YOUR BRAIN ON AGILE Jenni Jepsen @jenniindk jenni@goagile.dk Characteristics of Agile ways of working (tie it back later in talk to intrinsic motivation) Relationship building, positivity & kindness Fostering intrinsic motivation & optimal thinking

Characteristics of Agile ways of working (tie it back later in talk to intrinsic motivation) Relationship building, positivity & kindness Fostering intrinsic motivation & optimal thinking

THINKING REGION OF THE BRAIN Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) Decision-making Emotion control Higher-level thought Mental flexibility Goal-oriented behavior When we feel good, connected, accepted, happy, open, curious, we do our best thinking.

FEELING REGION OF THE BRAIN Limbic System Long-term memory Old habits Reward, pleasure Fear Prejudice A large brain network that includes: Amygdala Hippocampus Cingulate gyrus Orbital frontal cortex Insula The limbic system tracks your emotional relationships to thoughts, objects, people and events. It determines how you feel about the world – moment to moment. Drives behavior (often without knowing it). Moment-to-moment decisions involve more than just rational processes. Subtle choices need to be made based on value judgments. Making these value judgments is one of the limbic system’s main functions. Under stress, our attention and behavior are driven by the limbic system. It’s a vicious cycle: limbic system makes you then perceive more threats, which then stresses you more. And in this over-aroused (stress) state, your brain processes things differently. The PFC does not function normally. (Affecting memory, ability to understand, make decisions and inhibitions.) Your brain wants the path of least resistance. The brain will work to make the connections in the limbic system stronger under stress.

STRESS PERFORMANCE CURVE Focused Organized Responsible High-performance PFC Performance What happens when the limbic system becomes aroused? Reduces the resources available for PFC functions – and your brain goes on ”auto pilot” drawing on deeply embedded fuctions or ideas close to the front of your brain, such as recent events. Your ability to think rationally and focus on what’s happening in the moment is drastically reduced. You become more likely to respond negatively to situations. You look at the downside and take fewer risks. You become more defensive. Increases the chance of making links where there aren’t any. (These mistakes happen through a rule of ”generalizing” based on previous experience.) When you experience over-arousal over a long period of time, your levels of cortisol and adrenaline in the blood becomes chronically high. You experience a permanent sense of threat, and a low threshold for additional threats. Under stress, the PFC shuts down and the limbic system (where our old habits are) takes over. It’s a survival mechanism perfected over thousands of years. Our brains perceive stress as danger. We become reflexive, active creatures who are trying to survive a dangerous situation by freezing, fighting or running away. The PFC shuts off this stress response if we feel in control. If we have some influence and autonomy over the work we are doing, the research shows our PFCs work better. We think more rationally, and make smarter decisions. Optimal PFC functioning occurs when we feel motivated (not fatigued or bored) and empowered (not stressed and out of control). This is when people are able to think clearly and strategically, get into a good flow, and work toward reaching goals. TRUST increases oxytocin. STRESS increases cortisol and adrenaline leading to allostatic load. Distracted Forgetful Bored High stress Levels of catecholamine release (NE and DA) Increase with arousal state

STRESS PERFORMANCE CURVE PFC Performance Distracted Forgetful Bored High stress High-performance Focused Organized Responsible Levels of catecholamine release (NE and DA) Increase with arousal state Push Support & encourage

I cnduo’t bvleiee taht i culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht i was rdnaieg I cnduo’t bvleiee taht i culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht i was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseercah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. Overview – brain as ”prediction machine” = CERTAINTY Neural Systems Responding to Degrees of Uncertainty in Human Decision-Making Ming Hsu, et al. Science 310, 1680 (2005);

”Minimize danger, maximize reward” is the organizing principle of the brain. The ability to prevent fears, doubts and distractions from getting in the way of performance is essential to reaching peak performance. The limbic system scans data streaming into the brain, telling you what to pay more attention to, and in what way. Assessing danger or reward. It is constantly making TOWARD or AWAY decisions. The limbic system fires up far more intensely when it perceives a danger compared to when it senses a reward. TOWARD emotions: Curiosity Happiness Contentment AWAY emotions: Anxiety Sadness Fear The arousal from danger also comes on faster, lasts longer, and is harder to get rid of. Even the strongest TOWARD emotion, lust, is unlikely to make you run, whereas fear can do so in an instant. Everyone has a unique set of ”hot buttons” that can trigger limbic system arousal. These triggers are patterns of experience stored in your limbic system and labeled as ”dangerous.” THREAT STATE: Also, in a threat state people accidentally class information as threatening even when it is not, and they err on the side of withdrawing and not taking risks AS AGILE LEADERS, if we are aware where people sit on this continuum, it increases our effectiveness. We can start where people are at and design interations to minimize feelings of danger and maximize feelings of reward.

= Agile approach supports optimal thinking. Dedicated, self-organizing teams Overview Just-in-time planning & Chunking down Relationships + Influence & Autonomy Certainty & Fairness Easier to manage change = Dedicated, self-organizing teams: The core of Agile is about giving people influence and control over the work they are doing (critical to PFC functioning – if we feel out of control, the PFC stops functioning) Working in teams – oxytocin; friend or foe?; trust When people feel trusted, it activates reward region of brain. Oxytocin is released, feelings of happiness increase. Even the slightest feeling of autonomy can substantially change our brain’s perception of an event for the positive. Value in having the overview: Giving people the overview, understanding and planning together, creating clarity act as REWARD in our brains. We waste a lot of time wondering…. Teams who have the overview, work smarter. Just-in-time planning & chunking down: Agile plans for uncertainty – helps our brains become more certain about uncertainty Small steps, easier to make change

Agile? I don’t think so… So, if Agile leadership and working in teams is so great, why is it often hard to move to this way of thinking? Error detection mechanism: Our brains can actively resist anything that is forced upon it. The more you try to convince people of something, the more people push back – it triggers the threat response. We sense threat when we are forced in some way. Creating new habits – the how-to. Changing behavior is key to accomplishing a mindset shift. ACT YOUR WAY TO NEW THINKING.

How can we affect a mindset shift to create lasting change? Support & encourage Clear the path & create a safe environment Support and encourage people in their new ways of working – even when they fail. Clear the path and create a safe environment. Give people the overview/direction/clarity and influence in the work. Be patient, rewiring the brain to create new habits takes time. As Agile leaders, in order to help create happy, high-performing teams with people who do their best thinking, and deliver the best results, we must: Provide clarity and give influence Clear the path and create an envrionment that nudges people into acting in new ways Support and encourage at every step along the way, helping people gain the competence they need in new processes and become more confident in new activities. When this happens, creating understanding together, planning together, demo’ing results frequently and getting feedback, and reflecting together to learn and improve, becomes deeply embedded in our brains – and working Agile is natural for us. This is what being Agile is all about. Be patient – rewiring the brain to create new habits takes time Provide clarity & give influence

”The Neuroscience of Agile Leadership,” http://www. infoq Jenni Jepsen @jenniindk jenni@goagile.dk