Unravelling the mysteries of the brain part 2

1 - > Karen Plum: Hello there and welcome to the second episode of 2 - > our two-part special where we're unravelling the mysteries 3 - > of the brain with neuroscientist and psychologist Dr Lisa 4 - > Feldman Barrett. 5 - > In this episode, we look at the impact of social media on our 6 - > brains and explore the challenges for organisations in 7 - > navigating the new world of work that we all find ourselves in, 8 - > particularly as many people try to return to the tried and 9 - > trusted models and methods that they used pre-pandemic.

10 - > Here we go. 11 - > Welcome to AWA's podcast, which is all about the changing world 12 - > of work and trying to figure out what's right for each 13 - > organisation, because we know that everyone is unique. 14 - > We talk to people who have walked the walk, who've got the 15 - > t-shirt and who've learned lessons that they're happy to 16 - > share with us. 17 - > I'm your host, Karen Plum, and this is the DNA of Work.

18 - > If you haven't listened to part one of this two-part special, 19 - > then you might want to skip back to that episode, so you get the 20 - > full picture. 21 - > If you're still listening, you'll remember that AWA's 22 - > Managing Director, Andrew Mawson and I have been talking with Dr 23 - > Barrett about our brains. 24 - > W ell, not just our brains, but , you know, brains in general! 25 - > Because in our business, we try to help organisations to embrace 26 - > and navigate change and to help them create the conditions for 27 - > people to do their best work.

28 - > Our strong belief is that part of curating those workplace 29 - > experiences requires us to understand how people work and, 30 - > critically, what their brains need to function at their best. 31 - > So let's pick up where we left off. 32 - > At the end of part one, Lisa had just said that the best and 33 - > worst thing for a human is another human, and clearly other 34 - > humans come in all shapes and sizes and we interact with other 35 - > humans in a variety of ways, including these days on social 36 - > media.

37 - > Andrew was reflecting that this landscape has changed a lot 38 - > since he was a kid growing up in the UK. 39 - > Andrew Mawson: We had, in the UK we had three TV stations, we 40 - > had some newspapers, of which there were probably know more 41 - > than about eight, and some radio stations, and those were the 42 - > ways that we learned about the world. 43 - > Of course, we had interactions with real people and sometimes 44 - > they were good, sometimes they were bad, sometimes they added 45 - > loads, sometimes they didn't.

46 - > What's your view about the kind of current situation with 47 - > social media and all this stuff? 48 - > Because it's almost like we're almost giving ourselves the 49 - > opportunity to have extra budgetary deficit. 50 - > The demand and the anxiety that this constant flow can create, 51 - > particularly for young minds, young brains. 52 - > Are we creating the conditions that are naturally leading to 53 - > this kind of situation?

54 - > Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett: Yeah, I think we are. 55 - > I think we are. 56 - > So what I would say is that a little infant brain is not a 57 - > miniature adult brain. 58 - > It's a brain that is waiting for wiring instructions from the 59 - > world in order to finish wiring itself.

60 - > I mean, brains never finish wiring themselves, they just 61 - > slow down. 62 - > Like for those of us who are older than 25, our brains are 63 - > rewiring a little more slowly as the environment is constantly 64 - > changing. 65 - > But for the most part, little brains are getting that wiring 66 - > instruction from their caregivers. 67 - > So when you're cuddling your baby and singing to her, talking 68 - > to her, playing with her, you don't think to yourself ah, I am 69 - > regulating this infant's body budget, I am regulating this 70 - > infant's body and I am helping to wire this infant's brain.

71 - > No, you don't think that. 72 - > You just think, oh, what a cute little baby. 73 - > Or you think, oh, my God, will she just go to sleep. 74 - > I just have to walk out of the room for a minute.

75 - > I'm just going crazy, right. 76 - > But that's what we're doing. 77 - > And what we do with our kids is we curate a world for them, and 78 - > we curate it pretty tightly when they're babies and then 79 - > over time, we slowly increase the size of that world. 80 - > So what we're doing is we're slowly increasing the amount of 81 - > uncertainty that they have to face.

82 - > And if you do it too quickly, or if you yourself are the 83 - > source of uncertainty, then a child's brain will attempt, in 84 - > certain ways the child's brain starts to take on some more 85 - > mature features too early, because it and it treats 86 - > everything as uncertain. 87 - > And one of the things that happens in uncertainty is there 88 - > are release of chemicals which change your heart rate and your 89 - > breathing rate and so on, and so you get this kind of general 90 - > arousal response.

91 - > And I don't mean sexual arousal , I mean jittery, like what we 92 - > experience as anxiety. 93 - > So often, when we're experiencing anxiety, really 94 - > what we're experiencing is unpleasant, high arousal which 95 - > we've turned into anxiety, right , but it could just be, you can 96 - > just experience it as uncertainty. 97 - > And the reason for doing that is that you do different things 98 - > when you're anxious than when you're uncertain. 99 - > So we make sense of things.

100 - > That's what really what emotions are, we're making sense 101 - > of the simple feelings and the sense data that come with them. 102 - > So for a little brain, right, when there's too much 103 - > uncertainty, then they have this , they have anxiety and their 104 - > brain is wired for an uncertain world. 105 - > And then when they're grownups and they're predicting, the 106 - > brain is predicting it's predicting, trying to deal with 107 - > uncertainty - meaning it doesn't predict very well.

108 - > Alternatively, if you're a helicopter parent and you're not 109 - > broadening that environment for your kids enough, the brain 110 - > doesn't learn to deal with the slings and arrows of everyday 111 - > life, which is also its own problem, right? 112 - > So part of the tricky bit in being a parent is knowing when 113 - > to step in and when to step back , and we're constantly trying to 114 - > figure that out. 115 - > But imagine what happens in adolescence, and adolescence is 116 - > like the perfect storm of metabolic burden, and here's why 117 - > .

118 - > First, there's puberty. 119 - > Puberty means that there's gushes of hormones at uncertain 120 - > times. 121 - > The body is just hard to regulate during puberty period, 122 - > more so for girls because there's more fluctuation for 123 - > girls, but even for boys there are fluctuations within the day 124 - > and it's really challenging. 125 - > So there's more uncertainty in the body.

126 - > Also, this tends to be the time when kids go to larger schools, 127 - > and now this also tends to be the time when they get access to 128 - > the internet and to social media platforms, right, or maybe 129 - > even a little earlier. 130 - > So what have you done? 131 - > You've basically ballooned, ballooned the metabolic burden 132 - > on a brain that isn't finished wiring itself yet. 133 - > That's what happens.

134 - > Now, of course, some kids deal with things fine and some kids 135 - > don't, but on average, what we see is an epidemic, really, of 136 - > depression and anxiety and more general cases of burnout, and we 137 - > understand this to be the mood and the other kinds of related 138 - > problems, related directly to this body budgeting issue, which 139 - > I'm really oversimplifying in a sense because we're talking on 140 - > a podcast, but the point being that just something simple like 141 - > making sure your teenager gets eight hours of sleep a night and 142 - > isn't on a screen.

143 - > I mean you have, for example, ganglia cells in your retina 144 - > that detect light and dark and control your circadian rhythm. 145 - > Your brain creates this circadian rhythm so that you go 146 - > to sleep at certain times and you wake up. 147 - > If you're on your phone or you're on a screen, at nine 148 - > o'clock at night, your brain thinks it's the day, and if you 149 - > do this continuously, you will have a hard time getting eight 150 - > hours of sleep or seven hours of sleep or what have you and most 151 - > adolescents actually need more than that.

152 - > And so what you have is an accumulating sleep deficit and 153 - > eventually, a circadian rhythm disorder because you're on your 154 - > screens too much. 155 - > That doesn't mean that you get off your screen an hour before 156 - > you go to bed. 157 - > That means you get off your screen at seven o'clock at night 158 - > . 159 - > Now I'm not gonna ask you what time do you get off your screen.

160 - > I can tell you I am not off my screen at seven o'clock at night 161 - > . 162 - > I mean, I'm doing really well if I'm off my screen by nine 163 - > o'clock at night, and you know I'm being kind to myself here 164 - > right now, right. 165 - > So the conditions of everyday life make it really challenging 166 - > to keep our metabolism and our metabolic efforts in tip-top 167 - > shape. 168 - > And then we add on to that social media, where, if 169 - > interacting with people face-to-face is uncertain, 170 - > interacting with people over social media is more uncertain 171 - > because you've removed almost all of the cues.

172 - > There's no face, there's no voice, there's no body. 173 - > Sometimes you don't even know who the person is. 174 - > You don't know so much about what the intentions or the 175 - > background or the context is, so your brain just fills them in 176 - > and this is very, very, very problematic. 177 - > Andrew Mawson: If you transfer this you know the things we've 178 - > just been talking to, to people beyond the age of 20 and up to 179 - > whatever age people work till these days, and recognizing the 180 - > organisations may have many thousands of people in them, 181 - > many thousands of brains in effect, and those organizations 182 - > and those individuals are also struggling to do the right thing 183 - > to get the best out of their brains.

184 - > What kind of advice would you give organisations? 185 - > Because sometimes I think organisations themselves are 186 - > creating the conditions that are adding load and they're not 187 - > enabling that replacement that you talked about. 188 - > Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett: I think there are so many things that 189 - > organizations can do. 190 - > So there are trivial things that organisations can do, like 191 - > have water and healthy snacks and food available that's 192 - > healthful; implement breaks where people can go for walks 193 - > and things, and it sounds like you're sort of taking away from 194 - > people's work time, but in fact they'll just be much more 195 - > efficient with the time that they have if their brain is 196 - > having an easy time regulating their bodies.

197 - > I don't know this from companies, I know this from 198 - > people who work in companies that they have instituted no 199 - > email at night. 200 - > So you can send an email but you can't expect anybody to 201 - > answer you until the next morning. 202 - > So from six o'clock until six o'clock kind of thing, there's 203 - > no expectation that anyone will answer you unless there's really 204 - > an emergency, and then you can pick up the phone. 205 - > So I think, setting boundaries, work-life balance, that sounds, 206 - > you know, this is all stuff people have talked about, but I 207 - > think that there are other things that they can do.

208 - > So I think, for example and, Andrew, this was something that 209 - > you taught me that one of the best predictors of work 210 - > productivity is the trust that people have in each other and in 211 - > their team and also in management, because these are 212 - > the people who are controlling your outcomes and you want to be 213 - > able to trust them. 214 - > So trust-building exercises are a really good thing. 215 - > And by trust-building I don't mean, like you know, you go and 216 - > you, you know, walk a tightrope and while your colleagues hold a 217 - > , like you know, a net underneath you, or whatever.

218 - > I mean things where you know you're working together, doing 219 - > something hard, that isn't about your work per se, right? 220 - > So, for example, in our lab, which you know it's like a small 221 - > company. 222 - > They're about 25 full-time people. 223 - > We're constantly criticizing each other.

224 - > That's our job, right? 225 - > My job is to make sure that when my students and postdocs 226 - > and, you know, the young scientists under my charge, when 227 - > they go out into the world and they have to face critics, that 228 - > they're prepared to do that right. 229 - > So I routinely make people cry in presentations with the 230 - > questions I ask. 231 - > And I'm not doing it because I'm a mean person, I'm doing it 232 - > because I'm training them.

233 - > They have to, i t's like trial by fire in a way. 234 - > So how do we do that with each other and not have everything 235 - > fall apart? 236 - > Well, one thing that we do is that we do things together where 237 - > we're working hard together, but not for work. 238 - > So we don't just go and, you know, drive bumper cars around 239 - > or whatever, but we actually, you know we might volunteer 240 - > together at a soup kitchen.

241 - > For years we actually ran a haunted house in my basement and 242 - > we gave all the money to the greater food bank and that can 243 - > sound fun. 244 - > It's also pretty arduous actually to do. 245 - > We basically scared the s*** out of little kids for money and 246 - > we were so successful. 247 - > People still ask me about it.

248 - > I mean, it's actually almost Halloween time again, right? 249 - > And people are like are you going to do your haunted house? 250 - > I'm like we haven't done it for five years. 251 - > But we did for 13 years running and it was a lot of work and it 252 - > was hard, but everyone was doing it for a really good 253 - > purpose.

254 - > We've also worked with a homeless shelter. 255 - > We have to depend on each other. 256 - > The circumstances are difficult and sometimes just very 257 - > challenging to your mood, right, like working with refugees, for 258 - > example, is really hard, but we do and we're constantly engaged 259 - > with each other. 260 - > So you come to understand the intentions of your coworkers.

261 - > You understand that they like you and you like them and that 262 - > you trust each other, and so when they're criticizing you, 263 - > they're not doing it because they want to see you fail. 264 - > They're doing it because they want to see you succeed. 265 - > You know, I think those are really important things. 266 - > I also think that people can be trained to be more responsible 267 - > for themselves, like right now, we live in a culture where, you 268 - > know, maybe it's a reaction to things that have happened in the 269 - > past, but we're living in a culture now where we sort of 270 - > outsource the responsibility of our behavior to other, to the 271 - > circumstances, and, of course, the context you work in, that 272 - > you live in, is in some ways responsible for your behavior, 273 - > but not completely responsible.

274 - > So you can be aware of your impact on other people and you 275 - > can train people to do this right. 276 - > So if yesterday, if I was having meetings with students, I 277 - > probably would have said hey, at the beginning, you know, hey, 278 - > I have a migraine headache today. 279 - > Or hey, I'm having a bit of a body budgeting day, so if my 280 - > tone gets sharp with you, it's not really about you. 281 - > Like, I've just reduced the uncertainty right there and I'm 282 - > not asking them for anything.

283 - > I just want them to interpret. 284 - > That their brain should be guessing appropriately. 285 - > I've just reduced the uncertainty and that makes it 286 - > easier for them. 287 - > Karen Plum: There's trust between you, so you know you're 288 - > in a safe place to do that, and they will see you model that 289 - > behavior as well.

290 - > Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett: Yeah, and I think the thing that you 291 - > want to do is make yourself predictable to people. 292 - > Predictable. 293 - > If you're predictable to them, they will be predictable to you, 294 - > and that is good for everybody. 295 - > Karen Plum: Less metabolically expensive for everybody.

296 - > Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett: It is, and then you can direct your 297 - > spending to the things that you really need to, which is 298 - > innovation or what have you? 299 - > Andrew Mawson: So what we're seeing at the moment in most 300 - > organisations certainly very strong, powerful organizations 301 - > is that leaders are looking to try and limit the amount of time 302 - > that people are working at home , trying to bring them back into 303 - > the office. 304 - > And it seems to me that what's happened during the pandemic is 305 - > that we, you know, we all kind of moved from a model of the 306 - > world, mental model of the world , if you like, that was about 307 - > physical presence, turning up somewhere, office rituals, 308 - > status, hierarchy and all those things.

309 - > And during the pandemic we kind of most of the population, 310 - > started to get an experience, something quite different, which 311 - > was the recognition that they were being trusted. 312 - > They had to get on and do stuff . 313 - > They learned new skills. 314 - > In many cases were quite successful.

315 - > It wasn't an easy time but it was, you know, quite successful. 316 - > We've kind of now gone into this sort of back to the new world 317 - > and there's a real tension between the sort of population 318 - > of people who think they won their spurs and experienced the 319 - > business of not turning up, not commuting, not doing all that 320 - > stuff, but being trusted, working online. 321 - > There's a real tension between that kind of the workers, in a 322 - > way, to the what we'll call the leaders, many of whom are trying 323 - > desperately to return to a world of leadership which is the 324 - > one that got them where they were in the first place.

325 - > What's your take on that? 326 - > My view is that many of those leaders have built up a mental 327 - > model of the world through their experience which is based upon 328 - > that old paradigm, and most of the people have kind of now 329 - > moved to a different one, and so you've got two very different 330 - > lenses on the same thing. 331 - > That's my idiot layman's articulation of what's going on. 332 - > What's your take on that, then?

333 - > Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett: I think that your layman's summary is 334 - > exactly right on the mark. 335 - > So everyone has a mental model of the world. 336 - > That's what predictions are. 337 - > They're basically a model of your body in the world, and so 338 - > you're not aware of the body part.

339 - > But that's really what a mental model is and that's what 340 - > predictions are. 341 - > And, of course, the people who are successful in a particular, 342 - > with a particular model, they're going to want to reinstate that 343 - > model. 344 - > I mean, humans are always trying to impose their model on 345 - > the world. 346 - > Really, in a sense, that's what predictions are, because your 347 - > brain wires itself to the world, the world that was curated for 348 - > you and that you know and t hen your predictions work well in a 349 - > world like that.

350 - > I'm not saying that people deliberately go and act on the 351 - > world to make it fit their model , but that is, in effect, what 352 - > ends up happening. 353 - > We call it niche construction, niche being the word from 354 - > ecology t hat means the stuff in your environment that you care 355 - > about, that matters to you. 356 - > The physical world is not your niche. 357 - > It's only the parts of the physical world that matter to 358 - > you, that are important to your health and well-being.

359 - > We're constantly like our interactions with each other, 360 - > for example, is partly niche construction. 361 - > We're trying to set things up not deliberately trying but 362 - > that's what brains do. 363 - > They end up trying to manipulate, even indirectly, 364 - > things so that they can predict those things really well. 365 - > Then eventually, sometimes brains are forced to learn new 366 - > things in order to change their model.

367 - > That's more expensive, actually , than acting on the world to 368 - > make it fit your model. 369 - > It's not surprising that the people who succeeded in a 370 - > particular world would try to reinstate that world, because 371 - > that's what made them successful and that's where their brains 372 - > work the best. 373 - > But I would say that when it comes to humans, variation is 374 - > the norm. 375 - > Really, that's the success story of our species.

376 - > There are so many ways in which we are different from one 377 - > another. 378 - > One of those ways is that the same work structure doesn't work 379 - > for everybody equivalently well , and flexibility is a really 380 - > good thing. 381 - > And so, I would say that if I were going to make a 382 - > prescription, I would say the only thing that doesn't change, 383 - > is that change is constantly happening. 384 - > What business leaders have to do is always be planning and 385 - > actually looking for opportunities for change and 386 - > then guiding that change in a particular direction, maybe also 387 - > educating workers to like, informing them, teaching them 388 - > that change is always happening as well and that they should 389 - > expect it and maybe even cultivate it and curate it, but 390 - > that they're doing it together.

391 - > What I'm about to say is I don't know any research on this 392 - > at the present time. 393 - > I'm sure there's going to be a brain dump of research coming 394 - > out in the next couple of years in response to this, but my 395 - > sense is that 'trust and verify' is the way to go. 396 - > If you want your peeps to trust you, then you have to trust 397 - > them, but you need to verify that they're doing what they say 398 - > they're doing. 399 - > That's going to be different for different industries.

400 - > Peeps should be taught to manage up. 401 - > That is, if you want a certain degree of freedom to work at 402 - > home or whatever, you have to communicate what you're doing 403 - > better to your managers. 404 - > If there aren't institutional mechanisms for that kind of 405 - > reporting, they need to be there and treat things as more 406 - > provisional. 407 - > In my experience, which is much more limited with industry than 408 - > is much more limited than yours, what I see is that companies go 409 - > through, they go through these planning exercises where they 410 - > change their strategy, they institute a set of rules, they 411 - > build these infrastructures and then they try to stick with them 412 - > for a really long time.

413 - > I would say maybe things should be considered more provisional 414 - > all the time, because change is always happening, but you should 415 - > always be able to verify that things are getting done. 416 - > If they're not, then it means that something needs adjustment. 417 - > Maybe that adjustment is forcing people to come in, or 418 - > maybe it's building better tools so they can collaborate when 419 - > they're at home. 420 - > But I would say flexibility and treating things as not set in 421 - > stone but provisional, meaning they're working now and they're 422 - > going to keep working, we'll keep them as they are until they 423 - > stop working and then we'll - or hopefully we'll predict and 424 - > anticipate what we need to change in order to keep 425 - > productivity where we want it to be.

426 - > Karen Plum: I thought it was very interesting that Lisa said 427 - > that 'trust and verify' is the way to go, because the topic of 428 - > trust is a very hot one. 429 - > Going from a low trust to a high trust mode of operating 430 - > isn't easy. 431 - > We had to do it by default during lockdowns, but since that 432 - > time, without specific ways of measuring and monitoring what 433 - > their people are doing, many managers are reverting to old 434 - > methods and aren't comfortable operating on a presumption of 435 - > trust.

436 - > We could go on, and it's a fascinating topic. 437 - > I suspect we'll return to it in a future episode. 438 - > Huge thanks to Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett for generously giving 439 - > her time and sharing her thoughts and expertise with 440 - > Andrew and I. 441 - > We found the conversation fascinating and we hope you did 442 - > too.

443 - > One of the big takeaways for me was the reminder to get enough 444 - > sleep. 445 - > Even though I know how important it is, I still forget 446 - > and sacrifice sleep for other things in my life. 447 - > That's all for now. 448 - > I'm off for a nap.

449 - > If you'd like to hear future episodes of the DNA of Work, 450 - > just follow or like the show. 451 - > You can contact us on our website, advanced-workplace. 452 - > com. 453 - > Thank you so much for listening .

454 - > See you next time. 455 - > Goodbye.