I have always shared when I became a manager, I did not know what I did not know. I was given the opportunity to manage and lead a very capable group of people. I knew the job. I then needed to know how to get the job done through others. Fast forward to the present. I have learned very clearly that management is what you do and leadership is how you do it. Between when I started and now, all that sits in the middle is an accumulation of experiences. My memories now dictate how I decide what to do when managing and leading a team of people.
“Our lives are the sum total of the choices we have made.” Dr Wayne Dyer
Managers will always be looking at decision making…in others and their own. Consider where decisions are born. My thesis or suggestion is simple. When facing a situation, my stimulus to decide and act must come from a source. Now to be a bit cheeky, I have heard that sometimes we don’t think with our head (interpret as you may). Is it true to say that we sometimes think with our emotions or our heart? Have you ever heard someone shout out, “just use your head or use common sense”? Where does the decision come from?
The easy answer is everyone has the same source; the head, or brain to be specific.
I am not a doctor by any means. The simplistic ideas I share are from three sources: About.com, Simon Sinek (Golden Circle discussion on Ted Talks) and Michael Mack (postdoctoral researcher at University of Texas at Austin) combined with my relative understanding applied to what I know about management and leadership.
- OK, first off, the brain is broken in up into four sections or lobes: Frontal (or reasoning and cognition), Parietal (or sensory), Temporal (or auditory) and Occipital (or visual). Note that if there is damage to any of these, aspects of memory are affected.
- Additionally, the brain has two spheres: the inner Limbic System (or paleomammalian brain) responsible for emotions, feelings, behavior, motivation and memory and the outer Neo Cortex (or mammalian brain) associated with sensory perception, motor commands, reasoning and rational-conscious thought.
- Michael Mack suggests in his 2013 research that when faced with decisions, the brain calls upon specific (and more concrete) traces of memory, as opposed to general (or much broader) memories. With brain imaging analysis, the areas of the brain most active when deciding: the occipital, parietal and frontal lobes. When processing new information, concrete memories allow for different kinds of decisions: categorization (is that a car?), identification (is that John’s car?) and recall (when did I last see John’s car?).
How on earth does this apply to managing and leading a team of people? Look at how you are leveraging memories in the tasks you expect. Ask yourself…
- Do I understand the scope of memory an individual team member has regarding their responsibilities and expectations in the job (e.g. are they new or tenured)?
- Have I defined and clarified a task which will call on the preferred and desired memories of the individual (e.g. was the task clear enough without need for second guessing)?
- Am I willing to engage and ask questions about an individual’s perspective thus giving me insight into their memories (e.g. what did they do in their last job)?
I am intrigued by this decision making process. Perhaps the next question is “What influences decision making”? See next post…