Our brain has not kept up with society. That was the opening remark from our special guest, Dan Radecki, PhD for the first HRoundtable of 2017. Dan is, Chief Scientific Officer at the Academy of Brain-based leadership and Executive Director of R&D at Allergan. He met with us to share how teams thrive but he first set the foundation for how our brain works. It was interesting and quite scary to hear that the unconscious brain makes 99% of our decisions. We talked about the prefrontal cortex and it's braking system. Then there is the dark side or lower brain, the amygdala, that responds to fear and many of our emotions.
Dan brought such rich examples of the research being done in brain science a
nd the application to neuroleadership. We all have a better understanding of how brain function helps leaders get the results they want for the business, themselves and for their teams. It also shows how we get in our own way to desired results.
We had an inside look on how and why we behave the way we do following thousands of years of slow brain evolution and basic fundamentals on how we are hard wired as humans. He introduced the psychological model that is used as a tool (S.A.F.E.T.Y.) to understand human motivation. The tool allows you to see that the brains seeks; security, autonomy, fairness, esteem, trust and your own unique perspectives.
In order to experience this model we were able to participate in an assessment that facilitated a discussion about how we act and how the conscious and subconscious regions of the brain operate. A group seeks psychological safety and this tool provides a language to understand each other.
Bottom line - people want to come to work and feel safe. They want to feel that others care and will support them. This all fits with the engagement discussion many of our HR colleagues and CEO's are having about what workers want today.
Thank you Dan for a lively, very open and candid discussion of how we think and the power of this information for our managers and future leaders. Maybe our brain will start catching up with social change after all.