The Brain and Behavior Change

28	May
	2013

Behavior Engineering

Mike Kim, Managing Director - Ferrazzi Greenlight

Our newest Managing Director, Mike Kim, shares insights gleaned from David Rock's book Your Brain At Work. Don't know if I'm more excited about Mike coming onboard at Ferrazzi Greenlight or getting my own chance to delve even deeper into David's research on a future Change Agent Google+ Hangout. - Keith

Have you ever wondered why some of your best ideas come to mind when you’re in the shower or the first thing when you wake up? Personally, I've had so many insights as I've been enjoying a music set on Spotify while driving that I've learned my lesson and keep Post-it notes and a pen handy in my car.
I never understood this phenomenon of ideas flowing freely when you're relaxing rather than in “work” mode until reading David Rock’s book Your Brain at Work. In just one of the many stops on a fascinating tour of the brain, Rock explains that some of our best insights involve “unconscious processing” and are cultivated best in a relaxed mental state. Reading this book provides an understanding of how our brains work and can and should ignite behavior change that ultimately improves our performance.
How do you change behavior? It’s such a fundamental question in our lives. We attempt lifestyle changes to complete a marathon or similarly challenging goal, improve our friendships, get a spouse to accept one of our characteristics or change one of theirs, or improve our performance at work to get that promotion. Understanding how the brain works adds an arrow in our quiver as we shoot for the bullseye of desired behaviors.
In 2003, I made an ultimately rewarding life change. I sold everything I had (handed over my business, liquidated my 401k, and paid off remaining college debt) and with a couple thousand dollars left in my bank account bought a one-way ticket to China. I devoted the next four years of my life to helping North Koreans escape through a 6,000-mile modern-day underground railroad, an extraordinary experience recounted in my book Escaping North Korea.
I have spent considerable time since reflecting on the question, “How do I recreate and repeat that kind of rewarding behavior change in smaller doses and how do I encourage others to do the same?” My fascination with motivation, behavior change, and performance continues and I thank Rock for offering one viewpoint as a solution to the puzzle.
The first region of the brain he introduces is the prefrontal cortex, a small region comprising only 4 to 5% of the brain, directly behind the forehead. The prefrontal cortex is key to decision making and problem solving. Rock's helpful metaphor describes it as a stage in a small theater with directors, actors, and an audience. In describing how to use it optimally at work or at play, he writes:
To be effective at work I have proposed that you need to get a minimum of actors on the stage, in the right order, a few at a time, with the right level of arousal. Yet now I am suggesting that sometimes you have to get everyone off the stage, so that unconscious process can solve the problem.
The brain has its limitations and the mental stage requires a significant amount of energy to function. It is energy hungry and should be treated as a limited resource. It’s not all that different from our muscles in that it needs to rest and recharge in order to once again perform at optimal levels. According to one study presented in the book, the maximum number of “items” we can effectively hold in our mind at one time is four, which is not a lot by any means.
I never thought of my brain as a limited resource that needs to be managed as such. If anything, junior high school teachers had me thinking the opposite by repeatedly declaring that we use only 10% of our brain. It was a breakthrough for me to follow Rock's admonition to activate and develop my internal director (a metaphor for the part of your awareness that can stand outside of experience). By selecting actors to move on and off my mental stage (no more than 4 at a time), engaging the audience, scheduling intermission and breaks, and turning the lights off daily, I could achieve better performance.
There’s a negative stigma to that voice inside our head and many ignore it as a result; I know I have for far too long. But Rock instructs us to become attuned to that inner director in order to deal with challenges and reduce stress while improving priority setting, decision making, problem solving, focus, insights, and creativity. He says we’ve spent far too much of our lives drowning that director out with noise; it’s time to activate and engage him or her as one of the levers of change.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could really change our behavior and ultimately improve our performance at work and in our lives by investing a little bit of time understanding the brain? I don’t know about you, but Rock has given me a lot to think about and I'm taking some new directions in my inner journey to test and hopefully capitalize on his insights.
I’ve already pledged to take some new actions:

I’ll attempt to engage my director at least once a day.
I’ll treat my brain as a muscle needing adequate rest to ensure optimal performance when I really need it. It is not efficient in the long-run to be “on” or multi-tasking all the time.
Understanding that the mental stage is energy hungry, I’ll use the best hours of my day for the most important energy depleting activities. For example, instead of emailing first thing in the morning I now use that fresh mental state for creative thinking, writing/journaling, and prioritizing for the day, week, and month.
I immediately sent a copy of the book as a gift to a good friend who was experiencing performance issues at work.

I've only been able to cover a fraction of the amazing amount of content in David Rock's Your Brain at Work. I encourage you to explore its promise yourself: with increased attention to our brains, we can improve our behavior and performance. I'm making a commitment to do so as one of the ways I can help change lives, families, communities, organizations, companies, and the world.

Mike Kim, Managing Director of Ferrazzi Greenlight, is best known for founding Crossing Borders, a nonprofit dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees. He is the author of Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country, about his experiences at the China-North Korea border helping North Koreans.