HealingLeaders Newsletter
...supporting leaders in critical times
 
January, 2009
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StevePic
 
 
StevePicWhen Our Brain
 
"Runs Home to Moma"
 
Low Road vs. High Road Thinking
 
 
"When I asked the computer to identify it, what I got was magma displacement. You see, sir, the SAPS software was originally written to look for seismic events. I think when it gets confused, it kind of runs home to Mama." 
 
Seaman Jones (aka "Jonesy"),
Hunt for Red October
 
 
I just came across an interesting study that was originally published in the October 2008 issue of the journal, Science. It was authored by Jennifer Whitson, assistant professor of management at the McCombs School of Business in the University of Texas-Austin and Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University. It was entitled, "Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception."
 
The study compared the perceptions of participants who felt a lack of control vs. those who felt in control. The research demonstrated an increased susceptibility toward seeing patterns in random images that is precipitated by the perception of the lack of control.
 
The two images below were used in the study.
 
 StevePic
 
Under normal conditions, most participants saw a picture of Saturn in the image on the left. When participants felt they were not in control, they reported seeing Saturn in the image on the right as well, even though there is no picture there.
 
What this means is that our brain, under stress, will "make up" patterns in things when there are none. Under stress, our brains will see explanations, meaning and even elaborate conspiracies when, in fact, there is no basis for such conclusions. It appears that the brain gets desperate for meaning. In a sense, like Jonesy's sonar computer in the Hunt for Red October, our brains "run home to mama."
 
It seems our brains have two processing routes for generating a response to our perceived environment. One route, often called the "low road" processing circuit cycles at the speed of about 25 ms. The second route, called the "high road" processing circuit cycles about five times slower at about 125 ms. The low road route is for survival decisions that require speed but not a lot of accuracy. You don't need too complex a plan when a tiger is chasing you. It is fast but sloppy. The high road route is for complex problem solving. It is slower but more precise.
 
Under stress, low road processing dominates our thinking. We have the illusion that we are seeing patterns that are, in fact, not there. Plans that appear to be coming together can in fact be coming apart; while our brain, in its need for order and meaning, is generating illusions internally. What this means is, snap decisions under stress do not lead to high quality decisions and any assessment of a situation under stress needs to be held suspect. (This is what bothered me terribly in the presidential campaign when Sarah Palin said regarding the decision to go to war, "You can't blink.")
 
So what is the answer if we want to make better-quality decisions? The experiment above measured the difference between people who felt in control and people who didn't. Any idea of ultimate control in today's complex decision-making environment is a pipe dream. Control in leadership is an illusion. Are we doomed to become victims of illusions and the low road decisions from our brains?
 
This is no easy dilemma, but I do think there are ways to increase the quality of our perceptions and our decisions under stress. There are a few strategies that may help.
 
One strategy is to build resiliency - to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We can take a clue from the way the military and emergency response teams train personnel for high functioning under stress. They give training and then immerse their trainees again and again in stressful situations to get them used to depending on their training rather than on perceptions under stress for decision making. This builds awareness and resiliency. As leaders, we can intentionally immerse ourselves in stressful situations with the intent of learning to override our fight or flight instincts while in their midst.
 
A second strategy is to lower the level of stress. This is not an easy task, but there are some simple guidelines that can help lower our level of emotional arousal and encourage "high road" thinking. One of the most useful strategies for accomplishing this is called, "SBRC." ( Stop, Breathe, Reflect, Choose - I think of the acronym as "SoBeR Choice").
 
Step 1 - The first step in this strategy is to STOP.
 
Build awareness around the signals in our body that indicate we have crossed the line to low road processing. Learn to become suspicious of our perceptions and our decisions at this point and stop the momentum of what is going on. Low road processing doesn't morph into high road processing. The shift is more digital than analogue. To make the shift into high road processing, the low road processing must first be halted or interrupted.
 
Step 2 - Next comes BREATHE.
 
The one area of overlap between our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems is our breath. It is the one thing that is both automatic and controllable. Once you have stopped to notice that you are being stressed, take a moment to slow and deepen your breathing. If you are not into getting all "Zen," at the very least take a few deep sighs.
 
Step 3 - Take time to REFLECT.
 
Once we have calmed our breathing and our brains, it is time to take the opportunity to be curious and ask some good questions. A brain that is stuck in low road processing is a brain that is too certain and lacks curiosity. Curiosity jump starts high road processing. I challenge myself with a question that stretches both my curiosity and humor (higher brain functions) by asking, "What about this could be funny?" (Now there's a good question for the economy!)
 
Step 4 - CHOOSE on a response.
 
Only after you have gotten resourceful and made a shift from low road processing to high road processing, should you make any kind of decision. This will assure the highest-quality response possible. Remember, the decision to postpone a decision until we are in a better state of mind can be one of the best decisions we can make.
 
 
There are other methods that work. You may have your own. I find this to be the most simple and workable for most people. Of course, this process does not guarantee perfect decisions every time. Improved quality and health are the goal rather than perfection. Bringing this awareness with us in the trenches of modern decision making  our brains can grow up and run with the best of them instead of running home to mama. (Sorry Mom.)
 
Peace and courage,
 
Steve Geske


HealingLeaders.com

"Fly the plane, dude."

HowardPic

 
In a sunny and cloudless sky, where visibility was virtually unlimited, two airplanes collided over Brazil at an altitude of 37,000 feet.  One airplane, an airliner with its control surfaces fatally damaged, broke apart and crashed into the jungle below.  All aboard died.  The other airplane, a business jet, was damaged. Its pilots were able to make an emergency landing.   The investigation into this 2006 disaster, like investigations into all aviation accidents, is producing important information from which pilots, air traffic controllers and aviation systems designers will benefit.  I read accident investigation reports because I am a private pilot.  Like most pilots, I realize I never know enough about flying airplanes. There's a continuous focus on safety in all aspects of aviation, from initial training to recurrent testing, and from the lowest ratings to the highest levels of professional flying. 
 
In cases of accidents involving commercial airplanes, it's sometimes possible to hear flight crew conversations on recording equipment installed in the airplane.  This information can be of significant benefit to investigators.  I have listened to cockpit voice recordings of the Brazil mid-air collision.  They were difficult to listen to, especially the last few moments of life for the airliner crew.  The crew futilely worked to get their airliner under control. The recordings captured a cacophony of emergency aural warnings and the increasing airspeed of the plunging airliner. One of the pilots cried "Aye!"  The other urged calm.  "Calma!" he said.  A few seconds later, he said it again.  
 
Imagine.  A person knows he is probably going to die.  Yet, he continues his efforts to recover from the developing catastrophe.  And he says to himself and to another nearby, "Be calm."
 
Airline pilots train for the unexpected.  They work through simulated emergencies which equip them to react instinctively to unusual situations.  Their training does more, however.  It builds best responses when the developing situation is beyond the scope of a classically understood emergency. In these situations, pilots follow a rule: "Fly the plane first.  Do nothing else until you are sure the airplane is as much under control as it can be made to be."  Then, work on other problems as they become understood.
I listened to the voice recorder from the cockpit of the business jet as well.  The first words after impact with the airliner were these:  Pilot: "What the hell was that?"  Co-pilot: "All right, just fly the airplane, dude!  Just fly the airplane!"*
 
Compared to this event, my own emotional tantrums when faced with challenges seem just plain silly.   Compared to this event, the everyday fears we face as leaders, many of which shut down our rational processing, seem trite.
Considering the story of this mid-air disaster in the context of our daily lives, we are asked to consider, how do we focus on gaining rational control in the midst of crisis? 
 
We might think of our brain as capable of functioning like a flight simulator.  It can predict and display "emergencies" we are likely to face in the future.  For leaders, this can mean visualizing worst case scenarios while planning business strategies.  Once the details of the (future) crisis come into focus, we can visualize not only what we'll do next, but, how we will work to reduce our emotional responses in the moment of stress, and replace those responses with rational processing.  We can do this by picturing our brain's first calls for stress response, then inviting rational responses to replace them. 
 
The brain's prefrontal lobes are responsible for future memory.  Richard Restak writes in his book, Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, "Future memory refers to your ability to look forward to future goals and keep them in mind in the present so that current inconveniences [. . . and I would add 'crises'] don't sidetrack you."  Prefrontal lobes reside some distance away from the amygdala, the site where our "fight or flight" response triggers reside.  In crisis, the amygdala lobbies for power.  It wants to shut down our rational processors. It invites us to panic.  But, we can reprogram. We can invite those rational processors to step up and take over. We can imagine the high functioning parts of our brain getting into high gear to hold back the onslaught of emotional overrides. 
 
Preprogram your panic management processes by:

· Visualizing possible stress producing scenarios.  Couple them to rational future thinking of what might go wrong with what you're doing or planning.  (Something always will go wrong!)

· Learning how your stress responses develop.  Know enough about how your brain works so you can predict how both desired and unwanted responses will occur.

· Adopting techniques to kick rational responses into gear quickly, even instantly.
 
When you do these things, you can fly the plane. 
"Calma!" In the last recorded moments of their lives, the flight crew of GOL flight #1907 not only showed us how to die, they showed us how to live.
 
Howard Hansen
 

* An article about this accident, written by William Langewiesche in Vanity Fair, explores the possibility that the crew aboard the business jet may have become so engrossed in the overabundance of advanced technology aboard their airplane that they failed to notice and respond to an error message about their navigation system.  It may have been a classic forest and trees situation. To see the article, click here.

 

 
Our Special Thanks...
 
Goes to Marge Hulburt  for her professional expertise and effort in editing all things written for HealingLeaders. Thank you, Marge for truly making us "look as smart as we are." (Maybe even a little smarter!)