It’s All In The Brain

My client, the CEO of a $20 billion company and a very smart guy, looked at me like what he had just thought was so smart that it even got his own attention. “You know what’s weird?” he asked.

“What?” I asked.

“Everybody out there is always trying to figure out the right plan,” he said. “They meet, they argue, they worry and they put all of their energy into trying to come up with the ‘right’ plan. But the truth is that there are five right plans. There are a lot of ways to get there. The real problem is getting the people do what it takes to make the plan work. That is where you win or lose. It’s always about the people.”

He was right. Leadership is about getting a group of people to turn a vision into a reality with real results in the real world. This begs the question: Why do different leaders get such different results?

Certainly some have poor plans, but there are also many great strategies and plans that fail as well. Why is that? What is it about the leadership that falls short?

Simply stated, it may be that those leaders are leading in ways that people’s brains cannot follow.

When you think about it, most leaders do similar things: they see and define a future reality (a vision or a goal), they engage talent to move toward that goal, they execute toward that vision, they measure results and hold people accountable to those results, and they course correct when things aren’t working. So, why do some win and others don’t?

The answer may be in the minds of the followers. Neuroscience is showing us that many of the leadership qualities we’ve noticed for a long time may be working not just because they’re sounds business qualities, but because they’re good brain science, as well. To put it another way, if you’re going to try to get people to accomplish a vision or a goal, it’s a good idea to lead them in ways their brains can follow. It’s truly dependent upon the leader to create the environment where vision is brought to reality.

So, how do they do that? Let’s take a look at some of the most important dimensions.

Setting Key Boundaries Of Attention
When we look at great leaders, we find that part of their success is attributed to the fact that they’re able to set key boundaries in several areas. One of the most important is their ability to create executable attention.

For someone to accomplish any goal, the brain must do three things: it must attend to what’s relevant, inhibit what’s not relevant, and keep a working memory of what it’s doing. Whether reaching a sales goal or driving your car to the grocery store, your brain must attend, inhibit and remember.

For example, when driving your car, you must attend to certain relevant stimuli, like your speed, direction, oncoming traffic, etc. for your brain to know what to do to get you to your goal. Next, you must inhibit whatever is a distraction, like texting, watching a video or having someone scream at you while you’re trying to drive. And third, you can’t just magically land in the driver’s seat, shot out of a time machine because you wouldn’t know how you got to where you were. You would have no working memory. To accomplish something, you need to know what you just did in order to know what to do next. You have to be in a memory flow.

This is what great leaders do:

• They create very clear attention to what’s relevant to accomplishing the vision or goal.
• They inhibit everything else.
• They keep what’s important in front of their people in an ongoing way to establish a working memory.

When these boundaries of attention aren’t created, businesses have “organizational ADD” and get constantly distracted and stalled. But when they’re clear, incredible things happen. A great example of this is when Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO.

When he came back to Apple, the company was making many, many versions of the Mac. After a few weeks, according to biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs had had enough. In a product strategy meeting he shouted, “This is crazy!” and went to the board and drew a four-squared chart. Across the two columns, he wrote “consumer” and “pro,” and across the two rows, he wrote “desktop” and “portable.” Their job, he told them, was to make four great products, one for each of the quadrants.

If you go into an Apple store today, that’s exactly what you’ll find. And the business results speak for themselves.

What Jobs actually did was create executable attention. He got the company to attend to what was going to be relevant with the four products. He got them to inhibit everything else like the myriad of other models. And he kept it in front of them in an ongoing way. All of a sudden, their brains could follow.

So, as a leader of a team, a department, a business unit or a company, are you leading in a way that people’s brains can follow? Are you creating executable attention or are you confusing them each day by having something new be the next important thing? Great leaders remain steadfast on what’s most important and keep all other distractions at bay.

One time, during an offsite with a company’s executive team, I handed out index cards and asked the team to silently write down the company strategy. In a room of eight people, I got seven different answers—from the executive team! One expressed the strategy in terms of revenue goals, another in terms of target markets, another in terms of the kinds of products and services, another in terms of market recognition, another in terms of profitability, and so on. No wonder there was so much chaos and confusion in the day-today work—they essentially had seven different companies!

It’s very common for a leader to talk about an important strategy one day and then bombard the team with e-mails about an entirely new strategy the next day. Oftentimes, there’s no attention, lots of distractions, and no working memory. People’s brains cannot work that way, and the company gets a bad case of ADD.

Here are a few boundaries to use to establish attention and working memory:

1. Create clarity from the very beginning. Make sure your organization, your teams and your individuals know the main strategy on which to focus.
2. Make sure each individual knows what role they plan in achieving the main strategy, and how they can align their behavior and activities to achieve specific results.
3. Keep an ongoing and current scorecard with the main metrics in front of everyone at all times.
4. Have teams hold each other accountable for executing the activities that truly move the needle in the key areas you’re measuring.
5. Establish regular communication processes and messaging that keeps the organization’s attention on what’s important, and try to inhibit distractions from overtaking the main message.

The Wake Up Call
I was talking to a CEO client who was discussing some things that were going on in his company. He was explaining a few of the players and how they affected things by the way they operated. I asked him why those dynamics existed and he seemed confused, thinking I hadn’t been listening.

“I know the reasons you said, but why do those reasons exist?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Who is the leader? Who is in charge of the culture? Who is responsible for all those dynamics?” I pushed. As we talked further and I kept pressing him, he said something I will never forget: “You know, when you think about it, I am ridiculously in charge.”

Exactly. And that is the wake up call leaders often need about their leadership abilities. The reality is that the leader, whether of a team, a department, or an entire company, must take ownership of the results he or she is getting, for he or she is ridiculously in charge. Whatever is happening is on their watch and they have to own it.

So, look at what’s going on in your team or culture and own it. If there’s confusion or stalling out, either you’re creating it or you’re allowing it. Step up, figure out what needs attention, what needs to stop, and what needs to stay current and in front of people. When you do that—and realize that you’re ridiculously in charge—you’ll find that forward momentum can once again be gained as you lead people in a way their brains can follow.