The Office Meeting For a Culture for Personal Growth-It’s All Brain Activation!
If you were to ask 10 US business owners what the purpose of being in business is the most likely response would be, “To make money”.
Next go to a different culture and ask the same question to 10 business owners and you’re likely to get this response, “To create jobs”.
I say something different. My belief is that the purpose of being in business is to grow people. If you grow people you will have a culture of people who are optimizing themselves on a daily basis and that will make you far more money than a focus on making money ever could.
(Note-all pictures would not post. Send an email to [email protected] and I’ll send the original article.)
I interpret this the following way. The first picture, Boss, uses employees to get what he wants, profit. Hence the employee as the tool to reach the goal of hitting the ball into the hole.
The second picture has a much different focus, that of growing the employee. I’ve always maintained that if your employees grow as people because they work for you then you will make all of the money that you possibly can. That’s because they will give best effort on a daily basis.
I should also add to this that this cannot be imposed or mandated. Your employees have to want to improve. If they do then the next question might be how do you do this? How do I build a culture of positive growth in my company
Here is one way, it’s the office meeting. I recommend that you get into a routine of having this meeting the first thing early on a Monday morning. This way your setting the tone for the week, making commitments for the upcoming week, presetting your outcomes and predisposing your brain to “see” the opportunities that you bring forth at this meeting.
Here is the format that I recommend. First, you want to get the electrical activity out of the amygdala, the fear and emotional stress response of the brain and into the septum, which is an area of the limbic system that is positive. This will affect the neurotransmitters being released and move you out of the stressful cortisol environment into an oxytocin, feel good environment.
A brain scan from a fMRI above shows heavy amygdala activation particularly in the right hemisphere. This is indicative of an emotional state of fear and anxiety usually accompanying the stance of being a victim and blaming either another person or an outside circumstance. You can see that there is little activity in the frontal cortex which is the reasoning, thinking, planning area of the brain. The only activity that can be done with this type of brain activation is bitching and complaining.
The way to shut this down and move the activation to the septum is through a grateful flow exercise. So step one in your office meeting is to start off with gratitude. Each person would say one or two things that they are grateful for. When they do this the circuitry of the brain would go from the cortex, (thinking) to the hippocampus (memory), to the septum (positive emotion). This is the network circuitry you want to start out with.
The scan below shows the inverse relationship to the brains release of the destructive stress hormone cortisol and septum activation.
So step 1 is Grateful flow-what are you grateful for.
Now that you’ve set the tone for the mindset of the meeting, you can now direct the activation to the pre frontal cortex, thinking, planning, and go into step 2, matters update. This is where you will discuss the pending items of cases or clients, basically an update.
You would then follow this with step 3 which is challenges. The way that you keep the electrical activity, the brain activation out of the emotional amygdala is by making I statements. This is the part of your meeting where you can speak freely about what you are concerned about. You state it from your perspective rather than blaming others. If someone is behaving a certain way you can state that objectively but then immediately follow that with the I statement about how that makes you feel. No one can argue with a statement on how you feel because that is a valid objective statement on your part.
Step 4 would then be to continue the “I” statements with any requests that you have. Use this format, what I need or request is and fill in the rest.
Step 5 is an anchoring and pre-commitment phase. This is where you make a commitment for the week. This is the time to embrace being uncomfortable and to predispose yourself, to influence your attention on what you will need to accomplish for the week to have been a successful week. What this does it influence the reticular activating system in the brain, a dense bundle of nerve cells at the base of the brain that are constantly filtering what you are paying attention to.
(Note-all pictures would not post. Send an email to [email protected] and I’ll send the original article.)
When you make a commitment in advance you will have what is called selective perception. You will see opportunities to accomplish that commitment, particularly when there is accountability involved. The accountability can be as simple as reporting back to the group if you did what you said you would do. You will be getting activation in the anterior cingular cortex, the recognition of pain, and the way to avoid that is to take the action that is the cue and triggering this activation. It’s the anticipation of having to report that you did not do the committed activity that triggers the pain activation and you can eliminate that by taking the action, so be careful what you commit to do!
Here is a summary of how to develop a culture of growth and accountability with an office meeting;
Step 1 Grateful Flow
Step 2 Matters Update
Step 3 Challenges-I centered statements, only response afterwards is “Thank You”.
Step 4 Requests-What I need is…
Step 5 Weekly Commitments-criteria for a great week-one activity that is evidence of being uncomfortable and doing it anyway plus an evaluation of last weeks results.
- What I said I would do last week.
- The result-did I do it?
- How I felt.
- My commitment for this week.
Enjoy an office of growth, commitment and accountability!
High Performance Training, Inc.
Bob Davies, M.Ed. Psychology, B.S. Health, MCC Master Certified Coach
20992 Ashley Lane, Lake Forest, CA 92630-5865
949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492 Email: [email protected] Website: www.Bobdavies.com On-Line coaching www.bobdaviescoaching.com
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Permission granted to publish this article with Resource information included: Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 949-830-9192 [email protected] www.bobdavies.com Permission also granted to edit this article.
Bob Davies
High Performance Training, Inc.
20992 Ashley Lane
Lake Forest, Ca 92630