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Tag Archive for: Communicate

The Benefits of a Digital Detox

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By Dr Tara Swart

Neuroscience and understanding the brain is far more important for business than we might first imagine. Neuroscience-based coaching can help create the ideal environment and mindset in which business leaders can thrive, enjoy their work, and build happier teams too.

In today’s extremely frenetic work environment, some reports say that we check our phone up to 85 times or more per day. This means our brains have to process a vast amount of information on an hourly basis. How can we ensure that we look after our brain health in this demanding context? Just like athletes train and care for their bodies, professionals should look after their brain’s health in order to enhance performance at work, and realise that our bodies are not simply a convenient vehicle for moving the brain from meeting to meeting.

Our brains are not programmed to always be ‘switched on’, so a digital detox can be a good way of giving your brain a rest and reducing your stress levels. The increased space and time which a digital detox provides can even boost your creativity, as well as allowing you to spend more time with family and friends.

Taking a break from devices can improve your performance in a number of ways:

  • Improved Sleep and Rest for the Brain
      • Using a phone or device in bed or just before sleep can negatively impact the quality of your sleep.
      • Melatonin – the hormone that helps regulate our sleep – is released by the pineal gland into the bloodstream. The blue light that phone and laptop screens emit confuses the gland because darkness is what triggers it to start working.
      • Population norm studies have shown that a disturbed night’s sleep can account for a drop of 5-8 IQ points the following days.
      • Long term lack of sleep can even increase chances of developing a dementing disease like Alzheimer’s, because our brain’s glymphatic system removes toxin build-up from the brain whilst we sleep.
  • Social Bonding/Spending Time with Family
      • Oxytocin, the “bonding hormone” – released into the blood via the pituitary gland during times of trust and bonding – is likely to be more in abundance in a situation where people can communicate and interact freely over a shared experience, as well as through appropriate physical contact.
      • Putting down our devices and spending time interacting with loved ones can help to increase levels of oxytocin, which can improve communication and trust.
  • Combatting Stress
    • We generally feel under constant pressure to respond to emails and messages immediately. Being aware of emails coming into your inbox can cause stress and an increase in levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. Some studies have even suggested that knowledge of unread emails in your inbox can reduce your effective IQ.
    • Further, our brains are not good at multi-tasking, so having to constantly overlap work and leisure by, for example, responding to emails at the weekend, can tire us out mentally.
    • It is important that we use our weekends and holidays to give our brains time and space to recharge and relax. A digital detox over the weekend can be the first step towards achieving this.

Dr Tara Swart is a renowned neuroscientist, leadership coach, medical doctor and award-winning author. She will present on Neuroscience for Leadership in Johannesburg on 25th May 2017, hosted by Business Results Group & the Gordon Institute of Business Science. For more information: www.brg.co.za/events; 0861 247328; rsvp@brg.co.za

Creating Debate to Improve Decision Making

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By Liz Wiseman

There is a growing belief that good leaders are made, not born. We now know that leadership skills can be taught – that management practices can and should be refined and improved upon as leadership styles and behaviors evolve.

We are all too familiar with the leader who drains intelligence and capability out of their teams. Who, because of their need to be the smartest, most capable person in the room, often shut down the smarts of others, ultimately stifling the flow of ideas. These leaders—who we call “Diminishers”—underutilize people and leave creativity and talent on the table.

Thankfully, we also know leaders who, as capable as they are, care less about flaunting their own IQs and more about fostering a culture of intelligence in their organizations. Under the leadership of these “Multipliers,” employees don’t just feel smarter, they become smarter.

The question to then ask is: when it comes to decision-making in your organization, are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?

And why is this important?

How decisions are made can greatly impact an organization – either creating higher levels of engagement and execution or disengagement and dissatisfaction.

Think of some important organizational decisions made recently within your company. Were there any problems that came up after the fact – in whispered conversations in hallways and cubicles – as baffled teams tried to make sense of decisions that seemed abrupt and random? Diminishers create this unproductive dynamic because they tend to make decisions alone or with input from just a small inner circle of advisers. The result is an organization left reeling, instead of executing.

By contrast, Multipliers engage people in rigorous, upfront debates about the issues at hand. They give people a chance to weigh in and consider different possibilities—ultimately strengthening team members’ understanding of the issue and increasing the likelihood that they’ll be ready to carry out whatever actions are required.

In our research, we found that Multipliers did three specific things very differently from Diminishers when it came to decision-making.

While Diminishers raise issues, dominate discussions, and force decisions, Multipliers:

  1. Frame the Issue
    1. Define the question
    2. Form the team
    3. Assemble the data
    4. Frame the decision
  2. Spark the debate
    1. Create safety for best-thinking
    2. Demand rigor
  3. Drive a Sound Decision
    1. Re-clarify the decision-making process
    2. Make the decision
    3. Communicate the decision and rationale

To become a debate maker, make a debate with four asks: ask the hard questions, ask for evidence, ask everyone, and ask people to switch positions.

So the final question is: are you a Decision Maker or a Multiplier/Debate Maker?

Liz Wiseman, is one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world (Thinkers50TM), She is the former VP of Oracle Corporation, renowned speaker, executive advisor and bestselling author of Multipliers