In working with my clients, a particularly high functioning group of company founders, attorneys and physicians, I have noticed a consistent thread or trend that has led them to retain me (usually a moderate to severe dislocating life event, typically career or relationship-based) as well as a somewhat chronic characteristic that marks our initial sessions. That fundamental characteristic is resistance, both at an emotional level but particularly at the cognitive level (which really drives the entire process) where the wiring of the brain resides. The energy that is created in this is profound. They hem, they haw, the ponder, even in the face of fairly profound inner discord.
A recent client recently contacted me through Google Hangouts to schedule an initial engagement. A veteran of the entertainment industry in Hollywood, he was experiencing profound internal dislocation over external events (recent cinema projects) as well as a fairly severe imbalance in melding his personal and professional life. During our discussion, even when presented “hope” in the form of being able to proactively resolve his internal conflicts through the coaching process and reframing his life through different models, his default was to retreat when presented the option to change – even when agreeing on being able to frame his life experience and intention more positively and productively. While we were able to move past his resistance, the trend is fairly common, both at the individual and at the organizational levels.
This wiring, which typically triggers a default flight or fight setting, frequently gets in this way of moving through the process of finding new ways of dealing with these life events.
The neuroscience of the human brain is a fascinating study. Our fundamental resistance to change is not merely overcome by re-writing our neuro-code with a more virtuous set of goals, or installing a more enlightened awareness of our individual uniqueness and higher sense of self. Those are fine as esoteric goals – the reality is change is difficult and requires some additional understanding as to how we are hardwired, how the various centers of the brain engage and interact and how we can facilitate mindful and intentional change that helps us create happier and more fulfilled lives, careers and relationships.
David Rock, in his essay “The Neuroscience of Leadership” points to the many fundamental and typical pillars of creating professional change or organizational change and finds the following:
Change is pain. Personal and 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. In my work with startups and company founders, I have noted this is a typically default mode of creating scalable cultures and more attentive employees. It rarely if ever works.
Humanism is overrated. In practice, the conventional empathic approach of connection and persuasion doesn’t sufficiently engage people to embrace change with some of the rigors required by the process.
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.
One of my clients, a company founder and owner recently asked me in our weekly session: “Why do people resist change so stubbornly, even when it’s in their own interest?” While some of the answer may come in having clarity about what is in their own interest, the fundamental question is spot on. Changing the way others go about their work is harder than she has expected. New advances in neuroscience provide insight into why change can be so difficult, and there are several key findings.
It is fascinating to me that so many coaches and organizational and team leadership consultants focus on treating the symptomatic expressions of organizational or personal dysfunction rather that the root cause. The root cause holds the key; it takes work and perseverance and outside frameworks that can challenge assumptions in a way that ensures emotional safety but also encourages discovery.