“Plastics.” Brain benefits, present to future
Who knew how astute, powerful and prophetic the classic film line “Plastics” would become. In the 1967 film, The Graduate, a family friend says he has just one word for the recent college graduate Ben: “Plastics.” When Ben, played by Dustin Hoffman, asks “Exactly how...
“That’s the way we do things around here….”
Want to play with fire? Keep telling others and yourself: “That’s the way we do things around here….” Reliance on past practices can be an incendiary way to approach work these days. That’s because you can rub your colleagues the wrong way, especially if you’re trying...
Living in the land of “No, but.”
Remember the character NoNo from the 2005 fable Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber? NoNo serves as his penguin colony’s community weather forecaster. He’s negative about everything and everyone one...
How to protect the herd
My long-established morning routine stopped running on auto-pilot a few weeks ago. Now, most mornings when I pull out my mascara wand, I tune out the morning news broadcasters, look wistfully at my left eyelid, and start wishing that people would trust science more....
Black sheep’s value in a VUCA world
Complacency may pose a bigger threat to organizations than competition, especially in our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. When we become complacent, we often let our brain switch to autopilot. We start to pay attention only to those things...
Use checklists to help your fellow “mental couch potatoes”
Changing behavior is hard. So is getting people’s attention. It’s also hard to make sure individuals care enough to pay attention and consider taking action when you ask them to change. The road between your “ask” and their “act” is long, winding and hilly. For those...
When good habits go bad
At least 40% of what you we do each day follows a script, according to Dr. Wendy Wood and her fellow researchers. These scripted behaviors are the habits we’ve adopted over the years. Many of these habits help us start our day each work morning. By unconsciously going...
How are you being?
“Good.” “Great!” “Busy!!!” Common answers to the question “How are you doing?” What if someone asked you “How are you being?” Would you still answer the same way? Bees are busy. So are the characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the 1400’s, which is where this...
Be kind to your brain; resolve to build habits
“Have compassion for yourself and your brain,” one of my neuroscientist professors frequently counsels. His advice is simultaneously soothing and inspiring. The brain is an amazing organ; however, it does have its limits—especially the prefrontal cortex, also known as...
