A new era of Management: Neuromanagement. Part #3
Part #3 of the series of articles is based on SoftServe PMO Director Denys Prylutskyi's speech at PM Good News Conf. The Part #1 and Part #2 links are at the bottom of this page.
Actual decision-making process
Our experience has an emotional charge stored in our memories. When we face a similar situation that reflects a previous occasion, including associated emotions, the choice of those emotions already classifies us as male. People make the right choice because of the motivation to repeat "good" feelings while avoiding "bad" ones.
Scientists have realized that the decision-making process looks like this: if you try to recall what you remember about events in the past, you may forget the names of the people involved, the place where something happened, and the date, but what you remember is whether it was good or bad for you. This process is what is called the emotional charge of your memories. So we store it in our brains for every event that happens to us. Then, when we decide, it goes like this:
we try to repeat what looks like our positive emotional experience in the past and avoid doing what looks like a negative experience. That is why we start with an emotion check.
Let us imagine that we have a particular situation occurring to us at this moment. We are checking and trying to find something similar. It is not something that you can control. It is a pure neuro network. So, we are checking memories. We are trying to find something like the current situation. We imagine that we can find some previous experience that is similar, maybe not the same, perhaps not even close, but the brain recognizes it as a similar situation. But, again, we have no control over it. We do not rationally choose what is identical and what is not. Then we read from what is similar to an emotional charge: whether it was good or bad for us. If it is terrible, we do not repeat it. If it were good, we would do the same thing. Then the signal goes to the frontal lobe, the logic center. We put logic into that decision. We try to fill the decision with the logic to socialize that decision.
So, we must share our decisions with others, explaining why we decided to do it this way and not that way. To do this, we need logic because the reason "I feel this is wrong" is not compelling. But, when it comes to neuroscience, it is the most convincing reason. But in the business world, if you tell your manager that you feel something is wrong and, therefore, you should or should not do it, but you have no good reason for it, just your feelings, then you probably will not make a promising career as of now. But maybe things will change in the future. Who knows?
Logic is the language we use to communicate decisions to the world so that people understand why we do what we do. However, it is not in itself something that influences our decisions. That makes a lot of difference, doesn’t it?
If we do not use logic to make decisions, what is the point of using that logic to manage people? You may remember, in the previous part, we talked about how we try to influence decision-making by giving our logic, facts, and reasoning instead of someone else's. We try to convince them by replacing their logic with our logic. But this does not affect whatsoever on decision-making. This way of managing people does not work effectively. It works to a certain degree, but there are much more effective ways, bringing us to the neuro-social paradigm.
Neuro-social paradigm: The way people make behavioral decisions is a function of their context, relations with others, and personalized perceptions of reality.
We often emphasize common sense. We hear about it all the time. However, there is no common sense because, unfortunately, nothing is typical. Each of us perceives this world because of our own experience, our knowledge, our parents', where we grew up, who our friends were, what happened to us in the past, and who we are today. Many other things are so personal, and the mixture of all these aspects is so unique that, as a result, none of us perceive the world in the same way. Some people are close. We feel them somehow. We think these people. You know this feeling when you meet a person, start talking to them, and then understand that this is your person. You know them very well. So, what does it mean? It means that your contexts are close, and your schemes are close. However, they are not the same. Even people with highly similar contexts have differences and perceive the world differently. No one perceives the world the same way as you do.
If you expect people to take your logic, your perception of the world, and the rules of your world and apply them to their world, it will never happen. Whether you're a project manager or a C-level manager, it will not work regardless of who you are. People are not going to change their worlds. They're not going to replace their world with yours. They live in their world, and you have to understand that. You have to adjust to that. You have to follow this neuro-social paradigm that they live in their world, and you live in yours.
When you manage people, you need to establish a link between the two worlds, not try to change the other person's world, which is the traditional way of managing people.
The power of thought: Our self is not the author of our thoughts. Instead, our beliefs define us.
Another critical thought for you: our self is not the author of our thoughts. The decisions we make are not based on our thoughts, our logic, or our reasoning. We don't influence them at all. Instead, our beliefs define who we are. This concept is very new. If we didn't follow neuroscience, we would never think that way. So, when we talk about mental well-being, it's essential. If you know that your mental side is the center of your personality, you better keep it healthy and make sure it's okay, as you know that otherwise, you'll have problems. It's not the other way around. While your mental health leaves much to be desired that can refine you. It can happen. You are the result of your mental health.
The neuro world is dramatically different from what we are thinking about, so it requires other ways of thinking and acting.
The last thing I want to mention is that the world is mental; the actual world is mental. It is radically different from what we think of it. If you want to live in the real world, the mental world requires of us different ways of thinking and acting, completely different. So, if you're interested, you can find quite a lot of material online, and if you follow me on social media, I share information on this topic as well. Or you can stay in the old paradigm of managing people, which is not as practical given the neuroscience data.
However, I believe that one day people will realize that the world is mental, and we will all accept that. At that point, the management of people will change dramatically. So, you can either be a pioneer or a follower; you can be an early adopter or a late adopter. It depends on you. You probably won't get a chance to avoid it. I wish you all would think about it because being an early follower is always better. Being a late follower is good as well.
