Your Brain At Work by David Rock, a short review

Conflicts on the stage of your brain

Most self-help manuals promise much, but deliver very little. This is because most self-help books fail the reader because the book is only one small step in actually getting results. The work has to come from the individual, and the book just signposts the way. What's really different about "Your Brain at Work" is that David Rock understands this. In fact, the book explains a lot about how you react to change, why it's hard and why introspection on how you react is important. By the act of reading the book, you are performing some of that work you need to facilitate change within yourself.

Your brain is a theater

The brain is a mushy set of conflicting needs, desires, wants and reactions. This is the central theme of the book. David Rock uses the analogy of a theater - the stage being the conscious stream we all work with; the audience is the thoughts and facts we have that react to the stage; and the director is our 'self' that tries to organize the stage. The audience is an unruly bunch too. It tries to get on the stage sometimes when we don't want them too, forcing out the actors we have carefully chosen. The director can get tired, or have things backstage that need to be dealt with as well, letting his stage run amuck. And when it runs itself, we end up having less than positive interactions with our colleagues. Or, worst still, negative effects on our families.

This means we have a mushy set of conflicts. But understanding these conflicts is the central idea of this book. What goes on can help our director make different choices. Choices that lead to the outcomes that makes us improve our interactions with others, give us a better sense of purpose, and overall increases our happiness at work. And this will further help our home lives as well.

The Kolb Cycle at work

'Your Brain at Work' uses a writing method I really enjoyed. We get a short narration of an incident or problem in the workplace, told from the second person, so we can see the reactions the person is having internally. In this case, the incident resolves less than favourably. David Rock then explains why these reactions might have happened, and what the brain was doing. Was it over engaged? Was it threatened? Or was it confused by too many things? He then examines the psychology, referring to real research (all cross-referenced) and makes some suggestions on how we can deal with similar problems in the future. We then see the scene replayed, with the narrator doing a far better job the second time around.

It's the try -> fail -> reflect -> learn -> repeat -> succeed cycle, similar to that outlined in the Kolb Cycle. This is my preferred way of learning. People can tryout new ideas by playing games. Gameplay allows simulation. We can try out various ideas, safely, in that simulation. Which in turn then encourages us to externalize that simulation as well. And that's similar to this style. Tell a story, then examine it in depth.

Gameful Facilitation with your brain

This is covered in Chapter 2: 'A project that hurts to think about'. We all have problems that seem far too large. Often, we try to cram in all the ideas into our heads, filling up our stage, in an attempt to simulate some possible solutions. The director can't cope with this. So, we need to externalize these ideas. Gamestorming and Innovation Games are methods to encourage pushing the ideas onto paper, out of the brain. So we can then look at these ideas, move them around and try out new patterns, without exhausting ourselves.

This has one added advantage: we can collaborate with others using games too. Visualizing shared problems together, new ideas and connections will form. Ideas that no one person in the conversation may have had. It's like combining multiple stages together as one, and having the power of a larger stage to try things out on.

Now, this is a change in a way of working for many. A change is scary and uncomfortable. But looking how to gently manage that change is another aspect covered in 'Your Brain At Work'. By understanding your own brain, you can understand the reactions in others better too. Most importantly, managers should provide gentle leadership and cooperative change. Especially, where all parties are engage in the change process. I would argue in fact, the key element of a good management is this gentle leadership approach. Another book I'm currently reading is "Flat Army" by Dan Pontefract which covers more elements of this style of leadership.

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