We need to look beyond the infant of the brain – the pre-frontal cortex, – to what seems like it may be the missing link to completing the journey of evolution from the animal state to being more human-the myelinated vagus or as it is known among neuroscientists, the social engagement system. People who have this ancient circuit laid down in the brain are happier and most importantly have the ability to move beyond fear states into self soothing. Get leaders (and everyone) into a socially engaged state and you have the seeds of a self organizing process that in of itself can change organizations and society. The following link is worth reading for anyone truly interested in the neuroscience of improving human interaction.

http://stephenporges.com/images/stephen%20porges%20interview%20nicabm.pdf

There are many really great men and women who possess a secure bearing and are socially engaged with those they lead. However, some in top positions, are in a behavioural category that can only be described as cold blooded. They may have a human face and wear a suit, but their behavior reflect their reptilian past. Such a characterization is not meant to be provocative; it’s basic neuroscience.

There are two basic survival instincts; mobilize, to either escape or face a threat, or freeze in the hope for survival. Those who freeze do so because they feel helpless and oppressed. This is as true for someone threatened by a despot in a third world country as it is within an organizational context, when employees feel oppressed. The brain knows no difference.

Those leaders who are oppressive, operate out of pure ancient instinct, engaging in controlling behavior when they feel threatened. They engage with those around them but are incapable of disengaging, simply because they are unconsciously bent on control and are therefore predisposed to oppressive behavior or management through fear. There is little to differentiate such behavior from a reptile, except a human face. Aggression is mediated in a human being through exactly the same brain structures as a reptile.

This personality type may also be self-focussed and thrive on creating a sense of ‘power distance’ between themselves and those they lead. They disempower others to ensure there is a metaphorical moat surrounding their bastion of power. They are driven by unconsciously mediated instinctive behaviour and in spite of their likely above average cerebral intellect, they have little in the way of emotional intelligence. The self focussed are generally unaware of their own internal states, are prone to shame and hence they often hide behind their aggressive mudslinging personalities. For them the best defence is the offence and their unconscious need to attack (passively or aggressively) and shame their victims ensures they maintain control through guilt.

According to leading neurodevelopmental experts, large developmental gaps keep individuals emotionally stuck in various phases of childhood. In the case of the self-focussed, they need all of the attention of those around them. They define the word taker and need to be right at all cost. In fact they would rather be right than get what they want in life, which contrary to their motivational drives, is not an important position or high achievement per se. Such striving is a compensation that confuses what they do with a deeply dysfunctional and unhealed psyche. They hide behind their work and are usually very ineffectual within interpersonal and intimate relationships.

They cannot help but confront others with their opinions and are unable to examine them objectively.

How many such personality types sit in leadership positions? I have no idea, but according to the word on the street; too many.

Lloyd Tosoff,
Former C-level Executive and Author

Although the enlightened being in the story is referred as a holy man, he represents a metaphor for expanding our awareness as managers and leaders.

There was a hermit who lived in a cave next to a river on the edge of a town where the town people would see him meditating very quietly over the years. They did not think much of him as they enjoyed the health and wealth of their successful little community. Then the day came that the hermit passed away and was no more. The peace and well being of the town ceased and many problems and natural disasters came. The people could not understand how after so many years of well being the fabric of their well being became compromised. It turns out the hermit was a holy man who in his meditation helped create a prosperous energy for all around him. After his death the people were then left to their own level of awareness and realized who he really was and how much his presence had benefited them.

The energy and consciousness we cultivate within ourselves or within our organizations is the key to the reality we create around us.

The educated know what they know. The intelligent know what they don’t know and seek to learn. The unconscious think they know, but they don’t know what they don’t know and that is why many remain in the dark.

It is time to awaken and grow so that we might have more abundance and greater health in our lives and organizations.

Lloyd Tosoff, Author

Transformation conveys a more abstract and non-linear process that occurs organically because the system itself reorganizes on its own producing a higher energy state than was there prior to any shift in the initial conditions. In systems theory this would be referred to as the self-organizing property of open systems which applies to both people and organizations. It is much more difficult to articulate as well as understand and assimilate the abstraction of the transformative process because it emerges out of the right brain hemisphere—the realm of spatial thinking, pattern recognition, themes, sensing, feeling, emotion and artful expression. The process of transformation involves not only the brain and the entire nervous system in the case of an individual but the collective brain and nervous system of the whole populous of an organization. What this means is that organizations, like people, transform from the bottom up when emotional energies are released from their ‘holding patterns’ manifested in what neuropyschologists call proceduralized behaviour

What we need within all organizations is a critical mass of happier people who are more motivated to do better work. Contained in this single thought lies the entire prescription for real and lasting change in our organizations. So how is this done? It is neither easy, fast or accomplished through new ideas—although great ideas can seed the emergence of change. It can only be done through an interpersonal process that includes everyone within the organization, one relationship at a time. That does not mean that leaders and change consultants need to work directly with each one of the billions of people who work within organizations. It does mean however they need to understand the true nature of change within the human brain and nervous system. Once started, the right kind of change can accumulate geometrically, through the building of a critical mass that can shift an organization out of the critical condition of dysfunction.

The Real Nature of Change

Whether it is Servant Leadership, Jim Collins’ notion of Level 5 Leadership or any other thought system that points to common interest and away from self-interested behavior, the central theme of good leadership seems to be humility and putting the interest of others ahead of my own. However, practically speaking, it is not possible to force the emergence of human qualities such as humility or consideration for the wellbeing of others by adopting behaviors recommended by a new ideology without first removing the fundamental block to healthy human interaction—fear.

Authentic behaviors come naturally to a socially engaged individual because this ancient mammalian pair bonding behavior supports joyful and co-creative interaction within the group. With the exception of real threat to survival mediated by instinctive motivations of fleeing danger, much of our experience is determined by self-limiting patterns of behaviour that have their cause in what Dr. Stephen Porges refers to as states of ‘surveillant vigilance’. Because there are so many subtle false threats woven into the environment, our reptilian brains are on constant alert and therefore unable to relax into states mediated by the brain’s social engagement system.

My soon to be released book is based on the latest research in developmental neuroscience, and looks at two specific areas of the brain that either keep us stuck in the fixity of old recursive behaviour or have the potential to release us into the flow of our authenticity. The ingredient required to commence this transformational process is consciousness because without it how do we know about those patterns that block a more fulfilling experience of our lives?

I use the Occupy Movement as the context for change because it is a metaphor for a deeply engrained division and absence of healthy social engagement within our society that extends into all of our organizations, save some very rare ones with conscious cultures. It also speaks to the ‘us against them’ dynamic that echoes back to the beginning of social history.

It’s lonely on the road less travelled, but we have to arouse the courage to defy self-limiting convention in favour of exploration. The more people realize that the organizational world is a victim of ancient and irrelevant patterns and to a great extent, mindless behavior, the faster it will begin to shift. We can begin that shift through greater social engagement in a world bound in fear and scarcity. That is the core thesis in my new book Critical Condition, Rx for Organizational Health.

As I become understanding of others, I feel empathy. As I connect with others I feel less afraid. As I know others, I know myself and they know me. Conflict vanishes when We finally arrive.

Lloyd Tosoff, Author

I once believed that culture and fulfilment was the primary motivator of people in the workplace. However, primal survival instinct will override human values when push comes to shove. That is why it is so difficult to raise consciousness within organizations and within society in general.

Money, when it is associated with scarcity and the illusion of security, is the causation of greed. More is never enough for those afflicted with such thought patterns. Those who are detached administrators of financial capital assets see money as a tool with which to run a business and not as an emotional compensation for deep internal lack. It is impossible to change an organization when money has becomes the primary motivator and core value. Such behaviour is known as mission confusion, as it shifts strategic focus from why an organization really exists, creating a caricature out of its original purpose.

Primary leaders who care about people and consequently are well-regarded by those they lead, build culture as a by-product of their leadership. Leaders that do not value the building of human culture are usually prone to use money (assuming the organization has a strong balance sheet) to bait and hook people into staying with their jobs. People have an innate need to pair bond and engage in healthy human relationships and will not stay happy in the long run when there is a lack of respect for culture. However, in the short view, money and the (often false) promise of security will keep them in their seats.

What effect a cultural deficit will have on long term corporate outcomes is a good question and one that every CEO should ask. However, given that money is a ubiquitous blind spot among organizational leaders, few have the awareness to do so. Hence our dysfunctional organizations remain in a steady state not conducive to change.

Lloyd Tosoff, Author

Emotional Intelligence is a much overused and little understood term. Made popular by best selling author Daniel Goleman, it is often seen as analogous with containing and inhibiting one’s emotions before they get expressed.

Emotions should be felt and integrated into everything we do as they are the essence of being human. I remember the sense of relief one of my senior managers felt when he came to the realization, after a leadership training session, that “Leading with Emotion’ was a benefit to managing people. He said “The fact is that critical instruction or communication is less effective when it is delivered without the skilful inclusion of constructive emotion in the conversation.”

People are never without emotion, even those who suffer from alexithymia and are unable to describe or connect with feelings. Training yourself and those you lead in understanding the emotional spectrum is both rewarding and exciting as most of us have limited knowledge of the felt sense, feelings or emotions. Awareness of how one feels comes from practise in psychophysiological sensing. The best way to start is to try to identify sensations in the body in conjunction with whatever is happening in the moment. For example, in the case of a customer service provider, a question can be asked as follows; “Thinking about the last time you interacted with a customer (perhaps it was stressful or there was an intense exchange etc.), what do you notice in your body now?”

Getting in touch with sensation will connect one with feelings and begin the process of developing a vocabulary around the emotional spectrum. Like anything, practice makes perfect. Emotional connection to one’s self also helps people think better and make more effective decisions using gut sense as well as analysis.

We tend to give the prefrontal cortex all of the glory at the expense of brain regions that are designed by evolution to provide us with a greater depth of experience.

Lloyd Tosoff, Author

Jerry Holtaway has worked in over 26 countries, on some of the world’s biggest global consumer brands including Citibank, American Express, IBM, LEGO, Nokia, HTC and Samsung.

Like me, he is passionate about change in the workplace from the bottom up. The felt sense, feelings and emotion are the language of the heart, common to all humans around the globe and although we share emotionality with all other life forms on the planet, human emotion is the true source of beauty that defines the pinnacle of earthly evolution. This innate capacity to feel is what makes life worth living and connects us both to our deepest experience of self, as well as to each other.

Antonio Damasio is one of the leading researchers in the field of neuroscience and in his book The Feeling of What Happens, he offers the following metaphor to describe the primal power of emotion using a creature as simple as a sea anemone. “Its organism, devoid of brain and equipped with a simple nervous system, is little more than a gut with two openings, animated by two sets of muscles, some circular, the others lengthwise. The circumstances surrounding the sea anemone determine what its entire organism does: open up to the world like a blossoming flower—at which point water and nutrients enter its body and supply it with energy—or close itself in a contracted flat pack, small, withdrawn, and nearly imperceptible to others. The essence of joy and sadness, of approach and avoidance, of vulnerability and safety, are as apparent in this simple dichotomy of brainless behaviour as they are in the mercurial emotional changes of a child at play.”

I don’t think the power of emotion can be described better than Damasio’s metaphor.

“Leading through Emotion” contemplates the embodiment of Damasio’s sea anemone metaphor as either the creation of an environment of trust, where those around you are open, creative and joyfully engaged or one of fear, resulting in an organization filled with contracted minimalists afraid to be fully alive. The difference is in how you decide to lead.

Lloyd Tosoff, Author

The sense of power distance that exists between the power holder and those under his influence can induce such states of threat. That is why the saying ‘It’s lonely at the top” is such a truism. It doesn’t matter how kind, supportive, or otherwise balanced your leadership is, there is an underlying and deeply engrained unconscious fear of the ‘boss’, rooted in Jungian archetypes. I believe that over the millennia, conditioning has fostered the emergence of an archetype within the collective unconscious, one that we can unknowingly connect with whenever we are faced with the fear of oppression.

When we are confronted with any situation that triggers a subliminal sense of being helpless, instinct takes over and we are immobilized into a freeze state. Knowing this dynamic can be very helpful for a manager when dealing with the survival instincts of those he or she leads in whatever the context of interaction may be. I explore the organizational and psychological implications of these issues, as well as how to move beyond them in my upcoming book, “Critical Condition, Rx for Organizational Health.”

Lloyd Tosoff, Author