative contributions at work. ___ √ ___ x
  20. Team building acumen builds innovation across traditional silos and departments.  People pull together creatively for the greater good, rather than self-serving ends. Brain Fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems innovatively with the brain in mind. ___ √ ___ x
  21. Affirmative tone predominates so that many innovative people tend to take risks to achieve new heights. Brain Fact: Just as stress literally shrinks the brain, and poor tone acts as innovation’s silent killer, affirmation compels creative thinkers. ___ √ ___ x
  22. Leaders know most people by name, and names are valued throughout the work environment. Brain Fact: Greet a person warmly through speaking that person’s name, for a spike in personal awareness, within the human brain. See ties to innovation at work? ___ √ ___ x
  23. Creativity and invention get fired rather than stomped on, through teaching others at the same time as people learn new innovative approaches. Brain Fact: People retain 90% more through teaching others at the same time they learn a thing. So wisdom and invention spreads and grows in this way. ___ √ ___ x
  24. Curiosity is highly cultivated by the entire workplace community, through rewards. Brain Fact: People create new neuron pathways each time they add an innovative solution to any problem encountered. The opposite is also true – as a focus on problems leads to more of the same. ___ √ ___ x
  25. High value is commonly attributed to both women and men at all leadership levels.  Brain Fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually in ways that few optimize, but ways that jettison innovations forward when valued. ___ √ ___ x

What innovation strategy would raise your organization’s score? Why not take a survey to gauge the innovative IQ potential – and you’ll discover where to suggest change for growth.

Posted in: Hebbian learner, Lead change, MITA approaches, brainwaves, build talented communities, change, chemical and electrical network, communication, cortisol, creativity, curiosity, dendrites, disagreement, diversity, entrepreneur, focus, innovation, invention, leadership, meta-message, multiple intelligences, neuron pathways, plasticity, renewal, rewire brain, rut, serotonin, smart skills, solution, talent, tone, trust, vision.

Plasticity’s Pathways to Innovation

Aug 13th, 2010
by eweber.
12 comments

Have you seen good ideas crushed by bullies, cynics or naysayers where you work?  Before Michael Merzenich became the world’s leading researcher on brain plasticity, cynics with hard science credentials, insisted brainpower and intelligence was fixed. Simply put, people insisted that elderly brains don’t change much, for instance, and that broken brains stay broke. In contrast, my friend and colleague, Lisa Haneberg, executive at Management Performance International, inspires many of us for mind-bending innovations.

What you do in a day literally changes your brain

Lisa Haneberg, over at Management Craft, and I just had a fireside chat about how plasticity boosts brainpower for current challenges at work!  It was fun to learn from one another’s leadership approaches. Check out Lisa’s  podcast here, and share your ideas about brainpower, Century-21- leadership, and innovation. When brainpower fuels a workplace renewal results! How so?

Thanks to persistence, and the power of innovation,  it’s common knowledge now that learning not only increases what we know,  but it changes the very structure and operation of the brain itself. To learn at all ages is to increase your brain’s capacity to learn.

Plasticity opens a winning pathway to innovation, which is especially good news if you work in a broken system. How does it work? 

Neurons come with 3 cool parts

Connected to chemical and electrical circuitry that sparks innovative change or deepens ruts, are dendrites, cell bodies, and axons.

1). Dendrites –or  treelike branches attached to the cell body, receive their input from other neurons.

2). Cell body – fuels the life of each cell and contain your unique DNA pool.

3). Axon – like electrical wires that can be short or can be 6 ft long, & carry electrical impulses at speeds from 2 to 200 mph toward the dendrites of other neurons.

Neurons receive signals that either excite or inhibit. If a neuron gets enough excitatory signals from other neurons, it fires off its own signal. If it receives many inhibitory signals – it is less likely to fire.

Axons don’t quite touch nearby dendrites. They are separated by microscopic space called a synapse. When an electrical signal reaches the end of an axon, it triggers release of the chemical messenger, called a neurotransmitter, into the synapse.

The chemical messenger sails over the dendrite of nearby neuron, exciting or inhibiting it.

Neurons rewire in REM sleep, based on what you did that day

Neurons rewire nightly as you sleep – which means that changes occur at the synapse. Act calm under pressure, for instance, and you build new neuron pathways to calmly solve the next calamity that comes along. Either the change strengthens and increases the number of connections or change weakens and decreases the number of connections between the neurons.

It’s really a matter of neurons and dendrites that spark new synapses for change. Remember, a neuron‘s nothing more than a nerve cell, and your brain holds about 100 billion of these little critters.

Neurons build innovation with a few carefully crafted acts.

How so?

Neurons project extensions called dendrite brain cells – which connect and reconnect daily, based on what you do. Axons, in contrast,  relay information back from the body back to the brain. In a rather complex electrochemical process, neurons communicate with each other in synapses, and that connection creates chemicals called neurotransmitters. Chemicals release at each synapse, and these shape mood, open brains to optimize learning and stoke creative solutions to complex problems. Many mysteries still occur in the quadrillion synapses within a human brain, and yet wonderful benefits await people who act on what recent research suggests.

How will you change your brain today?

Here are 25 ways to add brainpower through innovation, by changing up  routines.  Apply novel approaches and you encounter ruts inside the human brain. Have you seen it happen? Transformation, especially ethical renewal that adds dividends for all,  takes risk! Try one you’d least like do in an ordinary day,  and expect  a mind-bending performance along plasticity’s pathway to innovation.

Further plasticity triumphs through personal stories

You can read more about dendrites, and discover their function for your workplace with Dr. Eric Kandel., who along with, JH Schwartz,  TM Jessell,  offers tips in the book Principles of Neural Science.

I was also intrigued by Dr. Norman Doidge’s new book, The Brain that Changes Itself. The book shows research and backs ideas with facts in a way that engages a reader to see why new ideas about the brain’s ability to rewire itself – really count.

What will you do differently today to optimize your brain’s plasticity? How will you ratchet up more brainpower to overcome challenging situations?

Posted in: General, MITA approaches, change direction, dendrites, plasticity.
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5 Ways to Soar with Ravens, Walk Forward, Lead Innovative Change

Aug 9th, 2010
by eweber.
6 comments

When I worked in the High Arctic in the 90’s, I met a wise Inuit elder who told me that ravens on Baffin Island surprised everybody when they began to walk one-day in the 80s.

“Before that, ravens hopped along clumsily,” he said. “Then they learned to take one step at a time, and everything changed.”

What do ravens stepping forward have to do with strongholds that limit you personally and professionally?

5 Ways to Soar with Ravens, Walk Forward, Lead Innovation

When you change focus by adding feet and wings to your best ideas, you begin to walk and fly past limitations.

Not an expert in arctic ravens, I’ll admit to being unsure if this raven story is myth or fact. I do know, however, that it takes courage to exchange any deep-seated habit for an improved approach. Fortunately though, change that walks you away from failure or limitations, often prepares you to ascend with highly successful leaders.

Your brain requires a step-at-a-time-action in order to rewire new neuron frameworks – away from failures, to get ahead, the way effective change agents rise above constraints.

What drawback has you running backwards, or colliding with walls at the moment?

You may well believe as Einstein did, that to do the same things, in the same ways, gets the same results.  But are you aware that whenever you act in a different way, or draw from multiple intelligences that lie dormant in your gene pool, you open new opportunities? You also narrow the gap between limiting strongholds, and the innovative change you seek to lead. Not that you’ll progress past all obstacles at once.

Ravens in Arctic Bay, the size of small dogs, still act as scavengers. The difference is they now no longer fly South to survive.  You too can endure winter chills that come with change. Ravens withstand frigid temperatures well below freezing, and subsist on a tundra that’s far too bleak and barren for most creatures to make it alive.

Here are 5 surefire steps that add feet, wings and life to your next innovative change:

  1. Look beyond what you see. It’s a bit like looking beyond a waterfall to catch radiant colors of its overarching rainbow. To settle for what the masses see, is to remain stuck in mass mediocrity. The media may pipe bleak news into your office like BP piped oil into the ocean, or managers may vent about a shrinking corporate purse. But if you focus on media bombarding bad news or if you fixate on corporate complaints, you’ll  simply create neuron pathways for more of the same problems. Your brain is much like markets that rise when good news rallies, and plummet when stories hit the skids. It produces serotonin, a chemical for well being that fuels innovative growth when you look past problems to see possibilities.The opposite is also true, it shuts down basic brainpower through harmful cortisol chemicals when you fail to look beyond where you stand, to map out where you hope to arrive. The key is to set your vision on a site that challenges and inspires you, and then hitch your wagon to a nearby star that will lead you there. At least take one step in a new direction, and you can expect your brain to lead you there like a lighthouse guides a ship to its destination.
  2. Laugh at the little things. Not surprisingly, failure overtakes many who feel they must endure daily encounters within a toxic workplace, that fosters cynicism rather than healthy humor. Research shows that those who can laugh at themselves often find winning responses to pressing problems in their own brains and in others. Humor, when it’s the kind everybody can laugh at, releases endorphins into the brain so that people are distracted from difficult situations, and prepared to focus on winning solutions. To laugh is to alter chemicals within the brain, in ways that reduce stress. Lift emotions and add motivation by building new tools from past mistakes. Laughter opens your mind to operate more from your working memory where you design new approaches to solve old problems, and less from your basal ganglia, where ruts are stored and repeated.
  3. Focus with background music. Rhythm holds an immense power over the brain once you recognize how it shifts brain waves up or down for focus and innovation. Unfortunately few workplaces  benefit much from addictive musical sounds that can calm  thinking in one moment, and focus people on innovative change in the next. You can ratchet up brainpower with Makeba’s, Pata Pata, to reconfigure a part of your job that is not working, or discover the best cadence to create an amazing mental landscape for your next innovative project. On the flip side, certain musical genres can make you moody, edgy and anxious – so that you slip into guilt over past mistakes. How so? Music literally shifts your brain waves, impacts focus, and controls how neurons talk to one another.
  4. Gaze forward – glance backward. At 14 I found myself on the street after my 38-year-old mom died of cancer. When I discovered the hard way that females often don’t get financial perks for their talents, I assumed the role of victim. Without family support of any kind – I often hit the dust – as I focused on failures and setbacks more than on progress beyond shortcomings. Can you relate to times when you gazed at an overwhelming pool of problems? Or you forgot to run after possibilities? It’s like driving a car forward at full tilt, while gazing out the rear-view mirror to steer. No wonder I headed for repeat collisions in any efforts to get ahead.  The lesson learned? When we gaze  at a lofty goal, and spot assets, such as those special people who support us,  human brainpower often bends to advance our forward trek.  It’s opposite of mental meltdowns in toxic workplaces, where cynics stomp out creativity, and it awakens new intelligences as well as opens diverse perspectives you otherwise miss.
  5. Run with ravens but shoot from the sand. Just as ravens learned how to walk rather than hop sideways like crabs, you too will move forward when you step one foot in front of the other. Start where you stand at the moment, regardless of limitations that challenge you. When problems persist and overwhelm your plans, hit the ball out of the sand trap , like golfers hit wayward shots from sand to the green. Let me illustrate further. Barry Burnett, who leads BDR, has already reached the top of his game in many areas. As a multi-millionaire who mentors other leaders to scale higher peaks, Barry inspires change because he moves forward from wherever he stands at the moment. Innovation embodies brilliant solutions in pools just outside of prevailing thought, where people build beyond limitations.

It’s that solid first step forward that triggers sustainable innovative change. It’s a step forward to laugh at the little things, and inspire others to laugh with you. It’s a step forward to ratchet up brainpower for peak performances by music you listen to while you work. It’s a step forward to gaze at assets and merely glance back at errors as a way to track progress forward. It’s a step forward to run with ravens and shoot from the sand, whenever you find yourself in its trap.

Why not try walking past one stronghold today, add wings to your best idea, and lead change that beats winds of the upper air.

Five Ways to Soar with Ravens, Walk Forward, Lead Innovative Change

When I worked in the High Arctic for 2 years in the 90’s, I met a wise Inuit elder who told me that ravens on Baffin Island surprised everybody when they began to walk one-day in the 80s.

“Before that, ravens hopped along clumsily,” he said. “Then they learned to take one step at a time, and everything changed.”

What do ravens stepping forward have to do with strongholds that limit you personally and professionally?

When you change focus to adding feet and wings to your best ideas, you begin to walk and fly past limitations.

Not an expert in arctic ravens, I’ll admit to being unsure if this raven story is myth or fact. I do know, however, that it takes courage to exchange any deep-seated habit for an improved approach. Fortunately though, change that walks you away from failure or limitations, often prepares you to run with highly successful leaders.

Your brain requires a step-at-a-time-action in order to rewire new neuron frameworks – away from failures, to get ahead, the way highly successful change agents do.

What wall has you running on the spot, or colliding into walls at the moment?

You may believe as Einstein did, that to do the same things, in the same ways, gets you the same results. But are you aware that whenever you act in a different way, or draw from different intelligences that lie dormant in your gene pool, you open new opportunities? You also narrow the gap between limiting strongholds, and the innovative change you crave. Not that you’ll progress past all drawbacks at once.

Ravens in Arctic Bay, the size of small dogs, still act as scavengers. The difference is they now no longer fly South to survive. You too can survive winter chills that come with change. Ravens withstand frigid temperatures well below freezing, and subsist on a tundra that’s far too bleak and barren for most birds to endure.

Here are 5 surefire steps that add feet and wings to your next innovative change:

1. Look beyond what you see. It’s a bit like looking beyond a waterfall to catch radiant colors of its overarching rainbow. To settle for what the masses see, is to stay stuck mass mediocrity. The media may pump bleak news into your office daily, for instance, or managers may vent about a shrinking corporate purse. But if you focus on the media’s bombarding bad news or fixate on corporate complaints, you’ll simply create neuron pathways for more of the same problems.

Your brain is much like markets that rise when good news rallies, and plummet when stories hit the skids. It produces serotonin, a chemical for well being that fuels innovative growth when you look past problems to see possibilities. The opposite is also true, it shuts down basic brainpower through harmful cortisol chemicals when you fail to look beyond where you stand, to map out where you hope to arrive. The key is to set your vision on a site that challenges and inspires you, and then hitch your wagon to a star that will lead you there. At least take one step in a new direction, and you can expect your brain to lead you there like a lighthouse guides a ship to its destination.

2. Laugh at the little things. Not surprisingly, failure overtakes many who feel they must endure daily encounters within a toxic workplace, that fosters cynicism rather than healthy humor. Research shows that those who can laugh at themselves often find winning responses to pressing problems in their own brains and in others. Humor, when it’s the kind everybody can laugh at, releases endorphins into the brain so that people are distracted from difficult situations, and prepared to focus on winning solutions. To laugh is to alter chemicals within the brain, in ways that reduce stress. Lift emotions and add motivation by building new tools from past mistakes. Laughter opens your mind to operate more from your working memory where you design new approaches to solve old problems, and less from your basal ganglia, where ruts are stored and repeated.

3. Move forward to music. Rhythm holds an immense power over the brain once you recognize how it shifts brain waves up or down for focus or rest. Unfortunately few workplaces  benefit much from addictive musical sounds that can calm thinking in one moment, and focus people on innovative change in the next. You can ratchet up brainpower with Makeba’s, Pata Pata, to reconfigure a part of your job that is not working, or discover the best cadence to create an amazing mental landscape for your next innovative project. On the flip side, certain musical genres can make you moody, edgy and anxious – so that you slip into guilt over past mistakes. How so? Music literally shifts your brain waves, impacts focus, and controls how neurons talk to one another.

4. Gaze forward – glance backward. At 14 I found myself on the street after my 38-year-old mom died of cancer. When I discovered the hard way that females often don’t get financial perks for their talents, I assumed the role of victim. Without family support of any kind – I often hit the dust – as I focused on failures and setbacks more than on progress beyond shortcomings. Can you relate to times when you gazed at an overwhelming pool of problems? Or you forgot to run after possibilities? It’s like driving a car forward while gazing at the rearview mirror only. No wonder I headed for repeat collisions in any efforts to get ahead. The lesson learned? When we gaze at assets, such as those special people who support us, the human brain often tilts to advance our forward trek. It’s opposite of toxic workplaces, where cynics stomp out creativity, and it awakens new intelligences as well as opens diverse perspectives you otherwise miss.

5. Run with ravens but shoot from the sand. Just as ravens learned how to walk rather than hop sideways like crabs, you too move forward when you step one foot in front of the other. Start where you stand at the moment, regardless of limitations that challenge you. When problems persist and overwhelm your plans, hit the ball out of the sand trap , like golfers hit wayward shots from sand to the green. Let me illustrate further. Barry Burnett, who leads BDR, has already reached the top of his game in many areas. As a multi-millionaire who mentors other leaders to scale higher peaks, Barry inspires change because he moves forward from wherever he stands at the moment. Innovation embodies brilliant solutions in pools just outside of prevailing thought, where people build beyond limitations.

It’s that solid first step forward that triggers sustainable innovative change. It’s a step forward to laugh at the little things, and inspire others to laugh with you. It’s a step forward to ratchet up brainpower for peak performances by music you listen to while you work. It’s a step forward to gaze at assets and merely glance back at errors as a way to track progress forward. It’s a step forward to run with ravens and shoot from the sand, whenever you find yourself in its trap.

Why not try walking past one stronghold today, add wings to your best idea, and lead change that soars.

Posted in: Inuit, Lead change, MITA approaches, change, change direction, cortisol, creativity, cynic, innovation, invention, mistakes, multiple intelligences, neuron pathways, renewal, serotonin, toxic workplace, vision, wisdom.
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Panic or Profit – Brains Choose Daily

Aug 6th, 2010
by eweber.
1 comment

Imagine you find yourself across from a few people who just lost money on the stock market.  You’re facing a few financial hurdles yourself, so you listen hard for  clues that could offer doable ways to get past your panic. As you look around the table, you see frowns, grimaces and angry faces. Nobody offers more than rehashed reasons why the system sucks. How much financial help would you find at that table?

Panic or Profit -Brain Choose Daily

Now imagine yourself  leaving that table and joining another group that’s bantering about a few new ways they’re restructuring money matters for more profit.  One person talks about renting out a spare room, and another shares how to pay for a vacation by gathering air points. Wouldn’t you be more interested in the benefits discussed by the second group?

Who would choose to return to the first table?

This illustrates the difference between brain features such as panic pitfalls and profit possibilities at the tables. People who take action to avoid panic, will often rewire their brains and build a neural framework for profit.

To illustrate this point, which of the following brain based statements lead you closer to profits you desire today?

  1. People around us count. Because of mirror neurons in the brain, we mimic those we associate with more than most realize. Would you agree that table 1 vents about fallen markets, and that negatively impacts others opportunity to increase profit?
  2. Anger, fear and panic act as fuel. These toxic reactions increase cortisol, the chemical that shuts out brainpower for innovative answers people crave, and blocks mental courage to go after new profitability. Venting creates new neuron pathways for more venting.
  3. Ruts for panic appear often in money matters. Solutions appear less often when people store up habits for panic in their brain’s basal ganglia. In contrast the brain’s working memory holds a much smaller storage place for solutions, and is most alive when taking risks to move in a new direction.
  4. Cynicism literally blocks talent needed for innovative change. At the first table, you experience toxins that prevent innovative solutions, while the second table creates creative synapses, and adds serotonin to focus on profitable opportunities.

What table will you lead and foster today? Which ones will you avoid while you plan new neuron pathways toward profitability? It’s often a mere matter of the words you speak. Some choose to allow the markets downturn to shutdown their risks for innovative growth, for instance.

Highly successful millionaires, on the other hand, tend toward a far more brainpowered approach to profit – the kind that is far more apt to be spotted at the second table. You?

Posted in: finances, focus, hope, money, motivation, neuron pathways, novelty, renewal, rewire brain.

Barry Burnett Drives Brainpower at BDR and MITA

Aug 4th, 2010
by eweber.
4 comments

Leaders everywhere call frantically for small businesses to step up  productivity and replace financial pitfalls with profit.  Barry Burnett makes profit a reality for scores of industries across the nation! To learn profitability approaches from Barry is to drop the panic concerns, and stand at the cusp of a new growth era. One we all crave!

In fact,  the MITA International Brain Center is undergoing a refreshing new face-lift,  thanks to this nation’s finest leader of leaders.

Barry Burnett and Ellen Weber

Barry Burnett is quick to admit that he drives change for profit, but I see it more as inspiring brilliant growth opportunities in winning directions!

Fifteen or so years ago, I met Barry, an award winning leader at BDR, and I’ve been inspired by his ability to harness and project visions for profit growth, since.

Read winning clarion calls for Barry’s tools from those who found what business needs most – profitability. Check out what others say about Barry’s inspired strategies, and you’ll see why he generates dynamic profit opportunities in businesses across the country!

After the honor of spending a day here at the MITA International Brain Center, together with Barry Burnett and Matt MacArthur, director of information systems, we  set a dynamic new path toward growth for MITA. Inspired by linchpin suggestions from Barry’s vast pools of wisdom, we’ll open major new directions at the center, starting this week.

Barry Burnett, Robyn McMaster, Matt MacArthur

Stay tuned for more details as MITA beats winds of the upper air of recession to take back  growth opportunities, inspired by Barry’s brainpower.

Meanwhile, here are five brain based reasons why Barry is hailed industry-wide as one of the nation’s most successful profit builders and dynamic motivators.

  1. Barry begins with a mission to help others succeed, by enhancing profitability in every area of organizational operations. During our day together, Barry facilitated brainpowered discussions toward what we do well at MITA.  Every suggestion he made showed he heard the heart beats here, so that together we fostered surefire ways to build on our health, and stretch our strengths.
  2. Barry models change at the peaks, just as he advises others to do.  Highly successful in growth and profitability areas, one may think Barry passes along that wisdom to others. Not so! He listened, he learned, he taught  and he changed his own process at BDR – all while we interacted.  No wonder Barry’s stories and examples, and proven tactics work! He models these at every step of his leadership.
  3. Barry builds on past mistakes, so they become stepping stones to wealth.  Stories popped up again and again, to show us how Barry builds wealth by tweaking what could work better. We call it reflection here at MITA. It’s the kind of “where to from here?” that opens new segues and builds neural frameworks into profitability.
  4. Barry envisions long term sustainable, profit. Greed, or other self-seeking distractions may destroy genuine growth in many leaders, but Barry describes reoccurring revenue beyond those barriers.  He sees people as top capital, and showcases the same.  Recently, for instance,  Barry tipped a waiter $50.00 for following him to the car to return a credit card left behind. That generosity shines through brilliant suggestions for ongoing profit, in ways that show humane secrets behind visionary plans for himself and others.
  5. Barry rallies diverse talents and enjoys learning from others’ capabilities. With a strong sense of his own highly respected strengths, including millionaire achievements at an early age,  Barry admits weaker areas where he’d rather hire talent than develop it. What a huge direction for leaders to take so that others find room in their presence to design and innovate from their own areas of strength.  You’ll often hear Barry restate key insights that others offer, ask questions to help fellow leaders elaborate, and value opposing views that might rock stability in some CEO circles, where good tone is less present.

No wonder profit follows and grows! Yesterday, was far more than the genesis of changed directions for Robyn, me or MITA. It was a day of shared friendship, and mind-bending wisdom from a friend I deeply admire and respect.

BDR is lucky to have Barry Burnett at their helm, leaders are rich who apply his unique process to profit, and I’m luckier yet to have his fine friendship.

Posted in: General, Lead change, MITA approaches, change, change direction, collaboration, creativity, entrepreneur, facilitation, innovation, leadership, renewal, rewire brain, solution.
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Survey Your Meetings for Brainpower

Jul 25th, 2010
by eweber.
2 comments

Survey Meetings for Brainpower

Are your meetings brain draining, or brain powering?

Respond either yes or no to each survey question and then check scores against brainpowered answers below:

1. Is boredom more a reality at your meeting than passion to engage agenda? Yes ___ No ___

2. Do your sessions inspire staff to transform problems into solutions? Yes ___ No ___

3. Would innovative or novel describe most topics in your meetings? Yes ___ No ___

4. Does anger, fear, or frustration fuel bullying at your meetings? Yes ___ No ___

5. Would venting be heard at your meetings much of the time? Yes ___ No ___

6. Do people try new approaches and learn skills often at your meetings?  Yes ___ No ___

7. Does music lift moods and increase productivity where you meet?  Yes ___ No ___

8. Do your managers and leaders talk more and engage or listen  less?  Yes ___ No ___

9. Does the old guard kill incentives and adhere to tired traditions? Yes ___ No ___

10. Is diversity lingo a poor solution for the lack of acceptance or equity?  Yes ___ No ___

11. Do fellow workers come to meetings eager and ready and pull together? Yes ___ No ___

12. Does professional development increase workplace skills at meetings? Yes ___ No ___

13. Do ruts or routines define most discussions with few chances for change? Yes ___ No ___

14. Are some at meetings celebrated more for their intelligence than others?  Yes ___ No ___

15. Do cynical mindsets block creativity, rob talent, or stomp out innovation? Yes ___ No ___

16. Would focus be a typical characteristic when new challenges arise? Yes ___ No ___

17. Would most consider themselves eager and smarter because of meetings? Yes ___ No ___

18. Does frequent encouragement lead to novel opportunities for growth? Yes ___ No ___

19. Are relationships tense or trust lacking as people don’t say what they mean? Yes ___ No ___

20. Do people integrate hard and soft skills to solve problems when they arise? Yes ___ No ___

21. Does stress appear often or  tone act more as silent killer than caring tool? Yes ___ No ___

22. Do workers often speak others names in thoughtful and generous ways? Yes ___ No ___

23. Do  leaders inspire creativity and invention through meeting interactions? Yes ___ No ___

24. Do most people discuss workplace problems with solutions in mind?  Yes ___ No ___

25. Are women and men’s brains valued intellectually in ways that optimize talents? Yes ___ No

How many of these brain related issues point to an innovative meeting?

Check your score below.

How many items point to toxic sessions where you meet? You may be surprised at the vast pool of brain based strategies that can transform meeting toxins into tonics for innovation in your meetings. Could it happen the next time you meet?

Innovative Meeting Survey Score

Curious about your survey for meeting’s innovation score?  If your meetings scored 20 correct responses it’s exceptionally well where you meet. Congratulations!

If, on the other hand, you scored under 20, why not toss one brain based solution into action monthly until innovative brainpower defines your meeting.

For a perfect innovative meeting score, you’d have answered Yes √ or No √ as follows:

1. Is boredom more a reality at your meeting than passion to engage agenda? No √

2. Do your sessions inspire staff to transform problems into solutions? Yes √

3. Would innovative or novel describe most topics in your meetings? Yes √

4. Does anger, fear, or frustration fuel bullying at your meetings? No √

5. Would venting be heard at your meetings much of the time? No √

6. Do people try new approaches and learn skills often at your meetings?  Yes √

7. Does music lift moods and increase productivity where you meet?  Yes √

8. Do your managers and leaders talk more and engage or listen less?   No √

9. Does the old guard kill incentives  and adhere to tired traditions?  No √

10. Is diversity lingo a poor solution for the lack of acceptance or equity?   No √

11. Do fellow workers come to meetings eager and ready and pull together? Yes √

12. Does professional development increase workplace skills at meetings? Yes √

13. Do ruts or routines define most discussions with few chances for change? No √

14. Are some at meetings celebrated more for their intelligence than others?  No √

15. Do cynical mindsets block creativity, rob talent, or stomp out innovation? No √

16. Would focus be a typical characteristic when new challenges arise? Yes √

17. Would most consider themselves eager and smarter because of meetings? Yes √

18. Does frequent encouragement lead to novel opportunities for growth?  Yes √

19. Are relationships tense or trust lacking as people don’t say what they mean?  No √

20. Do people integrate hard and soft skills to solve problems when they arise? Yes √

21. Does stress appear often or  tone act more as silent killer than caring tool? No √

22. Do workers often speak others name in thoughtful and generous ways? Yes √

23. Do  leaders inspire creativity and invention through meeting interactions? Yes √

24. Do most people discuss workplace problems with solutions in mind?  Yes √

25. Are women and men’s brains valued intellectually in ways that optimize talents? Yes √

Each survey issue impacts whether your meetings are monotonous or momentous. Make meetings into beacons of innovation that advance your organization into a new era for a finer future.

Posted in: 2-footed question, Expect, MITA approaches, Move, Question, Reflect, Survey, Target, communication, left brain, meeting, multiple intelligences, right brain, right brain left brain.
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Focus on Funds for Downfall – Focus on Innovation for Growth

Jul 23rd, 2010
by eweber.
No comments yet

Does your organization speak more about innovation than money matters? Do leaders where you work encourage  risk-taking for the sake of invention? Or do people slip into lockdown mode – where change initiatives get imprisoned by hard-line barriers of fear or stress?

Focus on Funds for Downfall

When recession first hit my area, most leaders demanded lower expenses from their employees and then tossed higher prices at clients to cover any loss. Wegmans food chain did the opposite.

Food prices lowered to help struggling customers, and new stores opened to satisfy unique needs of new markets. The result?

People flocked to Wegmans because they recognized risks taken to advance customers outranked cautions taken to save money. The human brain builds neuron pathways toward attaining more of what you focus on, while leaders who focus on money, often act against real riches that come with risking innovation, as Wegmans discovered.

Would you take more risks to advance past recession’s ruts, if you discovered brain facts that supported why money makes you unhappy anyway?

Posted in: General, focus, innovation, money, novelty, renewal, vision.
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25 Signs an Organizational Model is Broken

Jul 16th, 2010
by eweber.
7 comments

Signs of broken business model

Does innovative brainpower fuel your business model?  Is your organization moving forward with the fast shifting economy of the 21st Century, or is it mired in broken practices?

Check out 25 areas that reinvigorate broken business models, and you’ll also agree that tired systems can be mended to grow mindful again.

  1. Workers show disdain or apathy for their work,  and express lack of concern for others’ efforts.   Brain Fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by your choices, than a reality.
  2. Dark, uncomfortable work areas abound.  Brain Fact: Environment counts, and a healthy setting helps people transform problems into solutions.
  3. Communication appears cold, inconsistent and cynical. Brain Fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled and extended by serotonin chemical hormones.
  4. Conflicts predominates over calm. Brain Fact: Anger, fear, and frustration are fueled and extended by cortisol chemical hormones.
  5. More  problems than solutions appear evident. Brain Fact: Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to much more of the same.
  6. Change is short-lived and unexpected and valued. Brain Fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and take shape, or grow based on what you do.
  7. Music selections work against focus and innovation and growth. Brain Fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity.
  8. Knowledge comes with unreasonable demands, and is  delivered. Brain Fact: Lectures and talks work against listeners’ brains and benefit speakers’ intelligence mostly.
  9. Tenure is used as an excuse to stop learning and or stomp on growth. Brain Fact: Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains.
  10. People are excluded because of backgrounds and beliefs at all leadership levels. Brain Fact: Diversity training commonly works mentally against benefits because of its deficit model.
  11. Little or no variety exists between exercise and quiet reflection.  Brain Fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or peak performance, based on how you activate them.
  12. Knowledge appears irrelevant to many. Brain Fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing a person already knows and learning increases in less time.
  13. Ruts appear constant – while  invention appears rarely. Brain Fact: Basal ganglias store facts and create ruts, working memory holds few facts and leads change.
  14. Multiple approaches are discouraged while people must reach prescribed standards from one required approach. Brain Fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all, used by few, and can be more developed daily.
  15. Peer pressure diminishes creativity,  innovation is limited while cynicism is rampant. Brain Fact: Cynical mindsets literally block creativity, impact talent, and stomp out innovation.
  16. Learning approaches are top down and easily dropped or forgotten. Brain Fact: Memory can be outsourced to help people remember, and to free the mind for focus.
  17. Senior workers teach all yet rarely learn from others. Brain Fact: Plasticity enables people to rewire the human brain in ways that keep it younger, smarter, and alive through interactive learning.
  18. A spirit of discouragement supersedes consensus and team building for profitability.  Brain Fact: Encouragement  changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, criticism tears down all through spreading cortisol chemicals.
  19. Distrust is evident through lack of transparency in communications. Brain Fact: Meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from what is said.
  20. Self-serving exchanges build traditional silos and departments refuse to pull together for the greater good. Brain Fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems with the brain in mind.
  21. Negative tone predominates so that few people tend to take risks to achieve new heights. Brain Fact: Stress literally shrinks the brain, and tone in communication acts as a silent killer.
  22. Leaders know few people by name, or address others by name. Brain Fact: Greet a person through speaking that person’s name, for a spike in personal awareness.
  23. Creativity and invention get stomped out rather than shared, through lack of teaching others at the same time people learn. Brain Fact: People retain 90% more through teaching others at the same time they learn a thing. So wisdom and invention spreads and grows in this way.
  24. Curiosity is rarely cultivated by the entire workplace community. Brain Fact: Create new neuron pathways each time you add a solution to any problem you encounter. The opposite is also true – as a focus on problems leads to more of the same.
  25. Little value appears evident for both women and men at all leadership levels.  Brain Fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually in ways that few optimize, but ways that jettison innovations forward.

What brain based strategy would begin to turn your broken organizational model in a new direction to become an innovative learning model as GE and others became. Take a risk to launch that one strategy and your innovation could spark sustainable growth and profitability. What do you think?

Posted in: Lead change, MITA approaches, achievement, brain facts, broken systems, build talented communities, bureaucracy, change, change direction, collaboration, communication, consensus, creativity, curiosity, diversity, entrepreneur, high performance mind, innovation, invention, leadership, neuron pathways, novelty, plasticity, rewire brain, serotonin.

Motivation Fuels Leader Brainpower

Jul 13th, 2010
by eweber.
No comments yet

People tend to label me self-disciplined because I often work long days. A more accurate description, as I see it though, is that I’m highly motivated. Do people see you as inspired by what you do?

Motivation Fuels Leader Brainpower

What a privilege to work in renewal, with Dr. Robyn McMaster and other top innovative leaders from all over the world. And since the brain based strategies I use daily – are proven to get higher motivation and achievement,  it makes sense that I stay intrinsically motivated to work longer hours. Emphasis on intrinsic which is built-in and runs like ever-ready  batteries. The kind that causes you to whistle while you work.

The surprising fact about extrinsic motivation, Daniel Pink states in his new book, Drive, is that it takes your focus off productivity. Research shows how groups offered money took longer to complete interesting tasks, than those who did the same work for no reward.

For Pink, motivation comes intrinsically. In MITA the same is true – only with a difference.  Brain based approaches to leading are proven to raise motivation.

Motivation at the MITA Brain Center works especially well for a fast changing 21st Century economy – in 3 ways:

  1. Your talents transform into workplace tools to take unique approaches to the same peaks that highly successful people reach
  2. Innovative strategies design solutions from multiple intelligences developed daily as you work.
  3. Projects cultivate ongoing curiosity for growth, through chasing after the question – Where to from here?

These three motivation approaches have opened segues for MITA work recently in Europe, China, Canada, Caribbean, Chile, Canada, Mexico, High Arctic – and here in the US.

Where will motivation take you today?

Posted in: MITA approaches, MITA manifesto, curiosity, innovation, invention, motivation, multiple intelligences, plasticity, solution, talent.

5 Vital Connections to Innovative Brainpower

Jul 12th, 2010
by eweber.
No comments yet

You likely know that  links between what people crave and what you can offer, requires you to connect the dots between your current position and creative prosperity. But have you ever considered how vital connections also boost innovative brainpower?

5 Vital Connections to Innovative Brainpower

The opposite is also true. Cut out your connections and by default you diminish brainpower to invent.

Rather than pack your brain with links that go nowhere, why not jettison your life and leadership forward with 5 essential connections.

Jumpstart  brainpower found  in highly innovative minds only, when you:

  1. Join what you already know to what you wish to know in order to invent something new. Human brains come equipped to latch onto new facts faster if they hook to what you already know and do. How could that open  new opportunities for you to start with your current talents and learn what it takes to fill an innovative  niche you see  – yes, even in an economic downturn.
  2. Connect skills you are learning to insights others offer, by linking your facts to their interests. While delivering information works against the human brain, teaching others as we learn ourselves pays back 90% more in retention. Intelligent people also build prosperous alliances in this way.
  3. Link solution possibilities to every problem encountered. Einstein constantly cultivated curiosity, for example,  by linking suggested solutions to problems.  While others passed over, complained about, and whined about what could be – he connected himself to the problem of relativity by imagining he rode the curve of the arc. When you look at problems with solutions in mind, the human brain builds neuron pathways to create  answers you seek.
  4. Draw together diverse people and welcome opposing views. I’ve learned during a lifetime in renewal work that to connect opposing views is to spot nuances that others miss on both sides of issues. It requires being less opinionated about most everything, and pays wonderful dividends to those who stay open-minded. For instance tradition insists on the separation of hard and soft skills, and then places these in silly hierarchies. Here at MITA we combine the best of both into what we term smart skills with the brain in mind for 21st Century leadership strategies that work for a new era.
  5. Join science to art and use imagination as innovative glue to intergrate. You have two well equipped sides to the human brain, and both play a keen role in highly sustainable innovation. To kindle and design ideas such as these  top creative moments that hit new heights in the last decade, takes connecting  the art and science from your left and right brain.

Pair  these essentials together and you’ll increase neuron connections come with  brainpower for new innovative heights.  Make fewer connections, on the other hand, and you’ll  limit your mental ability to create.  Simply put, your daily connections determine your IQ growth, since increased neural connections equal higher intelligence.

Did you know that babies are born with 20 times more neural connections than adults? Why so? Experiences you have in a day  - either create or diminish neural connections for creativity.  Schools tend to teach by delivery and that kills connections that come from doing as people learn. Luckily it’s not all bad news.

Thanks to plasticity however, the human brain rewires new neural connections daily – based on what you do. Or you can lose connections by ruts, routines, and passivity. Does that challenge you to step outside of comfort zones, connect what has yet to fit together in your world, and spark the innovation ability in your brain and organization?

Posted in: Brain Based Leading and Learning, MITA approaches, act opposite of problem, art and science, brain facts, build talented communities, collaboration, creativity, curiosity, diversity, entrepreneur, gender, high performance mind, hook, innovation, integrate, intuition, invention, lecture, left brain, motivation, multiple intelligences, novelty, opposing view, plasticity, renewal, rewire brain, rut, serotonin, smart skills.

Question into Right and Left Brainpower

Jul 11th, 2010
by eweber.
1 comment

Following a question can power up your day. How so? To choose a pathway of possibilities through questions – says researcher Ibrahim Senay – is to encounter unexpected benefits. I agree.

Ask questions,  like open-minded people do, and you’ll stir up motivation as well as cultivate curiosity.  The kind of curiosity that spots a rainbow where others see only storms on the horizon.

Question into Right & Left Brainpower

At the MITA International Brain Center, we often start the day with a two-footed question – to unleash both sides of the brain. We then pop the query – Where to from here? at day’s end.

Today I asked: How can a day off prepare me for a high pressured week to come? Because I know the power of two-footed questions – I went after a  response like ducks chase after water.

First, I carried coffee, and the latest copy of Scientific American Mind, outside to the cabana and breathed in warm summer air. Awakening birds told each other about their plans for the day, while my own concerns slipped into their carefree harmonies.

Second, I weeded a flower bed just beyond my patio.  Before I tossed a country garden seed mix into freshly  furrowed soil, I set aside rocks that would prevent their growth.  Then later, I added these shapely stones alongside my creek to curtail crabgrass that demands dominance there.

Third,  I emailed suggestions ahead from my back patio, to several people who would benefit from clarify to simplify the week’s agenda before it starts.

Still outside, I relaxed over  a leisurely lunch, then fed the koy fish where I lingered to watch their playful antics under a fast moving water spray.

In late afternoon, I replaced screens on my cabana so that new touches will further enhance my busy week. Now, after a high pressured day at work,  I can sip a glass of wine or iced tea to relax in my newly renovated garden.

That’s how one straightforward question stirred multiple intelligences for unexpected melodies on my day off.  While I love my  work, it takes a fair-to-middlin‘ brainpower reboot to conquer challenges of a tough week.

What enables you to catch the winds of the upper air – for that pot of gold found only at the peaks?

Posted in: 2-footed question, MITA approaches, Question, left brain, research, rewire brain, right brain.

5 Words for Wise Leadership

Jul 7th, 2010
by eweber.
9 comments

5 Words for Wise Leadership

Some say wisdom’s locked securely inside sacred books. Others claim the wise represent  few folks only after lifelong struggles. I say wisdom’s a bit like hitching your wagon to a distant star.

It tethers the best leaders’ abilities,  looks to lofty visions beyond self, and  uses shared talents to trek to the top. It  asks How can I support you? to a gimme generation, yet refuses to settle for more of the status quo.

Wisdom’s less a matter of chasing opportunities daily, or enduring an entire lifetime of tough times, and more about celebrating wonder daily. It’s opposite social media abusers who shout  – Come to my  site to stoke my ego more, and similar to winners who build irresistible alliances. It shapes top global ventures,  colors a rainbow – and stirs  stimulating opportunities into an ordinary day.  How so?

5 words that equip the wise, can also add refreshing tools to help you blaze new leadership trails for decisions you look to make:

  • HOW – cultivates curiosity, opens your mind, and prepares you to be surprised by joy.
  • CAN –creates new neuron pathways toward mental ability to do well, grow and win.
  • I – invites personal brain cell connections to  feet and wings ready to launch an idea.
  • SUPPORT –offers service to another person in wise ways that close in on a star.
  • YOU – suggests a stretch beyond your current stance to suggest solutions for a wider reach.

What question unlocks mystery for finer wisdom in your community?

Posted in: leadership, support, wisdom.
Tagged: · · · · · · ·

25 Clues of University Brainpower

Jul 5th, 2010
by eweber.
1 comment

25 Clues of University Brainpower

Looking for a college campus, where brainpower predominates, people are capital, and renewal is on-going?

Here are 25 newly discovered brain facts, that will invigorate your search, and offer clues to renewed higher education:

  1. Faculty and students radiate enthusiasm for their work,  and express genuine interest in one another’s.   Brain Fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by your choices, than a reality.
  2. Well lit, comfortable work areas abound.  Brain Fact: Environment counts, and a healthy setting helps people transform problems into solutions.
  3. Communication appears warm, consistent and genuine. Brain Fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled and extended by serotonin chemical hormones.
  4. Calm predominates over conflicts. Brain Fact: Anger, fear, and frustration are fueled and extended by cortisol chemical hormones.
  5. More solutions than problems seem evident. Brain Fact: Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to much more of the same.
  6. Ongoing change is expected and valued. Brain Fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world and take shape, or grow based on what you do.
  7. Music is conducive to innovation and growth. Brain Fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter productivity.
  8. Knowledge actively engages learners, and is not delivered. Brain Fact: Lectures and talks work against listeners’ brains and benefit speakers’ intelligence mostly.
  9. Tenure is no excuse to stop learning and or stomp on growth. Brain Fact: Hebbian workers rewire their brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains.
  10. Different backgrounds and beliefs lead all campus areas. Brain Fact: Diversity training commonly works mentally against benefits because of its deficit model.
  11. Activities vary between exercise and quiet reflection.  Brain Fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or peak performance, based on how you activate them.
  12. Knowledge remains relevant to all learners. Brain Fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing you know and learning increases in less time.
  13. Ruts appear rare – while  invention abounds. Brain Fact: Basal ganglias store facts and create ruts, working memory holds few facts and leads change.
  14. Many approaches are encouraged to reach shared high standards from many talents that exist on campus. Brain Fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all, used by few, and can be more developed daily.
  15. Peer pressure motivates creativity,  innovation is rewarded and cynicism discouraged. Brain Fact: Cynical mindsets literally block creativity, impact talent, and stomp out innovation.
  16. Learning approaches are taught and become lifelong. Brain Fact: Memory can be outsourced to help people remember, and to free the mind for focus.
  17. Senior and novice faculty both teach and learn from one another. Brain Fact: Plasticity enables people to rewire the human brain in ways that keep it younger and smarter.
  18. A spirit of encouragement supersedes back-biting competition.  Brain Fact: Encouragement can change the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin.
  19. Trust is evident through transparency in communications. Brain Fact: Meta messages destroy relationships through implications different from what is said.
  20. Vibrant exchanges bridge traditional silos and departments work together. Brain Fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems with the brain in mind.
  21. Positive tone predominates so that faculty and students tend to take risks to achieve new heights. Brain Fact: Stress literally shrinks the brain, and tone in communication acts as a silent killer.
  22. Leaders and learners  address people by name, frequently. Brain Fact: Greet a person through speaking that person’s name, for a spike in personal awareness.
  23. Inspire creativity and invention through teaching others at the same time you also learn. You retain 90% when you teach others as you learn a thing.
  24. Curiosity is cultivated by the entire campus community. Brain Fact: Create new neuron pathways each time you add a solution to any problem you encounter.
  25. Value remains evident for both women and men at all levels.  Brain Fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually in ways that few optimize.

How could this checklist of brain facts,  increase your brainpower, or your university’s  in ways that improve both learning and leading? Check out what a 12 year can teach us all about learning, and you’ll likely agree that change is imminent, for those headed forward.

Posted in: General.
Tagged: · · · · · · · · ·

Yikes – Accreditation Clobbers Innovation!

Jul 1st, 2010
by eweber.
No comments yet

Why do organizations postpone winning growth initiatives to accommodate compliance demands?

Leaders complain they can’t implement any new anything – as if reviewers reward only ruts, routines and rigid rules.

Yikes - Accreditation Clobbers Innovation!

Supervisors who vow they’ll return to consider innovations, if they survive accreditation, miss the point of both innovation and compliance.

The opposite is also true. Organizations who comply with demanding standards, and boost brainpower to advance – tend to  invest in 5 creative keys:

  • Identify accreditation requirements. Display essentials under review in positive light. Then create strategies to adopt each  mandate as an asset, not an extra. Create the bigger picture in this way,  and spatial intelligence kicks in.  When your brain make sense of essential details -  you are ready to design dynamic strategies. Tools to implement accreditation demands as higher dividends all around. Rather than cut back on innovation, you simply prepare the way to embrace winning strategies.
  • Enlist a facilitator who’ll mix required-to-dos into a delightful toss of methods that workers enjoy. People come to work daily with a unique mix of intelligences that can sharpen skills to apply new demands to their workplace. Skilled facilitators draw from a wider array of talents,  so people begin to  integrate  both the mandates to be applied and the strategies required to apply them well.
  • Gather  insights for application. Emphasize suggestions that  show how required dictates can become novel solutions to stubborn organizational problems.  Simply stated, encourage people to look at problems with solutions in mind, in order to use new dictates to help rejuvenate the workplace through sharing different views to address any problems encountered as you meet requirements together.
  • Refuse to play oppressor or victim cards.  Resist roles where some issue orders and others must comply or be fired. Mental gridlock comes to oppressors and victims – while brainpower rises for innovative leaders who take risks, generate  trust, and design renewed systems with transparency.  Reduce harmful workplace toxins such as cortisol, and you also help people to embrace new requirements.
  • Reward creative excellence that that integrates workplace talent with new mandates. It’s no surprise that the serotonin which comes from appreciation-  can also fuel refreshing innovations. Creative strategies that result will  enable organizational mandates to be implemented without stress or cynicism. Not surprisingly, the opposite to rewarding and thanking people for their creative genius in any change situation – is to whine and complain about the hardships of withstanding accreditation.

The key to innovative application of any organizational mandate is to enhance what people already do well, reward new initiatives, and use innovative strategies to implement the compliance essentials so that both employees and the organization benefit.  Have you seen it work well for all?

Posted in: General.

20 Questions Determine a Brain’s Leadership Fate

Jun 28th, 2010
by eweber.
1 comment

Some say brains are born to lead. Others see leadership as a learned skill. I say that gene pools play a  part – yet what you do daily can rewire your brain for transformational leadership. What do you say?

Your  brain’s equipped to leap toward new challenges or default to harmful ruts, and you decide which way it heads out daily. Leaders play a part in their own acumen as does the amazing resilience of the human brain’s plasticity. Delightfully, the choice is yours, and you can .

20 Questions Determine a Brain’s Leadership Fate

Here are 20 questions that determine your brain’s leadership fate:

1. What solution did you rock lately? To address a difficulty with a proposed opportunity can lead others beyond rigid ruts at work. It’s so because ruts are really habits formed in brains, and top leaders help to reshape routines into novel ways forward.  Choose winning strategies daily and your brain will store and live these leadership improvements as a reality.

2. How do you light the way? A well lit workplace setting jumpstarts brainpower to lead. That’s why  natural lighting at work leads to more inspiration for leaders to spot and capitalize on  good ideas.

3.When did you last thank a bloke? Workers tell you they rarely hear shout outs for  personal accomplishments.  How many people around you await appreciation expressed from those who lead well.  Not surprisingly, people are far more apt to follow leaders who fuel serotonin,  chemical hormones triggered by expressions of kindness.

4. Let go of missteps? Drop the anger, fear, and frustration brains fuel by harmful cortisol chemical hormones that come with holding grudges. Why so?  Leadership turns mistakes into stepping stones forward, when you let go of your own mistakes and drop others missteps too.

5. Play with new ideas or complain about crap? Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to many  more  complaints. New ideas suggest leaders readiness to build a finer future that creative people crave.

6. Do you model or mock? Act like the leader you want others to see in you, and that leader you’ll become. That’s how brains work. Dendrite cells use your responses to the outside world to shape, and grow new connections for leadership improvement. Links based on what you do daily.

7. What’s playing in your background.?Vary your background sounds to add music for more motivation. Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter your leadership ability. Baroque, for instance increases focus, while heavy metal makes leaders edgy at times.

8. Do you cultivate curiosity? Engage others around you, rather than tell people what works, and align your leadership to listener brains. Top leaders benefit from diverse intelligences while poor leaders fail to to hear much more than personal perspectives.

9. What innovations mix up your day? Lived diversity follows flexible leaders, and brainpower goes well with differences. Hebbian leaders, in contrast, rewire daily for ruts and rigid routines that kill incentives.  A leader can limit focus and shrink people’s brains from stress, or lead for diverse assets through valuing differences.

10. How’d you sleep last night? At least 7 and preferably 8 hours of shut-eye reconfigure your brain to lead new life into the next day. Brain waves bring either sluggishness or peak performance, all  based on how you allow them to rejuvenate in REM sleep.

12. Does research add zip to your brainpower? Open mentally to discover novel and improved ideas daily. Then be first to apply, try and test these ideas to propel a project forward. Hook even difficult facts onto one thing you know and learning increases in less time, enabling you to lead the way.

13. Do others deem you quaint? Or are you quick to change and grow? 21st Century leaders suggest change on regular basis. Expect opposition to shut down weaker leaders though.  Because the brain’s basal ganglia stores old facts and creates boredom, successful leaders stand out by ways they stir working memory to generate new facts and lead change.

14. Ever survey peoples’ strengths? Multiple intelligences are common to all, led only by the best, and cultivated daily with regular use as mental tools. It takes high performance leadership to gather feedback,  recognize growth, and encourage people’s strengths, based on feedback gathered.

15. Do you create or criticize? Cynical or critical leaders literally block creativity, limit talent, and stomp out innovation. Creativity offers a mental tool to take millionaire minds to new peaks, and leaders who create and value talent, will motivate abilities in themselves as well as inspire others to follow and grow.

16. Outsource brainpower? List key facts as guides and you’ll offer reminders that keep others walking forward more frequently.  We now know that memory can be outsourced in ways free top leaders to focus fully on tasks in the moment. That’s how mental equipment’s designed to lead productivity forward.

17. Integrate across silos? Mind-bending ideas come from people across many fields, and it takes a skilled leader who can create segues into and around silos to capitalize on hidden and unused brainpower. Silos separate and isolate top talent, while leaders who integrate hard and soft skills tend to  lead more success with the brain in mind.

18. When did you last communicate with care? Openness and honesty generate trust  learning and growth to raise workplace IQs. Meta messages, from leaders who care less however,  destroy relationships through implications spoken that  differ from actual messages heard. Simply put, encouragement changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, when leaders ratchet up tone for all-round profitability.

19. Collaborate stellar solutions? Poor leaders hide their best ideas, as they fear their competition. Other ineffective leaders insist they do better alone. High performance minds, on the other hand, create new neuron pathways through collective brainpower. To facilitate democratic  solutions for stubborn workplace problems, is to lead benefits only the best will discover.

20. Can you celebrate gender proclivities? Amazingly, women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually, yet few optimize these strengths to lead greatness for both genders. It requires risk as jolted by dopamine surges – to prosper talents in others from the opposite gender. The highly successful  lead both genders to achieve cutting edge advantages.

How could these questions and a few facts about your brain increase your leadership brainpower given all the challenges and opportunities that beg for finer leadership 2010?

This article appeared in SmartBrief on Your Career on Thursday, June 30, 2010.

Posted in: General.
Tagged: · · · · · · · · ·

Revisit Mistakes to Boost Brainpower

Jun 24th, 2010
by eweber.
8 comments

Starbucks brewed winning coffees, and drew many of us together, to brew similar successful ventures. Then, after recession struck and customers lacked the $4.00 daily fix, they nearly crashed.

That’s before Howard Schultz set out to reboot Starbuck’s success.

Revisit Mistakes to Boost Brainpower

To turnaround mistakes,  Starbucks spotted brainpower in five areas:

  • Admit you blew it – Anger, fear, and frustration fuel harmful cortisol chemical hormones that stops success, while admitting errors stems its flow in brains.
  • Pop a novel fix – Venting curbs brainpower and creates neuron pathways to  more  complaints. Novelty adds the opposite for increased intelligence.
  • Push brainpower buttons – Buy-in from community and clients benefits from multiple intelligences for a winning array of answers.
  • Create rather than criticize.  Cynical or critical mindsets block creativity, limit talent and stomp out innovation. Creativity jolts brainpower for a better way.
  • Ride shotgun for risks.   Encouragement changes the chemistry of brains through raised serotonin levels, and fuels new risk-taking for profitability.

What else can your workplace do to turn mistakes into stepping stones for success?

This article appeared on SmartBrief on Workforce – Friday, July 25, 2010

Posted in: Lead change, broken systems, change, creativity, mistakes.
Tagged:

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