Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Thanksgiving to the Brain; from Cradle to Grave

You know the old saying: “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” As a behaviorist and someone who has actively trained people and organizations for over 15 years, I am hugely opposed to the saying. I believe when it comes to learning, the sky is the limit.  However, there’s a simple and must have ingredient that needs to be there, whether for the older or the younger candidate.  This component is motivation.  Motivation is to training and learning, as yeast is to bread.  I love this analogy because it’s relatable to everyone, and there is no variable that can change the outcomes.  So as you know there are three main ingredients to any bread:  flour, milk/water, and eggs.  However, these are the ingredients that will enable the outcome to be something within the bread family.  These could be things such as piecrust, biscuits, pancakes, scones etc. etc.  In order to control for bread, there is only one ingredient that will transform the dough from a flat and chewy entity to a crispy and fluffy phenomena and that is yeast.  So let’s review:  anyone can learn a new concept, a new habit, or a new process with the right tools such as environment, support and practice.  However in order to be transformed, meaning for the learning to become solidified and ingrained, the individual has to have the motivation to put the learning in to practice and avoid variations of any kind in repeated exposures.  They say for any habit to be formed, the individual has to practice it for 21 days straight. 

So why is this important in organization development?  Within the process of change, I am often asked to waive a magic wand and make certain people in the organization change, while the supporting individuals keep their behavior intact and the organization’s processes and mechanisms also stay unchanged.  I truly enjoy the process of change, and in fact consider the transformation of people and organizations a passion.  There is whole new world of possibilities on the other side, once there are realizations and insertions put in place.  However, expecting to have fundamental and long-lasting change, without aligning all the parts and components related to it, are impossible if not foolish.  Alike the various members of a family, what affects one member will affect another.  And hence for positive change to come about, all members have to make changes accordingly.  Systems theory is a great proponent of this concept. Systems theory was proposed in the 1940's by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy (General Systems Theory, 1968), and furthered by Ross Ashby (Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956). Von Bertalanffy was both reacting against reductionism and attempting to revive the unity of science. He emphasized that real systems are open to, and interact with, their environments, rather than reducing an entity (e.g. the human body) to the properties of its parts or elements (e.g. organs or cells), systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and relations between the parts which connect them into a whole (cf. holism).



So the next time someone responds negatively to change, take the time to find out the questions below.

A.  What are they afraid of losing in the process?
B.  What motivates them to keep the status quo?
C.  What can you offer as new, which can replace the old in a good way? 


And by the way, whomever came up with the saying “Can’t teach and old dog new tricks” could benefit from a research update:  Lex Schelgel, in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (sept. 2012), notes that the brain continues to change — for the better — in adults, as long as the adult continues learning. While many neuroscientists use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in brain studies, Schlegel turned to a new MRI technology, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). He used DTI to measure the diffusion of water in axons, tracking the communication pathways in the brain. “This work is contributing to a new understanding that the brain keeps this plastic organ throughout your life, capable of change.”



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