"Change is Pain" and Other Lessons from "The Neuroscience of Leadership" (strategy+business)

Booz Allen's magazine, strategy+business, has a really interesting article about new discoveries in neuroscience are shedding light on how human behavior works and consequently, how organizations might better align their efforts to play on these operation modalities instead of crafting policies or plans that go against them.

The authors argue that looking at the physiology of the brain, they can begin to make some conclusions which "would have been considered counterintuitive or downright wrong only a few years ago."

They include:

• Change is pain. Organizational change is unexpectedly difficult because it provokes sensations of physiological discomfort.
• Behaviorism doesn’t work. Change efforts based on incentive and threat (the carrot and the stick) rarely succeed in the long run.
• Humanism is overrated. In practice, the conventional empathic approach of connection and persuasion doesn’t engage people.
• Focus is power. The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain.
• Expectation shapes reality. People’s preconceptions have a significant impact on what they perceive.
• Attention density shapes identity. Repeated, purposeful, and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.