Feature


Switched-on thinking


Amy Brann looks at how neuroscience can be used to aid the engagement and development of staff


correlates with the organisations being poor examples of them. Sure, the company may get good results in some things. But, typically, the people either leave or get depressed. So, what has neuroscience got to offer that


I


hasn’t been said before? It has some facts and some educated inferences.


A confession: I’m a millennial. So, according to many ‘experts’ I won’t be interested in something unless it has the potential to change the world tomorrow. (My husband says Queen’s ‘I Want It All’ will be the song played at my funeral.) Fair enough, really; I do want to see massive change in organisations within


12 | learningmagazine.co.uk


know what you’re probably thinking: sounds a bit dull, right? The reality is engagement and development aren’t deemed important by the senior leadership of many organisations. This normally


my lifetime. The idea that my four-year-old daughter would work for a company and dread Monday mornings is horrible. We can do better than this. We want engaged brains. Why? Because they give the organisation we work with a range of benefi ts. Why else? They feel great to us! It’s a happy coincidence that when our brains are really switched on we get pleasure from the feeling and we do our best work. Why do we want people activating their


reward networks? For these reasons: • Experiencing an increase in cognitive resources


• Being more creative • Solving more problems using insight (especially useful for complex problem solving)


• Coming up with more action-focused ideas • Having a broader fi eld of view.


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