THE QUESTION
Have you ever wondered why you have your best ideas when in the shower / on holiday / walking the dog / in the middle of the night (delete or insert as appropriate) or indeed why the same set of people who can get a little stuck with their thinking in their place of work are often transformed when you change their context by meeting off-site?
THE ANSWER
Well, you won’t be surprised to learn that it is not a happy accident as we all have an attention switcher in our brains called our ‘Salience Network’ (Menon
2011) that directs our attention between in simple terms when we have ‘something to do ‘(otherwise known as our Operational Domain) versus when we have ‘nothing to do’ (known as our Interpersonal Domain). It is important to note here that having ‘nothing to do’ does not imply that we are being idle or lazy, more we are not preoccupied with making decisions & completing tasks.
BUT HERE’S THE RUB..
One domain inhibits the other & we need them both to function well as a leader, but we cannot use them both at the same time. So thinking this through if you are asking your leaders to do more with less, of a higher quality & more often when in their place of work then there is a good chance they are spending much of their time focussed on tasks in the ‘Operational Domain’ & the irony is the part of the brain that would really help them think differently & more creatively about how they could achieve this, is effectively shut off from helping them out. Sadly it often only gets its chance when your leaders are not at work (we’re back to showering & walking the dog
again) or in a different place of work (think off-site & away from the day to day).
So if you need to switch up your thinking & want to explore how to create the space for your leaders to step change how they are approaching their work or the business problems you are trying to solve , get in touch with me at rupert@strongerhumans.com to discuss how I can help you facilitate & create the conditions for generating better solutions….no showers required.
