ACTIVE LEARNERS: NeuroLeadership Summit atten- dees take breaks during sessions to talk about conference content as it is presented. "It’s so sim- ple and so incredibly effective just to pause, let people digest, and then go on," says Summit organizer David Rock.
the time to discuss the content or to ask questions. “It’s so simple and so incredibly effective just to pause, let people digest, and then go on,” Rock said. “And it’s amazing how many speakers we’ve had here who have never done this and they all just find it incredibly helpful.” Among those whom Rock has convinced is Philip Zim-
bardo, a psychology professor emeritus at Stanford University, who made a presentation at the 2011 NeuroLeadership Sum- mit. Arguably the world’s leading expert on the psychology of evil, Zimbardo has given hundreds of presentations, including at TED. At Rock’s request, Zimbardo “re-packaged” his pres- entation into 15-minute sessions, and wrote questions that were designed to prompt personal reflection by attendees. Tim Tobin, vice president of global learning and leadership devel- opment at Marriott International, acted as a moderator, pos- ing and fielding questions at the end of Zimbardo’s presentation, when there was an openQ&Aperiod. The structure engaged the audience, who knew that there
would be intermission breaks. As for Zimbardo, “It forced me to rethink the organization of my material and generate provocative thinking,” he said. “Of the thousand or so lec- tures I have given in the last 50 years, this was unique for me.” 2. Dialogues, not monologues. The second thing Rock
does differently is to have speakers interviewed on stage, so that content is presented in a conversation. At the 2011 Sum- mit, for example, Dan Siegel, a leading neuroscience researcher and a frequent keynote speaker, was interviewed by ChristineWilliams, the director of NASA’s Systems Engineer- ing Leadership Development Program. It takes a lot of work to design the conversation, “but it really pays off for every- one,” Rock said. “We’d all much rather listen to a conversa- tion than be talked at. Everyone is more comfortable, and more comfortable means better connections.” 3. Longer breaks. The third structural change Rock has
made is to schedule long breaks between sessions. The Summit agenda includes a 30-minute break in the morning, 90 minutes at lunch, and then another hour in the afternoon —“no excep- tions,” Rock said. The long breaks mean that the number of
sessions each day is limited to four. That requires fortitude, Rock said. “Everyone wants to fill that hour-long coffee break in the afternoon.” But Rock has found that giving attendees and presenters opportunities, time, and space with other par- ticipants during the longer breaks is more valuable to them than scheduling more sessions. “We make space for what we call connecting time,” Rock said. “I think those interactions are undervalued.” At the 2011 Summit, Zimbardo and other speakers used
the time during lunchto meet withsmaller groups, giving attendees the opportunity for one-on-one conversations with them. Between the breaks, the pauses during the sessions, and lunch and dinner, the Summit’s 200 attendees were able to spend up to four-and-a-half hours in unstructured social time in a day. That dramatically increased the quality of the time that they spent with one another. “You actually get to have pretty good discussions, not just ‘Hi, my name is Bob,’ but dis- cussions for several minutes with about one hundred other people,” Rock said. “That’s really rare.” Rock speaks frequently at other conferences, and finds it
“frustrating to have only 15-minute blocks, between sessions, in which to connect with participants,” he said. “Everyone has dozens of people they want to connect with. I think the human connection is at least as important as the ideas at these events.” In a digital world, we can easily gather ideas. “What we
can’t gather is human relationships,” Rock said. “I think the events that succeed will be ones that really value the net- working. And, it’s not so much networking, but the opportu- nity to meet and learn from your peers; to share and test your ideas.”