Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

by David Rock (2009)

With this book, Rock has written an owner's manual for the human brain. Tapping into current neuro-scientific research, Rock uses the power of the story to help readers understand how the brain responds to the events of our everyday lives, including solving problems and making decisions, stress and pressure, collaborating with others and facilitating change.

Rock explains several recent research discoveries about the human brain. When we understand our own brain, Rock contends, we are better able to use it powerfully and productively.

One powerful example of optimizing our brainpower comes from research findings on our currently popular process of multi-tasking. When we multi-task, we work against our brains preference, not with it. The prefrontal cortex, that region of the brain responsible for thinking things through, can handle only one to four ideas at a time and consumes large quantities of metabolic resources, the fuel in the blood stream. "Memory starts to degrade when you try to hold more than one idea in mind." (Page 31) Remember that the next time you try to participate in a conference call and reply to emails at the same time-one of the tasks will suffer. "While you can hold several chunks of information in mind at once, you can't perform more than one conscious process at a time with these chunks without impacting performance." (Page 33) To use the brain most effectively, Rock suggests that we prioritize our tasks and schedule those demanding the most conscious attention for the times when we have the highest energy.

Simplify information by focusing on an idea's salient elements, rather than trying to retain all the detail. Write the details down so they don't take precious brain resources to hold in place.

To reduce mistakes, reduce distractions and allow your brain to focus on the things right in front of you. Any distraction diverts attention, requiring extra resources to re-focus your attention. "Change focus ten times an hour (one study showed people in offices did so as often as twenty times an hour), and your productive thinking time is only a fraction of what's possible." (Page 47) The result: you make more mistakes, forget good ideas and lose new insights.

Solving new problems requires new insights. The solution to familiar problems, or what worked in the past, succeeds only if the problems are substantially the same. For new problems, Rock proposes the ARIA model-Awareness, Reflection, Insight and Action. (Page 82) Notice subtle differences and allow loose connections to emerge while in a quiet mind state. (Page 86)

Using Rock's metaphor of a play, he describes the role of our internal director as paying close attention to the present moment, open-minded and accepting. The director allows us to pause before we act and then to choose which characters to allow on our mental stage and which to hold back. Under pressure, we forget to activate our director, to allow for the pause before action. It takes practice to remember to use the director.

The brain's primary organizing principle is to minimize danger and maximize reward, and the power of pulling away from danger is stronger than the pull toward reward. The 'away' response makes it hard to think and triggers a defensive response to perceived threats. Once an emotion kicks in, denying its existence won't work to regulate it. Instead, research shows that quickly and symbolically labeling an emotion quiets the activated limbic system of the brain and allows space for the director to reappraise and inhibit the strong emotion. "You can reappraise by reinterpreting an event, or reordering your values, or normalizing an event, or repositioning your perspective." (Page 136) This reappraisal process is an integral part of coaching, we call it reframing or choosing a more powerful perspective.

Expectations change brain functioning. Practice noticing your expectations and choosing to lower them so you experience a better-than-expected outcome more frequently. Coming out ahead of your expectations helps to maintain a positive state of mind. (Page 151) When expectations are not met, your brain interprets that as a threat and produces a drop in dopamine and a downward spiral in thinking.

Our brains crave social connections. Rock's SCARF model describes the primary rewards or threats that are important to the brain. The elements of this model are Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. (Page 196) When we are experiencing positive states of those elements, we are in a reward state and when our experience is negative, our brain sees a threat. "Think about what it feels like when you interact with someone who makes you notice what's good about yourself (raising your status), who is clear with his expectations of you (increasing certainty), who lets you make decisions (increasing autonomy), who connects with you on a human level (increasing relatedness), and who treats you fairly. You feel calmer, happier, more confident, more connected, and smarter. You are able to process richer streams of information about the world, which feels like the world has gotten bigger. Because this experience feels so good, you want to spend time with this person and help them any way you can." (Page 196-197)

Managers should take note of the SCARF model to improve the performance of their team. A positive, calmer, happier, confident, connected and smarter team will produce better business outcomes as well as personal satisfaction.

This short summary of David Rock's latest book barely scratches the surface of the powerful lessons on thinking about thinking. To learn more about your brain and strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus and working smarter, Your Brain at Work is full of useful ideas and suggestions.

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