How the brain works and why you should know

Applying sound neurological principles gives us an excellent filter for nurturing and selecting leaders, and the evidence proves that it works.

Neuroscientists estimate that if all that we have yet to discover about the brain is spread over a distance of 1 mile (1.6km) then so far we have come 2” (5 cm).

Nonetheless they’re learning fast and already know the fundamentals of how we tick. Their emerging insights have vital implications for how we treat each other in all walks of life, including families; socially; politically; across artificial boundaries of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or ‘tribe’ of whatever sort; and of course at work.

This is the first of a two part blog. The second part is Why genuine selflessness is good business.

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I spent last Monday at a conference centre in North East England in an audience of 200 professionals from all over the UK who work with fostered, adopted and other damaged, neglected, abused or traumatised children. We had the privilege of listening spellbound for over 5 hours to Dr Bruce D. Perry, Senior Fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston TX and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Globally respected as a psychiatrist, clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences, Dr Perry and his team developed the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT), based on a simplified 4 layer hierarchical structure of the brain. They have used it to make remarkable strides in recent years in helping many vulnerable youngsters and their carers, parents, foster parents and adoptive parents.

Dr Perry was the child psychologist brought in by the US Federal Government to work with the children whose release had been negotiated during the disastrous siege in April 1993 at the compound near Waco TX occupied by the Branch Davidian religious sect. I remember it vividly - I was living and working in Charlotte NC at that time. After 4 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) officers and 6 sect members were killed in an initial gun battle 76 sect members, including the parents of the children in Dr Perry’s care, later died in a fire during a botched FBI assault on the compound. Dr Perry has strong and bitter views about the authorities’ incompetence and unwillingness to listen to his advice, which he believes could have forestalled this tragic denouement.

I was invited to attend because my wife and I adopted our son, now in his late teens, when he was a small boy. Only those with direct exposure to adoptees can understand that their trauma and insecurity never fully subsides. Many adoptees are highly talented, yet it can be difficult for them to socialise normally, to achieve their potential, or to form and retain secure relationships, including marriages and other close emotional partnerships. Levels of crime, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and suicide amongst adoptees are far higher than for people growing up in stable birth families.

There are many horror stories and too many adoptions break down, which of course prospective adoptive parents are never told about. For adoptive families the arrival of a child or children is just the start of the lifelong challenges, whereas adoption agencies and social services would have you believe that most if not all adoptive families live blissfully ever after!

Listening to Dr Perry on Monday taught me a great deal that my wife and I can use in supporting my son and hopefully in helping him overcome the odds and reach his potential, which is excellent and entirely unrelated to my DNA! However reflecting since then I’ve also realised the powerful implications of Dr Perry’s NMT model for organisational leadership, management, turnaround, rehabilitation, renewal and successful long-term growth.

The NMT is based on 6 key principles of neurodevelopment and neurobiology:

1. The brain is organised in a hierarchical fashion, such that all incoming sensory input first enters the lower part of the brain.
2. Neurons and neural systems are designed to change in a ‘use-dependent’ fashion.(so if they aren't stimulated properly they won't develop, and if they're used abusively they will develop abnormally)
3. The brain develops in a sequential fashion.
4. The brain develops most rapidly early in life.(which is why adverse foetal or childhood events often 'screw people up' for life)
5. Neural systems can be changed, but some are easier to change than others.
6. The human brain is designed for a different (much simpler, highly relational) world.

The brain hierarchy is as follows:

• The lowest level (Level 1) is the Brainstem. This primitive brain, essentially common in function in all creatures, processes billions of pieces of incoming information and directs them to the right locations. In humans for example it controls basic functions such as body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. Hard wired into it are the instantaneous ‘fight or flight’ instincts of self-preservation over which we have no control.
• Level 2, the Diencephalon, deals with (still relatively basic) functions such as sleep, appetite, arousal and motor function.
• Level 3, the Limbic, deals with emotional reactivity, sexual behaviour and attachment.
• Finally Level 4, the Neocortex (upper brain), the most recently evolved, handles affiliation, concrete thought and abstract thought.

The model leads to compelling conclusions about how the brain behaves. These can help us enormously in improving the way we relate to each other and the consequent outcomes. Therefore they offer a tremendous source of greater health and fulfilment, lower stress and illness (both physical and mental), and competitive advantage for business.

The critical point to grasp is that our species, homo sapiens, has only been on the planet for around 250,000 years. That’s a drop in the ocean in our evolution. The majority of our brain functions at Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 developed over millions of years through the various pre-hominid (literally ‘pre-human’) phases of evolution. Our brains have therefore not begun to adapt yet to our complex, sophisticated and technological 21st Century environment.

Humans are social primates – we are interdependent in multiple ways. Of homo sapiens’ 250,000 years thus far 98% were spent in small trans-generational hunter-gatherer bands of 40-50 individuals before more refined civilisation began to develop over the last 5,000 years. Dr Perry points out that our previous environment was far richer relationally than life is today. Typically any child aged under 6 had four developmentally more mature people who could protect, educate, enrich and nurture them. Yet we now define a caregiver-to-child ratio of 1:4 as ‘best practice’ for young children, 1/16th of the ratio the brain is designed for.

Children now spend many hours a day in front of screens. Over the last 2-3 generations in developed countries the proportion of marital or life partner relationships breaking down has risen inexorably, and even more of them are subject to intense stresses and turbulence. Many of us have been adversely affected by this as children, or in our own adult relationships. No longer do developed societies live in close-knit communities in which all generations are enriched and psychologically inoculated by the socio-emotional learning opportunities created by close, constant interactions with extended families and neighbours. Large nuclear and extended families are dwindling rapidly. The brain cannot yet cope with the trauma and isolation this breeds at all ages, especially very young and very old, but also when things go wrong. This largely explains the pandemic of depression and other mental illnesses currently sweeping developed societies.

In sharp contrast it has been striking for me to observe in remote, mountain communities in Nepal how well adapted children and adults seem to what is a hardy, difficult and largely non-materialistic life of poverty, and how happy and peaceful they appear compared to our frenetic, materially-driven culture. Thanks to Dr Perry I can now see why neurologically this should be no surprise at all. So called 'primitive' or less developed cultures are in fact generally far better aligned with neurological realities than our so-called 'advanced' cultures.

In terms of brain evolution think of it like this - in advanced economies it's as if we're 6 year old kids who've found the keys to Dad's Ferrari (the neocortex). It's a foregone conclusion there's going to be serious trouble!!

Tomorrow's blog will explore how Top 1% leaders and organisations instinctively create conditions that are aligned with the structure of the human brain. I judge this to be a key reason for their exceptional long-term performance. If we apply these emerging neurological discoveries intelligently and with the humillty our situation in fact dictates then many more of us can perform far better, individually and collectively, and in so doing we can far better advance the human species as a whole.

One of the consequent harsh realities is that we have to be willing to confront and reject the majority of self-interested, so-called leaders who trample over everyone else and/or con us into believing that they will look after our interests. Applying sound neurological principles gives us an excellent filter for nurturing and selecting leaders, and the evidence proves that it works.

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Thanks for reading this.  If you liked it please click on Like and share it.  Constructive comments are welcome, and if you have questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/markashtonresolve.

If you need help finding and developing the true leaders throughout your business, solving business problems, or growing your business sustainably, take a look at www.resolvegetsresults.com and contact us for an informal, no-obligation conversation.  We give hands-on leadership, management, non-executive, coaching, advisory, and fundraising support to many different types of business – small or large, start-up, turnaround or mature.  Our passion is applying the tried and tested, contrarian principles of the Top 1%, most enduringly profitable companies to help build and sustain great businesses. Where appropriate we seek to share risk and reward with clients.

You’ll find more blogs on leadership and management topics on my LinkedIn profile.