Shine

Rachel Salaman: And towards the beginning of the book you make the point that gold, as you put it, resides in everybody. In your experience is that really the case or are some people less able to shine than others?

Edward Hallowell: Everybody has it within them to do their best, and what's so sad is that so few people do, for one reason or another they give up. Probably the most common reason is they're simply in the wrong job, it's like marrying the right person or marrying the wrong person, it makes all the difference in the world. So selection is critical, you have to put yourself in the right place in order to shine. If I were trying to conduct the New York Philharmonic it would be a joke, you know, and no matter how hard I tried it would sound terrible, so I would not shine in that job no matter what, and a lot of people are simply, out of inertia or whatever reason, barking up the wrong tree so to speak.

Rachel Salaman: And one of the parts of Brain Science that you mention is the plasticity of the brain, could you explain the significance of that?

Edward Hallowell: Yes, plasticity is a fancy word that simply means the brain can change. Now what's so important about it is we didn't used to think it could, we thought that once you reached a certain age, somewhere in your teens, the die was cast, you know, you were stuck with what you had, and now we know that's simply not true, that life experience changes your brain, for better or worse, and so the bad news is your brain can get worse, you can get stupider as you get older, but you can also get much smarter, and if you take care of your brain properly, and one of the best ways to sharpen your brain is simply to use it, you know, "use it or lose it" as the saying goes, and so to challenge your brain on a daily basis, just as you challenge your muscles, you know, it makes your brain grow. And again that's why you don't want to be stuck in a boring job where there's no challenge, your brain will in fact change for the worse.

Rachel Salaman: You also talk about the effects of physical exercise on the brain, which is interesting.

Edward Hallowell: Oh huge, huge, huge. My friend, John Ratey, has written a very important book called "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain," and he documents the copious research that most people are not aware of, that show just how profoundly helpful physical exercise is in terms of brain growth. John calls it "Miracle Gro for your brain," I don't know if you Brits know what Miracle Gro is, it's a fertilizer that's in common use in the United States, and when you exercise your brain just loves it, you generate a whole host of peptides and hormones and electrolytes and oxygen, just bathes your brain in a wonderful bath of nutrients. So it's not only good for your heart and your bones and your skin and your muscles, but it's particularly good for that muscle you have between your ears.

Rachel Salaman: And does it matter what kind of exercise you do, does it make a difference?

Edward Hallowell: It really doesn't, it really doesn't, and what I always say is "Do the exercise you like to do because that means you'll continue to do it." A lot of people drag themselves to the gym and have a hellacious hour-long cardiovascular workout and then they don't do it again for weeks because they hated it so much. So try to find something you like to do, brisk walking is very good. Try to stay in movement as you go through your day, try not to be sedentary. One of the big risk factors, we know this, for Alzheimer's for example, which is a scourge and really a looming epidemic of so many folks who are going to spend their years after the age of 70 in a 'demented' stage because Alzheimer's. Well one real good way to prevent that is to get regular physical exercise. Of all the things that you can do, you know, it's not like you can control it, but of all the things that you can control, physical exercise ranks number one in terms of preventing dementia.

Rachel Salaman: Fascinating. Well your book, "Shine," sets out five steps that a manager can follow if they want to get the best out of their team.

Edward Hallowell: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: And if we could just talk about those briefly now?

Edward Hallowell: Sure.

Rachel Salaman: The first one is "select."

Edward Hallowell: Yes, and we alluded to that already, and that simply means choosing the right job. Now that sounds very simple and straightforward, but like most things it's pretty deceptively simple, and what people tend to do is they take a job for the wrong reason, they take it because it's available or they take it because it pays the most money or they take it because their father gave it to them or they had a connection or they think it has the most prestige. You know, a lot of people in my profession, doctors, became doctors for all the wrong reasons and then they're miserable. T.S. Elliot had a great line, "The last temptation is the greatest treason to do the right deed for the wrong reason," and a lot of people in their line of work are doing the right deed for the wrong reason and they will languish, you will never achieve peak performance if you're not in the right job. And I define the right job as the inner section of three spheres; number one, what you like to do, and number two, what you're particularly good at doing, and number three, what someone's willing to pay you to do. So where those three overlap that should be your job, that should be your career; what you like to do, what you're good at, and what adds value to the world, i.e. what someone's willing to pay you to do. Now just ask yourself, if you're listening to this, is that your job? If it's not, take steps to make a change, because you will never, you will never shine, you'll never be at your best if you've chosen the wrong job.

Rachel Salaman: Now that all makes perfect sense, and I suppose from a manager's point of view they have a role as well in putting the right people in the right jobs.

Edward Hallowell: Absolutely, and so many managers don't ask the simple questions that you need to ask, and in "Shine" I give a very simple, straightforward, sort of structured interview that you can use to find out if your people are properly matched, and you're just asking questions like "What do you like to do best and what do you hate to do, and what do you need more help with?" That's the kind of thing that can make a tremendous difference, and managers too often don't ask and then workers are often afraid to volunteer because they don't want to make waves.

Rachel Salaman: And you're also saying managers need to know their employees conative style, now what is that?

Edward Hallowell: Conative style, conation is a term no one's heard of but it's tremendously important, it's your innate genetically determined style of solving problems, and if you want to take a simple test online to discover your conative style, go to kolbe.com, K-O-L-B-E.com. Cathy Kolbe is this genius out in Arizona who has been working on this her whole lifetime, she's now in her 60s or 70s, and just a remarkable bit of information you can have about yourself or your workers to help match you in the right job.

Rachel Salaman: Now it sounds like doing it properly, if managers were to do this process properly they'd need to spend a lot of time on each team member. How realistic is that do you think, given the pressures?

Edward Hallowell: No, not a lot of time, not a lot of time at all.

Rachel Salaman: No?

Edward Hallowell: In fact, you spend a lot more time fixing people who are in the wrong job than you would spend getting them into the right job. You can do the interview with someone to find out where they should be in a half an hour. Now that's not a lot of time compared to hours and hours and hours nurse-maiding someone who's in the wrong job.

Rachel Salaman: Well moving on to the second step in your five-step process, it's "connect," so what do you mean by this one?

Edward Hallowell: Well this is probably the single most important step in the process, and it's odd because in today's world we live in a paradox, we're super-connected electronically but we're increasingly disconnected inter-personally. By connection I mean that it's an emotion, it's a feeling state where you feel engaged, feel involved, feel emotionally connected to the group, the task. The workplace that is high on trust and low on fear is a connected workplace, and unfortunately that does not describe all that many workplaces. Fear shuts down learning, fear and anxiety prevent peak performance, and the best antidote to fear is to create a connected atmosphere.

Rachel Salaman: And it's interesting because you talk a lot about social networks, which a lot of people now associate with the internet, but actually in your book you're talking about social networks that happen face-to-face rather than online aren't you?

Edward Hallowell: Absolutely, absolutely, and they're the ones that really convey the great benefit in terms of peak performance. Now online electronics can help promote that, to be sure, you know, that's sort of the miracle of our age, so I'm not disparaging those whatsoever. What I am saying is be careful that you don't have the social networks replace face-to-face communication, replace that feeling of enthusiasm, commitment, excitement when you walk in the door at work.

Rachel Salaman: So can you just talk us through how to actually build what you call a "positively connected workplace," how do you actually go about creating that?

Edward Hallowell: Well it depends upon the workplace that you're in, you know, the smaller the workplace the easier it is to do. You know, if you have a workplace that has 10 people in it you just have a pizza lunch every Friday, you know, or you go out together or you just make a point of getting to know one another. As the organizations grow it becomes more difficult, and really what you need to do in bigger and bigger organizations is create small pockets. When I was at Harvard as an undergraduate they had a house system, so the big college suddenly became a collection of small houses, and each house would have its feeling of connection. That's a good example of what you need to do in large corporations, you break them down into smaller teams, and then the team creates its own feeling of connection. But when that's not present the results can be lethal, and in the book I give the example of the Harvard Chemistry Department, where for years they had a tremendously isolating culture of paranoia and they had a whole bunch of suicides, you know, social isolation and paranoia are lethal at times. So as powerful as connection can be, disconnection can be equally powerful in a negative way.

Rachel Salaman: And both of those two things actually affect the way your brain works?

Edward Hallowell: Oh absolutely, absolutely. If you are feeling connected your brain lights up, if you're feeling afraid your brain shuts down, you become stupid.

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Rachel Salaman: Well the third step is "play," so could you define what you mean by "play" in this context?

Edward Hallowell: Any activity in which your imagination gets engaged is, by my definition, play, so anything where you're actively involved imaginatively. You can play solving a geometry problem, or you can play writing a business plan. You know, as a manager, if you sit your folks down and say, you know, "Sales are down, what can we do to bring them up," that's play. Whenever you ask a question you're basically inviting someone to play, you're inviting them to contribute using their own initiative and imagination. The opposite of play is doing exactly what you're told, and unfortunately a lot of managers these days, that's what they're asking, "Just shut up and do what you're told." Well you might as well put a bullet through your person's head, you know, you're killing what they really can bring to work that's special. Now hire machines to do that and then have humans do the stuff that humans are uniquely equipped to do, which is to imaginatively engage. Play, people think of it as superficial and it's not work, it's not serious, well, you know, that's a terrible miscalculation. To bring the best out in people you need to have them engage imaginatively, feel ownership, take initiative, and then productivity will soar.

Rachel Salaman: But how can managers encourage just the right amount of play, or would you say there's no such thing?

Edward Hallowell: You don't have to worry, you don't have to worry about the right amount, just create an atmosphere where there's permission for people to engage. I mean, it couldn't be more obvious, it's a tone the manager sets, "Do I want to hear from my people, do I want people to contribute, do I want them to come up with new ideas or not?" If the answer is yes then you're going to get the best out of people. I don't mean sitting around twiddling your thumbs, not doing anything productive, by "play" I mean imaginatively engaging in solving a problem, that's work, I mean, that's really important work. So don't make the mistake of thinking play is wasting time and doing exactly what you're told is useful time, that's old-fashioned, stupid thinking.

Rachel Salaman: Okay, so you wouldn't advocate, for example, people watching YouTube videos?

Edward Hallowell: No, there's no imaginative engagement there, it's passive. Creating YouTube videos, that would be another matter, sure, have them do that, but passive consumption, you know, that's not play.

Rachel Salaman: No. It is an interesting definition in your book actually, because I remember one example was when you had to improvise while you were on duty in a hospital and you were faced with a crazed gunman, and you use this as an example of play.

Edward Hallowell: Yes, yes. Yes, I was in my training, I was on call one night by myself in the hospital, and this patient came in to be evaluated, and next thing I knew he'd pulled a gun on me. I didn't have any training for that, and so I had to think on my feet, and that to me is play, you know. All I had between me and being shot was my imagination, you know, what could I come up with? I didn't have a cookbook, I didn't have a procedure code, I didn't have someone telling me what to do, and in today's world that's where the action is, in these improvised, unscripted moments where you make it or break it. What I'm saying is that if you're in the habit of using your imagination you'll make it, as opposed to, you know, I could have been killed that night.

Rachel Salaman: So moving on to the fourth step, its "grapple and grow." Now why did you make this one step, it sounds more like two?

Edward Hallowell: Well because they're inextricably connected. I mean, as you grapple, you know, as you work at something, you naturally grow. I mean, when you're lifting weights your muscles grow, so they happen simultaneously, as you're lifting the weights your muscles are growing, which is good news. I mean, all this grappling, all this working, you know, leads immediately to growth.

Rachel Salaman: So what does this look like then if you're a manager and you're helping your team to grapple and grow, can you give some examples?

Edward Hallowell: Well you don't really need to worry because I think the most important point here is, what too many managers do is they jump in at step three and say "Work harder," and what I'm saying is "No, if you attend to steps one, two and three, grapple and grow will happen automatically, and it'll happen with much more enthusiastic buy-in', you know. So the mistake managers make is they jump in at step four, say "Work harder," and sure, some people will do it, you know, you can get people to work harder, that's not going to lead to peak performance. What will lead to peak performance is if you say "Okay, let's go back and make sure, are you in the right job, have we selected properly, do we have a connected atmosphere at work, i.e. is it high on trust, low on fear, do we have permission and encouragement for people to take initiative, to engage imaginatively with what they're doing?" If the answer to those three is yes, then you will get the hard work, you know, you won't even have to ask for it, it'll happen automatically, and when people are not working at their hardest it's not that you need to bring out a bigger whip or more incentives, you need to go back and look at those first three steps, and then step four, grapple and grow, will happen on its own. That's the take home point, that's really what matters most, and then they'll move on to step five, which is to shine, you know, and receive recognition, and you should as a manager make sure you do that, spend time recognizing genuine achievement, spend time pointing out when people are shining, and then do that as a group, celebrate together. A lot of studies that show in fact you can learn a lot more from celebrating achievement than from having your mistakes pointed out, everyone says "Oh learn from experience, learn from your mistakes," I think that's way over-rated. In fact, what most people, what happens to most people when they have their mistakes pointed out is they feel humiliated and they suffer a set-back. Now I'm not saying don't point out mistakes, of course you have to point out mistakes, but I don't think that, in these performance reviews, oh they're such a colossal negative most of the time because it's all about dragging someone through the details of their mistakes. Much better mileage, much better growth to be had from really recognizing achievement and promoting it and celebrating success as a team than these ordeals of performance reviews that are based on the assumption that a lengthy analysis of your mistakes will help, most of the time it has the opposite effect.

Rachel Salaman: But if a team member is having problems in certain areas, it's surely the responsibility of the manager to address that?

Edward Hallowell: Of course, I just said that, I just said that. I said of course you want to point out mistakes, of course. I mean, duh, of course you want to do that, yes, by all means, but the point I'm trying to make is that's way over-rated in terms of… and the machinery that most organizations devote to pointing out mistakes and having performance reviews is way weighted in that direction, and people again trivialize the celebration of achievement. In fact, again research shows that people benefit a good deal more from celebration of achievement and promotion of the positive than they do from having the negative endlessly dissected and analyzed.

Rachel Salaman: Now you talk in the book about the effect of stress on the brain, can you just explain how that science works?

Edward Hallowell: Stress is bad for your brain, because when you're under stress your body puts out a lot of so-called stress hormones, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine. What that has the effect of doing is raising blood pressure, raising heart rate, and in sort of lay terms it's corrosive on your brain, it's sort of like burning your brain, it diminishes your capacity to think clearly. It was designed to get us, you know, help us escape from saber-toothed tigers, well there aren't too many saber-toothed tigers roaming around at work anymore, and so this high stress response is really counter-productive.

Rachel Salaman: Okay, so in your experience what difference does this whole process make to a team, the five steps, what specific differences can a team see in terms of productivity and how people feel?

Edward Hallowell: Oh, only all the difference in the world. I mean, and again, one of the examples I use was the Harvard Chemistry Department, where they went from having suicides every year to more productive than ever and no suicides, it can be as dramatic as that. You can go from languishing, not making your quarterly goals, people miserable, back-biting, politics, just a mess at work, and a lot of organizations are stuck there, to the opposite, you can go where people literally look forward to coming to work, that is not an unrealistic goal. You look at companies like SAS, the North Carolina Google, where they have created a culture just suffused with positive energy, and what annoys me no end is when people trivialize this. You trivialize it at your peril, the notion that excellence occurs in direct proportion to suffering is simply wrong, it simply is wrong. Excellence occurs in direct proportion to necessary suffering, in other words you have to lift the weights to build your muscle, but it's in inverse proportion to unnecessary suffering, the suffering of paranoia, the suffering of social isolation, the suffering of negative office politics and that kind of thing. So if as a manager you can eliminate unnecessary suffering and instead create an atmosphere of connection, of communication, then you will, you will, guaranteed, see a quantum level increase in performance, and you give everyone a chance to, as I like to say, bring out the gold, bring out the best in them.

Rachel Salaman: And if someone listening to this is fully convinced, are there any tips or pieces of advice that you would give them, things to look out for before starting out on this process?

Edward Hallowell: Well I'd just watch out for how hard it can be. I mean, I think that the way I lay it out, it sounds very simple and it is simple to understand, it's hard to do. Getting people into the right job, for example, you know, moving someone around, you'll meet with some resistance, people like their comfort zone even if they're doing poorly. Connection, probably the hardest one of all, there's a part of people that wants to hang back, doesn't want to open up, doesn't want to be vulnerable. Now I'm not saying you have to do group therapy at all, I'm just saying you want to have clear communication, you want to have permission to be candid, you want people to be real, you want there to be trust rather than suspicion. Well it takes time to build trust, you know, people are suspicious for a good reason, they've been hurt, they've been burned, and you can't just sort of have a group meeting and say "Okay, let's all trust each other" and say "Okay, okay, fine, we'll do that." No, it takes time and it takes real work, and as a manager you've got to sweat it out and really deal with resistance, push-back, failure. It's much easier for people to live in a paranoid place, in a disconnected place, than it is for them to build these bridges of connection, and so that's the tough work of a manager, and I would say if you do buy the book and if you do try to follow this program in your organization, it's going to be hard, it's going to be hard. And that's why most places are disconnected and why so many places have people doing the wrong job, because that's easier. But if you do this, if you do tackle this, expect it to take at least a year, but then you'll see, guaranteed you'll get results like Google or SAS or these other organizations that have a connected culture.

Rachel Salaman: Dr Ned Hallowell, thank you very much for joining us.

Edward Hallowell: Oh it's a pleasure, and thank you very much for having me.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Dr Hallowell's book is "Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People." You can find out more about him and his work at www.drhallowell.com.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.