Brain Rules

This post is a second post for the week that commemorates Brain Awareness Week. The general message that I am promoting is that your brain is a tool that we must nurture and develop in order to learn and grow.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by Dr. John Medina is a very interesting and captivating book that presents 12 brain rules for optimizing your .... brain.

I found the book pretty amazing. For a book that is based on substantive scientific research, it is a good page-turner. For those who want the twenty minute overview, I'd encourage you to visit the Brain Rules website for a complete list of rules. Additionally, you can can view fairly comprehensive videos at his site and also on You Tube.


There were several take-aways that resonated with me from the book. Here are some examples:

Exercise benefits muscles and the brain - we know that exercise is good for our bodies. It is incredibly good for the brain. How much? Active people have half the risk of Alzheimer's disease compared to sedentary people. Let's keep up the exercise. I think the crunches will be a little easier with this new information.

Impossible Multitasking - I consider myself to be a great multitasker. At work, colleagues can send me a dozen issues and I can alternate between attention and division to get the the tasks handled. But the reality is that the brain simply cannot multitask. Watch the You Tube video with John's rant about cell phone use in cars.



The Power of Sleep and Naps - Our brains are very active during sleep and continue to develop and rehearse while sleeping. The essential message is that good sleep lead to good brains. Additionally, there is research that suggests that our brain has a period during the day where the benefits of a nap are profound; a nap zone. Research by NASA shows that a 25 minute nap increase pilot performance by 34%. Not a bad return return. How do we convince our employers? A good nap requires a least a cot.

Vision Wins - Brain Rules provides evidence that when it comes to impact, vision wins. Recognition and memory are aided significantly by visual cues in your presentations and documents. When I need to be persuasive, I need to add vision to my presentation.

We are curious explorers - Research with babies suggests that we are natural explorers. Give a baby an object and you will discover the a baby methodically looks to understand. Curiosity is an incredible motivator for learning, growth and problem solving.

Enjoy the book. It is highly recommended. Now it's time for me to exercise and then a nap.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly. Brain rules.
Don

It's Brain Awareness Week - Let's focus on learning

This week is Brain Awareness Week. Founded by the Dana Foundation, the event promotes that:

Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is an international campaign dedicated to advancing public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Founded and coordinated by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and its sister organization, the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, BAW is now entering its fourteenth year as a catalyst for public understanding of brain science.

I wasn't aware of the event before this past weekend but I have decided that the brain is a nice focus for some learning that I wanted to pursue in a couple of posts this week. This notion started as I was watching the public TV show, "Brain Fitness Program." My curiosity about brain development eventually brought me to the Dana Foundation web site where I became aware of BAW.


Continuous learning is so important to success and the health of your brain is key. In recognition of BAW, let's revisit a couple of "fun" brain/learning posts from my archives.


In Improve Your Brain Power - Use your right brain I encouraged you to develop your brain by switching you mouse to your non-dominant hand.

In Learning to Use the Full Brain, I provided a link where you could experiment with the "Left Brain versus Right Brain test.

The full list Lead Quietly learning posts is here.



I'll focus on the brain in subsequent posts this week.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and remember, it's all about learning.

Don

Quiet - It is Just a Label, Not a Description

I believe that the adjective "quiet" is not a great descriptor of the leadership style that I have tried to describe over the last 20 months of writing this blog.

I had a discussion this past week with some of my colleagues and again found that I had to explain that Quiet is really only a label and not really part of the substance. I almost feel that if someone focused on quiet, they might miss the real substance behind the leadership style.

There are better labels. Those more descriptive labels and the posts where I explored these more descriptive styles include:

Bill George - Authentic Leadership "Be Yourself"

Servant Leadership from Quiet Leader Hall of Famer Robert Greenleaf "Servant Leadership"

Leaderful Practice - Shared Leadership from Joe Raelin "We need to be Leaderful not Leaderless"

If you focus on quiet you might miss other concepts that I have tried to communicate. First and foremost are the leadership elements cited in my masthead including community, collaboration, learning, vision, and balance. These concepts have little to do with quiet.

Bottom line: Quiet is not very descriptive. It is however, the label and the brand around which I have blogged in my quest to identify leadership that is simply effective.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly err.... effectively.

Don

The Quiet Leader Commandments - Without the Stone Tablets

Do you have a personal set of commandments? I do but I don't. I've feel like I try live my life with a set of principles, many of which I have identified in this blog. But I don't because I have never put them onto a list. I'm not envisioning a set of stone tablets; too difficult to modify, but there should be a list.

The whole notion of a personal set of commandments occurred to me when I Tweeted last week that I was impressed with the Twelve Commandments of author Gretchen Rubin on her Happiness Project blog. Hers is a simple list. So simple that you don't have to click through the hyperlink to get more information.

My goal is such a list. But I feel some intrinsic need to keep my list to ten. Here I go:

1. Always learning, always improving, always practicing.
2. Be humble.  (Added September 24, 2011 Link)
3. Stay balanced.
4. Be resourceful, be a problem solver.
5. Show vision.
6. Be nice, be decent, be fair.
7. Serve.
8. Show gratitude.
9. Communicate well.
10. Listen always.
11. The best answer is the honest answer.  (Edited September 24, 2011.  Link)

I'm always looking for feedback and comments. Please share your additions or modifications. Help me improve my list.

On a related note, check out Phil Gerbyshak's Ten Commandments of Management on Slacker Manager. Thanks Phil

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

Leadership is a Performance Art

"Leadership is a performing art, and you can never be too good at it."

This statement is one of the key points made by Wharton School Professor Steward D. Friedman on his Harvard Publishing blog in You Are a Leader (Really!)

I have some background in music performance and the link between leadership and performance resonated with me. Any performance art is clearly a skill that is never completely mastered.

Music virtuosos never stop practicing. As for leaders, the same requirement holds true. As Friedman writes,

It's the same with leaders. The best ones commit to learning continually, because they want to make a difference.

Selfishly, I confess that my primary motivation for writing and sharing from this blog is to learn. And now, at 6:30 AM I am ready to go to work to practice my performance art, a little more inspired that I was at 6:00 AM. I believe I can make a difference.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and keep practicing and learning.
Don

Education IS Economic Stimulus

Politics is not the theme of this blog. And that is not going to change. However, this morning I listened to Bill Gate's TEDTalk from last week. In a subtle way it intersected with an element of the politics around the economic stimulus bill.

I have watched a number of TEDTalks over the years and am inspired by the presentations of great thinkers and innovators. I couldn't wait to watch Bill Gate's "unplugged" talk about the work of his foundation.

Bill explored two issues that his foundation is trying to address. The first was eradicating malaria. Nice cause and there was one quote in this segment that caused me to go "hmmm." With millions of people in the world dying of malaria, did you know that there is more medical research funding in the prevention of baldness than there is the prevention of malaria. I guess that demonstrates the power of wealth.

The second question explored by Gates was about education. His question is, "How do you make a teacher great?”

In his talk, he cites research that suggests the biggest differentiator in quality school education is a good teacher and unfortunately, our system is not doing enough to develop good teachers.

Like many people, as the details of the economic stimulus plan became public, I didn't think that any substantive investment in school education should be a part of the stimulus package. I'm a proponent of public education but I didn't see any quick economic stimulus from the education components of the bill that came from the House of Representatives. My thinking is changing.

Consider this Bill Gate's thought that I am paraphrasing from his talk.

A top teacher will increase test scores over 10% in a year in the average classroom. If we could place these top teachers into all of our classrooms for two years, the entire educational difference between the US and Asia would go away. If we had them for four years, we’d blow the rest of the world away.

A quick burst of teacher and school development could make a difference for both our short and long term economic needs. With this perspective, my thinking about education as a part of our stimulus package is changing. Somewhere along the line, we need to be investing in our teachers. As I am known to say, "It's all about learning!"

I would encourage you to visit TED for inspiration. It is highly recommended.

Also, the Gates Foundation web site provides links to relevant research on the impact of education.


Thanks for reading and putting up with a little bit of politics. Please lead quietly.

It's all about learning.

Don

"No problem" is not the answer for gratitude

When someone thanks me, I have a tendency to say, "No problem." Not a great response.

Interesting how a new point is etched in your mind in today's Web 2.0 environment.

In my morning review of my Twitter account, I was following the learning discoveries of Ed Sweeney on Twitter. I don't know Ed but started following his Tweets when he cited some of my Lead Quietly posts in Twitter. I could see that he was a student of leadership like me and I'm always looking to leverage the discoveries of others so I started following Ed on Twitter. Thanks Ed for your discoveries.

Yesterday, he cites an article on Juggling Elephants as a good read. I follow his link and go browsing and end up on the Juggling Elephants blog reading a post entitled, "The Phrase that Irks." Sorry for the long lead up to the point but I find it fascinating how dots are connected and intersections made. Now, on to the phrase that irks.

As I have written a number of times, I'm a fan of gratitude. Saying thank you is a simple way to build community. The point of the Juggling Elephants post was that "No Problem" is not a good response to gratitude. As they write,

it helps to get rid of the "no problem" phrase. Let them know you are happy to do it because of what they mean to you. Find a positive way to respond instead of a less negative one.

It's a great idea and a simple switch for me. I'll start saying, "My pleasure."

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly. It's my pleasure.

Don