Here’s Part 2 of the condensed version of the arguments supporting giving face-to-face communication more attention. They are extracted from Real Conversation – the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use, my presentation at the recent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference.
Brain scientists speak: “Humans have to talk!”
Developments in neuroscience are showing us that conversation has tangible physical effects on us as human
beings.
In an era where people are paid to think, it’s probably no coincidence that there’s a lot of research examining how our brains work. Using new tools, graduate students everywhere are hooking folks up to functional MRIs to see which parts of their brains light up when they do or think
about various things.
There’s evidence that we’re genetically “hardwired” to communicate face-to-face. Moreover, we actually need the company of other humans. It keeps us
human.
This hard scientific research provides us with a new way to build support for face-to-face communication. Hard scientific research appeals to people, such as executives, who make decisions based in facts and logic. Or think they do.
Interestingly, one neuroscientific discovery is that nobody makes decisions purely on facts and logic. Not even CEOs, MBAs, and Accredited Business
Communicators. Emotion is always part of a decision. Human behaviour is shaped by emotions. They’re a vital part of our operating system.
Daniel Goleman (bless him) introduced business people to the idea that it’s important to recognize, use and manage emotions in the workplace. They affect the way people respond to each other and to their work.
In his books Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership, Goleman offered insight for individuals to understand and manage their emotions. It’s a skill that’s particularly important for managers because of what he calls “emotional contagion.” People catch the mood of those around them, particularly the cat who occupies the closest corner office.
Goleman also explained the effect of fear on our brains. When we see something out of the ordinary – like organizational change, an angry e-mail, or maybe our boss saying “we need to talk” – the amygdala, the ancient part of our brain that controls our fight or flight response, takes over the body.
It’s the same response that used to prepare us to fight a sabretoothed tiger. The amygdala hijacks our brain to get adrenaline pumping and strength in all the right places and the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain we think with, shuts right down.
Do you ever look back on what we did during stressful situations and wonder, “What was I thinking?” Guess what? You weren’t thinking. Your brain
wasn’t capable of it.
In Emotional Intelligence training, one of the things we teach is that if you get hijacked and notice it, when you recognize and give a name to the emotion, you get your thinking brain back and if you can keep it active for six seconds, it stays with you.
So, for example, my amygdala goes: “Ack. I’m making a presentation. Danger, danger. We’ll all be killed.” I think: “Hey that feels like fear. What’s there to fear? These people look friendly. They don’t appear to have weapons. They just want to talk.” And my logical brain is back and says: “Let’s get back to Daniel Goleman”
In his latest work, Social Intelligence, Goleman shares the recent discovery that the brain is actually designed to be sociable. Whenever we engage with another person, we are drawn into a brain-to-brain linkup with them. It’s like the “Vulcan Mind Meld,” from the original Star Trek, without all the drama. It’s not a deliberate act; it just happens when people are together. The more important someone is to you and the more time you
spend together, the stronger is the link between your brains.
Can you see where this is heading? Who do we spend the most time with? Who’s critical to our well being? The relationships with our colleagues and bosses are changing our brains every day. This makes the nature of our workplace interactions pretty interesting.
Now, our social interactions not only affect the parts of our brains that orchestrate emotions. They affect the parts that process information, too. They can enhance or inhibit our ability to think.
David Rock, author of Quiet Leadership is working with neuroscientists to examine the effect of coaching conversations. Conversations about a new behaviour increase what he calls “attention density,” enabling people to focus long enough on a behaviour for their brains to really grab it. It moves information about the behaviour from short-term memory, which is really small and doesn’t like to hang on to anything for more than 10 seconds, to long-term memory, where it can persist and be permanently hardwired.
Where you put your attention, you create connections, and a focussed conversation with a helpful partner can accelerate the process.
So our workplace conversations change our brains, influence our emotions, impede or enhance our thinking, and help us change. But wait. There’s more.
In our interactions, our brain produces a chemical soup of hormones that regulate everything from our heart rate to our immune system. In a nourishing relationship, what happens? Good chemicals. Prolonged health. An ugly relationship is like slow poison. That’s why they call them toxic.
Science is also presenting us with evidence that supports “stuff we just know in our bones” based on our own experience.
In Change or Die, Alan Deutschman observes that, two years after coronary bypass surgery, 90 per cent of people who have been told to change their lifestyle or it will kill them haven’t changed a thing. Giving people facts or trying to scare them does not motivate people to do things differently. And what happens if you try to force someone to change? They resist. Facts, fear and force aren’t motivating.
Deutschman describes another set of heart patients, in an experiment funded by Mutual of Omaha, who worked to reverse heart disease without surgery or drugs. The key to their success in a very challenging program seemed to be a supportive group environment of people who believed they’d be successful and told them so. They were in a conversation that continued over time.
The issue of persistence is important to this. An ongoing conversation activates something way below the surface and changes behaviour.
Back in the workplace, we’ve all heard that most employees who quit are quitting the boss, not the company, and poor communication is one of the most often cited reasons. People need connection. Curt Coffman’s work in (First Break All The Rules) supports the importance of social bonds and relationships in keeping employees engaged. David Sirota (The Enthusiastic Employee) emphasizes that one of the things employees want at work is camaraderie. Many of my colleagues and clients are solopreneurs. There has, lately, been a stampede to collaboration. People crave ongoing connection.
A study of successful managers by the Center for Creative Leadership showed, to no one’s surprise, that the most important factor in a manager’s job success is his or her relationship with subordinates. The same study showed something that really is surprising. Another key success factor is affection,
both expressing it and wanting it. We want to be loved. And that’s OK.
(I promise you, I am not making this up!)
The quality of our interactions with people at work can make us smart, stupid, happy, sad, stuck or moving, well or sick, stay or quit,
successful or not.
Does that tell us something about the importance of conversations at work?
Does that sound like it contributes to the bottom line?
Does that sound like something that might get a leader to pay attention?
Isn’t it time to start talking about this?