NEUROSCIENCE & EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Daniel Cable, Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School, has written an excellent book, Alive at Work, that explains the neuroscience of helping employees love what they do. Cable’s research concluded that there is a part of the human brain called the seeking system that “creates the natural impulse to explore our worlds, learn about our environments and extract meaning from our circumstances”. Cable continues by writing that “Exploring, experimenting, learning: this is the way we’re designed to live…When we follow the urges of our seeking system, it releases dopamine – a neurotransmitter linked to motivation and pleasure – that makes us want to explore more”.
A major premise of Alive at Work is that “Many organizations are deactivating the part of employees’ brains” related to the seeking system. As Cable writes, “The problem is that our organizations weren’t designed to take advantage of people’s seeking systems. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution – when modern management was conceived – organizations were purposely designed to suppress our natural impulses to learn and explore”.
Cable presents us with strong evidence that there are three triggers that activate the seeking system:
- Self-Expression
- Experimentation
- Purpose
The following are Cable’s suggestions as how to trigger the seeking systems in the human brain.
SELF-EXPRESSION
- “Invent your own job title to describe your unique values, identities and talents…Self-reflective titles let you bring your personal identity into the organization”
- Psychological safety – Creating your own job title “opens people up and helps change the culture inside the organization to encourage information sharing and unique ideas”.
- Teams – “When teams openly discuss the unique qualities of each team member and then try to integrate their diverse perspectives into the group’s decision-making, employees feel more valued and respected and are more willing to offer their take on things”.
- Use your unique strengths – “The more hours per day adults believe they use their unique strengths, the more likely they are to report “being energetic”, “learning something interesting”, “being happy” and “smiling or laughing a lot””.
In conclusion, “self-expression organizations activate employees’ seeking systems, resulting in enthusiasm and intrinsic motivation to invest their best into their companies”.
EXPERIMENTATION
- “When agility and innovation are called for, it’s better for employees to frame their goals around learning (e.g., developing a new set of skills; mastering a new situation) rather than performance outcomes (e.g., hitting results targets; providing competence)”.
- Leaders must “model experimentation and learning”.
- Build an Ideation Lab where participants go through a “process of discovery, focusing on disruptive changes in the external environment”. How might the company “harness this disruption, overturning the normal rules of the game”?
- Build an Action Lab to “help people develop their ideas into compelling venture plans for launching new businesses”. Engage in storytelling to bring employees’ ideas to life.
- Remember, “freedom must be within the frame of what an organization needs to deliver”.
In conclusion, “the most important takeaway is understanding the biological seeking system that all employees possess and then investing to activate it. This happens when we create work environments where employees feel encouraged to play around with their intrinsic interests and personal strengths within the frame of organizational demands”.
PURPOSE
- “Your feeling of purpose depends on the meaning that you yourself place on your activities: Why do you think you are doing the things you are doing”?
- Have employees go on-site with some of the organization’s clients every year.
- Take teams of employees into partner organizations “to witness the impact of their jobs firsthand”.
- “Encourage employees to develop and try out new ideas, which makes their work feel more meaningful”.
- “As leaders, we have a chance to make life more meaningful and more worth living for the people we lead. This will help our companies stay relevant and agile”.
- Before trying to inspire others, “you need a purpose for leading that you really believe in. Perhaps that purpose could be to make people feel more alive at work: to make life more worth living for the employees you serve”.
Alive at Work is an important read and one that uses emerging knowledge of the brain to better understand how to engage employees and help them love what they do.