A CONFERENCE ABOUT NEUROSCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP

Summer came early for me this year, in a lush hill town in Italy, about an hour north of Venice. I was struck by how deeply my body responded to the vegetation: the abundance of an environment not based in mono-culture. Just a few minutes from the airport, passing small fields of a few acres each, and homes with chaotic gardens, I felt a special kind of softening - similar to what I noticed in villages in Bulgaria last year.

My hotel windows in Asolo opened to a wild hillside; 10 varieties of birds woke me at 5 am. By contrast, the California wine country where I live, which seems idyllic to so many Americans, is largely planted in one crop. I relish the songs of a few birds near my home, but many species have left; they cannot live in counties planted mostly with grapes.

I went to that lovely Italian town to attend a conference about Neuroscience and Leadership. I'm still in the wake of those reflections as I write today. Neuro-plasticity: that state in which we can learn, laugh, inquire, design and invent, and play, is far more fragile than I realized.

Before the conference I hadn't understood that these highly desirable functions happen in one part of the brain - they are similar and interrelated, though it seems obvious, even intuitive, to me now. The impacts for leaders are far-reaching.

Neuro-plasticity enables the functions that allow us to generate value: the abilities that might allow an enterprise to move from 20th century habits - based on repetition and knowing - to a 21st century orientation -- of creating and innovating, possibly with diverse and changing partners.

In my experience, people do their Best Work when they are inquiring - when they are curious - not when they already 'know' the answer. Having listened carefully to hundreds of 'best work' stories, asking myself, "What enables people to do their best work?", one constant stands out: something unknown, which provokes curiosity and inquiry.

Neuro-science can illuminate what disables, impedes or halts access to this kind of functioning. Some of what keeps us rigid, operating in old circuits, stuck, as it were, in what we 'know' is below. Certainly we need our ability to perform what we know - we wouldn't want to have to re-learn to walk, talk, and drive every day. But this habit of 'knowing' often gets in the way of generating new value.

There is much to explore - more than I am aware of, and far more than I am able to point to here. There is exciting opportunity to develop new competence, and also to let go of habits that limit us. For those of us working to create a better future, cultivating neuro-plasticity may be one of one best investments. Here are a few portals to consider:

All primates are highly sensitive to status, humans no less than others. In a primate troupe, status determines whether and what you may eat, and whether and by whom you may be beaten.

What socio-cognitive brain science reveals is that when exposed to status signals, even very subtle messages about job titles or the price of clothing, people respond in the same part of the brain that signals threat. The limbic system heats up, and Neuro-plasticity becomes inaccessible: flight, fight, or flocking are hard-wired responses to threat. Inquiry shuts down.

This has huge consequences for business, education, and communities. What if people can neither learn nor create in the presence of status signals?

Managers committed to being smarter, better-informed, and higher status than their people are making their organizations less valuable at every turn. What inquiry might leaders open to re-orient them, to spark their curiosity?

I invite you to consider catalyzing neuro-plasticity as a core competence - a way that we can lead ourselves, our customers and colleagues, our children and parents, and members of the human community whose lives may be less-advantaged - to expand our abilities to learn, question, and create.

Status is a source of stress in our workplaces and communities. Neutralizing our response to it is very similar to learning to walk past the mouth-watering aromas wafting from a cookie shop: the task requires linguistic and somatic skills which can be cultivated.

Inviting people to genuine inquiry confers status - it can function like dogs use play bows and children throw balls to one another. Opening a genuine question, based on real concerns, works as a simple signal. I've done it many times in 'difficult' meetings: an invitation to enjoy being soft together as we address the challenges of modern life.

Inquiry is at the heart of the process by which people generate value. That?s been so since the first human community: "How might we keep the kids away from the lions?" and "Where might those tasty fruits be growing? Who might remember?" fires the brain the same way as, "Where might we find our next 100,000 customers? Who might we want to think with?"

Increasing our ability to inquire together is a powerful key - no matter whether we're looking to build customer relationships, invent a new industry, reduce poverty, or change the dynamics among nations.

While most people were schooled to 'know' the answers, and most corporate cultures follow that same paradigm, it's not as difficult as one might think to spark peoples' curiosity. Our brains respond to new questions; we are designed to enable neuro-plasticity.

Inquiry makes people smart: questions catalyze neuro-plasticity. Conversely, presenting information moves listeners into old circuitry. They're not likely to learn from presentations, no matter how elegant. Invest in them at your own risk.

Stories are built around a quest, and tend to provoke curiosity: "What happened next?" "How did they...?" People love to learn from stories.

Inquiry has somatic as well as linguistic components. Remember how curiosity feels? We certainly know that you and those around you are able to be curious. I invite you to deepen your skill: to move more of your conversations into that highly generative state.

Play happens in the same part of the brain. Toys are fun; bring them on. Questions can be fun, and they can stimulate that special kind of energy that creates value. New questions function well as invitations to play together.

The mood and the somatic presence in which they're asked is key. What might be the most inviting way to ask:

• What would have us all say that we did a great job?
• What would have you say this is an excellent organization?
• Who are the customers with whom we do our best work?

When you get good at playing in questions, you can enjoy moving up the scale
Of both challenge and value:

• What will our customers' customers need two years from now?"

And beyond...