Leading The Way
As the leader, you play a very powerful role in demonstrating the extent to which problem solving and opportunity finding is the team’s responsibility. In fact, you need to let them know that in your mind, this is part of what you are paying them to do; then you need to support that statement by ensuring that there is time clearly set aside on people’s busy calendars to engage in this activity . Management consulting firm Blessing White, Inc. recently conducted a survey in which 40 percent of respondents claimed that their managers never encouraged them to look for new solutions or to take risks, with 34 percent saying that they were rarely encouraged.
An issue that correlates strongly with this trend is managers’ tendency to tell their employees something like, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!” While avoiding these complaints might temporarily improve your mood, you are potentially eliminating the opportunity to address problems that make your employees’ work more difficult than it needs to be, and you’re closing your eyes (and everyone else’s) to issues negatively impacting your customers or other departments.
What a lost opportunity for managers, especially when you examine recent research on the way our brains work! According to these studies, managers should be taking an interest in and celebrating those employees who desire to improve the performance of the business, even if it is initially presented as a problem to solve and not a solution served up on a platter to the manager. HR Magazine published an article that explored a new field of study that joins psychology (the study of the human mind and behavior) and neuroscience (the physiological study of the brain) to shed light on the brain’s role in human nature and behavior. New MRI equipment and other tools and techniques are allowing researchers to study what happens in the brain during learning, engagement, motivation, and social interaction.
Scholar in the field Dr. Ellen Weber, PhD, Director of the MITA International Brain Based Center in Pittsford NY, has concluded that when managers show interest in employees, supporting them and offering genuine praise, it increases the production of serotonin in the brains of those employees. Serotonin opens minds to ideas, creating a desire to get to know the manager better and to support whatever he or she needs. On the other hand, diminishing an employee increases the production of cortisol in the brain, diminishing openness to new ideas, and willingness to help.
Because of brain-imaging technologies, we know that we use only 3 to 5 percent of our brains. Sending an employee to a staff meeting to sit and listen to you talk only engages about 3 percent of the brain, which is the reason employees are bored and disengaged. However, stirring up an employee’s environment meaningfully can entice them to use a much higher percentage of the brain.
In our next post, we’ll talk about how leaders can engage their teams in a meaningful way, either during staff meetings or during a completely separate session dedicated to solving the teams’ most impactful business problems.
