New research continues to overturn myths about the way the brain works. Understanding the reality of how the brain functions has powerful implications for leaders and communicators in the real world.
5-minute read – 100% written by humans
We only use 10% of our brains and humans tend to be either right-brain or left-brain dominant. Except we don’t and we’re not. Brain myths are seductive. They provide nourishment for management consultants, self-help gurus and aspiring TED talkers.
The 10% myth appeals because it suggests we have an untapped ocean of potential. And yet, why would 500 million years of evolution have designed something so pitifully inefficient? The reality is that the brain has evolved to be modular, with remarkable plasticity that allows circuitry to be repurposed for different tasks when needed. It’s an incredibly efficient design.
Suggesting that you should exploit the untapped 90% is like suggesting you’d be a better cook if only you could use more of your kitchen appliances simultaneously.
The dominant hemisphere myth is seductive because it meets our need to categorise people into types. It’s the sort of popular factoid that supports an industry of personality profiling (the more elaborate of which even stretch beyond hemispheres to quadrants). Studies have repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support the hypothesis.
Another myth about the brain
Another popular idea about the brain has increasingly come under scrutiny. The idea of the triune brain was first put forward in 1959 by Paul D. MacLean. And it’s stuck. MacLean proposed that we think of the brain in three layers. Each layer progressed in sophistication as our species evolved from our reptilian and then mammalian ancestors through to the intelligent reasoning modern humans that we are today. Deep in the core is the most primitive reptile brain. Then there is the mammalian layer, home of the limbic system which regulates our emotions. This is covered by the most recent Neo-mammalian layer, in which sits the prefrontal cortex – our seat of reasoning and rational thought.
There is something intuitively satisfying about the model. It feels coherent. And we humans have a curious affinity with things that are packaged up in threes. But in a recent Guardian article, neuroscientist Dr. Hannah Critchlow—author of the forthcoming book, The 21st-Century Brain—joins a chorus of eminent critics upending the idea. In reality, the brain is a far more integrated and dynamic system, with countless reciprocal interactions between the reasoning and emotion-processing circuitry.
Nonetheless, MacLean’s model about the brain fits with a popular notion, from Freud’s ego and the id – through the affable Dr Jekyll and the venal Mr Hyde – stretching back to Plato around 370 BCE. Plato compared the human soul to a chariot driven by a charioteer and pulled by two horses. The charioteer represents reason, attempting to guide and control the horses. The noble horse represents our higher impulses: courage, honour and self-discipline. The unruly horse represents our appetites, desires and passions. (You will have spotted the bundle of three again!)
Do these myths matter?
Do these neuro-myths matter? Up to a point, they do. If we better understand how our emotions work, we can be better pilots of our lives. The triune brain – like Freud, Plato and the popular notion of the brain – tends to pit emotion and reasoning against one another. They are the two opponents that form the enduring struggle at the heart of our lives.
Think of the 1951 movie The African Queen, where Katharine Hepburn’s starchy Rose Sayer sits opposite the more elemental boat captain, Charlie Allnut.
Allnut: A man takes a drop too much once in a while, it’s only human nature.
Sayer: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
While the idea of conflict between the emotion and reason may have a grip on the popular imagination, the true relationship is quite different. In reality, it’s more of a partnership.
Emotion and decision-making
People who have undergone brain damage that inhibits the emotional function of the brain do not suddenly turn into clinical, highly rational calculating machines in the mode of Star Trek’s Mr Spock. In fact, something altogether more curious happens.
Neurologists who treat patients with such injuries notice that they become incapable of making straightforward decisions. This was the experience of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who studied a patient known as Elliot. Despite damage to his ventromedial frontal regions following surgery to remove a brain tumour, Elliot retained much of his intelligence, language abilities, memory and capacity for logical reasoning. Conventional cognitive tests revealed surprisingly little impairment.
Yet everyday decision-making seemed beyond him. He struggled to prioritise tasks, make ordinary choices and organise his working life; his personal and professional circumstances deteriorated. Damasio noted that Elliot was scarcely ever able to agree on a time for his follow-up appointment. He could thoroughly weigh up the pros and cons of different days and times but couldn’t apparently settle on one. Put simply, he was unable to go with what felt right.
Here’s why. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain we evolved most recently as a species; it would be seen as the outer layer in that onion model. When we make logical, rational decisions based on facts, we largely have the pre-frontal cortex to thank.
However, a lot of emotional processing also takes place in the prefrontal cortex. Within it there are two particularly interesting regions which work together in a type of partnership.
Our emotional temperature check
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex processes facts and data, logic and rational decision-making. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex lets us know how we feel about something. Effectively, this is our emotional temperature check: Our gut feeling.
So, if for example on my way to work, I remember that I have left the stove on at home, the dorsolateral prefrontal will seek to assess the realistic probability of damage being caused, the time and cost of returning home, relative to other priorities. However, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex will simply say, “Uh, oh, this doesn’t feel right!” And I’ll take action. Eliot had damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, so he had a real difficulty making decisions and taking action.
Emotions allow us to rapidly prioritise what feels right. They provide cognitive shortcuts to what really matters to us.
How we prioritise what matters
In his book How the Mind Works, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker has written:
“And here is the key to why we have emotions. An animal cannot pursue all its goals at once.”
He illustrates this with an animal that is simultaneously hungry and thirsty. It cannot spend its time endlessly oscillating between a berry bush and a lake. It must prioritise one goal over the other.
Do you switch jobs? Do you move to a new city? Build that garden conservatory? Invite that person on a date?
Changing behaviour in others
And the lesson for leaders? We perpetually remind participants at our workshops that as a leader you are a communicator. As business communicators, you don’t simply want your audience to listen, you want them to do something different because of what you tell them. This more contemporary understanding of the brain gives us a more effective route to change behaviour in others. Speak to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with facts, figures and analysis. But also use metaphor, storytelling and human connection to speak to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. That’s what stimulates real behaviour change.
To find out how we can help leaders in your organisation to be more impactful, influential and persuasive visit www.threshold.co.uk
