Thinking Big Works » prefrontal cortex

What Does It Take For An Organization To Change Its Mindset?

Judy Berg — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:31:11 +0000

A Roadmap to Corporate Consciousness
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corporate mindshift: management

CHANGING ONES OWN MINDSET CAN BE CHALLENGING – BUT CAN YOU SHIFT AN ENTIRE ORGANIZATION?

If you have ever tried to make a lifestyle change, perhaps to exercise more, eat healthier, spend more time with loved ones and less time at the office, you know what a challenge it can be just to make a small change in behaviourial patterns.

If you think it is challenging to change behaviours, consider how much more challenging it is to make significant mental or consciousness shifts, for oneself, and particularly, for an entire organization.

So, how on earth do you begin to shift?

A DIFFERENT KIND OF LEADERSHIP

If you have been following our posts on the changing nature of the work place, and if you agree organizations are in a transition between an industrial, manufacturing , capitalistic model; to a model of social and spiritual capitalism, you will appreciate how everyone in the organization needs to think very differently than they have in the past.

There are a few ways or circumstances under which a leader can effect consciousness change.

1. A SIGNIFICANT EMOTIONAL EVENT

Unfortunately, the most common trigger for making a huge mental shift will arise from a significant traumatic or emotional event. Such an event dos not guarantee change will occur but it does set up the context for awakening to the need for things to be done very differently than they have been in the past. The current global economic crisis could be such an event. Some organizations will see this as a temporary inconvenience and will continue to do what has always worked in the past. Others will see it as a wake-up call and will seek to make totally new connections with their customers, shareholders, products and services.

2. THE LEADERS CHANGE

Most great achievements have been accomplished through the vision of a small number of leaders. For your organization to adapt to changing circumstances, it is necessary to either replace the leadership team, or for the leaders themselves to desire to make a transformational shift in their own consciousness, and, in the way they provide leadership to others. David Hawkins, in his book, Power vs Force, believes it takes only a few people operating a higher consciousness to skew the curve in a positive direction.

3. MEDITATION

Considerable research has been conducted on the power of meditation to create stronger links to the pre-frontal cortex brain functions where we access capacity for empathy, ethics and spirituality. Practiced on an individual level, this would be significant but consider the synergistic impact of a group meditation in the workplace to create a context of calmness, and to open doors for higher cognitive reasoning and creativity.

4. MENTORS

When highly skilled athletes realize they need to change their game plan, they do not attempt to do it on their own. They change coaches. Consider hiring coaches for your organization to facilitate your team and your leaders to a new awareness. To use this approach, however, it must be heavily supported and fully-engaged in by the leadership team. This is not about getting someone to fix “those people” while the management team does little or nothing to shift their consciousness. This is not about a change in behaviours, it is about a shift in consciousness, which then creates a new way of seeing the world, a new way of accessing options. This new consciousness becomes ingrained and forms the new culture of the organization.

5. ALIGN WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS WHO ARE ALREADY MAKING THE SHIFT

When we are in transition, it is easy to slip back into the old behaviours and thinking patterns. Identify organizations who have made or who are making a shift in consciousness. Create discussion groups or mentoring teams. Helping your organization will strengthen their commitment to the direction they are headed, so they will also benefit from this relationship. Make certain the discussions are open to provocative comments designed to move both organizations to a better place.

I do not believe this Mindshift is about choice…maybe we will do it, maybe we won’t…this is about survival. The organizations who “get it”, early on, will be the ones who survive the current global financial crisis. And they will be the ones who also, very soon, become aligned with the current global social, environmental and spiritual awakening that is growing at a monumental speed.

Your organization can BE tomorrow’s success story – through a shift in consciousness.

BLESS BLESS
JUDY BERG
If you know a company that is making a Mindshift towards serving humanity while still turning a profit, we would like to know about them. Let us know by contacting::
attractingsuccess@soulabundant.com... or leave the information in the comments section of this post.

Organizational Behaviour Consultant
author: Imagine Your Soul Abundant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness
more about: www.theconsciouscorporation.com www.soulabundant.com
Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com. Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.

Intentional Laughter

Judy Berg — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:10:47 +0000

LAUGHING YOGA

Laughing Yoga seems to be just what the doctor ordered. In the midst of all the news of gloom and doom from almost every country on the planet, perhaps, it is time to have a belly laugh.

Dr Madan Kataria, a family physician from Mumbai, India started the first Laughing Yoga club in 1995. The idea has spread, as infectiously as a good giggle, to more than 5000 clubs in over 40 countries.

Are there health advantages to a good belly laugh? Well, who better to research it, than Britain’s own Academy award winner, king of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, John Cleese.(source: www.youtube.com)

Click Photo to see John Cleese in India Doing a Laughing Yoga Class

Laugh for no reason…and you will find a reason to laugh.

Organizational Behaviour Consultant
author: Imagine Your Soul Abundant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness
more about: www.soulabundant.com
Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com. Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.

Child Spiritual Prodigy

Judy Berg — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:10:39 +0000

Consciousness: inspiration

CHILD SPIRITUAL PRODIGY

What distinguishes rare and unusual talent? How does it differ from ability that is studied and learned? From where does this unique gift come?

Is it a connection to a “resource pool” we can all tap into, if only we are open to possibility? Is one born into a high level of consciousness…already enlightened?

Akiane Kramarik is one such amazing talent. She finds it difficult to articulate the source of her gifts although she has no question as to its origins. It is, she says, “a gift from God.”

CLICK ON PHOTO TO PLAY ( source www.Youtube.com)

The Enlightened Consciousness of a Child – click on photo to play

BLESS BLESS
JUDY BERG

Organizational Behaviour Consultant

author: Imagine Your Soul Abundant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness

more about: www.soulabundant.com

Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com. Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.

Greed Addiction Blocks Ethical Functioning

Judy Berg — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:51:03 +0000

corporate mindshift: management

SCARCITY VS ABUNDANCE

Last Thursday I posted an article titled Let’s Redefine Abundance. Thanks to Nick Corsi for this link from the PopTech Conference 2008 that expands on the topic.

Listen as Peter Whybrow, neuropsychiatrist, author of “American Mania: When More Is Not Enough,” describes the brain physiology of addiction of a society that demands more and more, yet is left empty, devoid and sick. This clip outlines the HOPE that underlies this economic crisis, if we will take the opportunity to make a cultural shift in our evolution.

Click on photo for video presentation of Peter WhyBrow at the PopTech conference 2008 on the brain physiology of
“When Enough Is Not Enough”

This Is Your Brain…On Music

Nick Corsi — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:46:05 +0000

music & arts: mind your music

Neuroscience- music

A GREAT FIND

I had the pleasure of stumbling upon this book two years ago in my local Barnes & Noble. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but this just jumped out and said “pick me”. This book is for anyone who enjoys music, science, learning, great stories, and a pleasant change from everyday reading.

EVER WONDER WHY?…

Did you ever wonder why you have a favorite song or genre?
Did you ever wonder why some music invokes a specific emotion or state of mind?
Did you ever wonder why music can elevate your thinking and provide new perceptions?
Did you ever wonder how musicians have the ability to take us to another place?

REVELATIONS

This book reveals far too many ideas and concepts to elaborate on in a short blog post, so I will pull out what I thought would be a great sampling, as well as, a few things that are really advantageous to the marketers that frequent the blog, such as some of the emotional and associative aspects of music.

The power of music to evoke emotions is harnessed by advertising executives, filmmakers, military commanders, and mothers. Advertisers use music to make a soft drink, beer, running shoe or car, seem more hip than their competitors’. Film directors use music to tell us how to feel about scenes that otherwise might be ambiguous, or to augment our feelings at particularly dramatic moments. -Daniel Levitin

BOTTOM LINE

“This is Your Brain on Music” was written by Daniel Levitin, a once Berklee trained recording engineer and eventual producer, who decided he wanted to go into the field of neuroscience…so he did. He explores new research into how music interfaces with our neurological framework in terms of our emotions, memory, and among other things, our brain’s ability to interpret anything we call music (whether you are creating or listening).

GLOBAL PROCESS

Given the significant attention devoted to the concept of “mindshifts“, by my mentors Judy Berg and David VanAmburg, by exploring business development and how it interfaces with the entire brain, I thought that exploring a similar concept with music would be quite appropriate.

Contrary to the old, simplistic notion that art and music are processed in the right hemisphere of our brains, with language and mathematics in the left, recent findings from my laboratory and those of my colleagues are showing us that music is distributed throughout the brain. Through studies of people with brain damage, we’ve seen patients who have lost the ability to read a newspaper but can still read music, or individuals who can play the piano but lack the motor coordination to button their own sweater. Music listening, performance and composition engage nearly every area of the brain that we have so far identified, and involve nearly every neural subsystem. – Daniel Levitin

PIECE BY PIECE

A Balanced Mind
click to enlarge

You can learn about the general functions of the brain’s hemisphere in Judy Berg’s post about Corporate Mindshift. Very basically, the right hemisphere is dedicated to creative, intuitive thought and the left is dedicated to logical and rational thought. Our prefrontal cortex provides decision-making capabilities with ethical, moral and spiritual thought. Reflecting on most musicians I know, I could probably comfortably say that they all seem to be “right-brained” people. However, Levitin’s compilation of research is saying something different…

Here is a very brief breakdown of musical variables and the parts of the brain they rely on:

Auditory: Listening (Auditory Cortices – both left and right sides)
Memory: Lyrics, Melodies, or Playing an instrument, choreography (hippocampus)
Emotion: Dynamics of a piece, positive or negative associations (cerebellar vermis and amygdala)
Tactile: Playing an instrument (sensory cortex)
Timing: Rhythm, tapping your feet or playing to one (cerebellum’s timing circuits)
Motor Skills: Playing an instrument, tapping, dancing, bobbing your head (motor cortex- in the parietal lobe)
Reading: musical notation, lyrics (visual cortex – in the occipital lobe)
Planning: playing an instrument, singing a song, conducting a group (frontal lobe)
Language: listening or recalling lyrics (Broca’s and Wernicke’s area – language centers in temporal and frontal lobes)

JUST THE SURFACE…

This overview is just scratching the surface. The book also explores concepts of how anticipation can evoke emotions, what make’s musicians, why we have positive or negative associations with certain music, as well as, many other fascinating topics in the fields of neuroscience and music.

Nick Corsi has been a sound engineer for 7 years and continues to search for new and interesting ways to learn about and refine his craft. Delving into how people respond to music neurologically is another tool to use when mixing different types of music for different types of crowds.

Work Hard, Take It Easy

Nick Corsi

What Is Mindshift?

Judy Berg — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:01:53 +0000

A Balanced Mind
click to enlarge

corporate mindshift: management:global trends

THINGS DON’T CHANGE: PEOPLE CHANGE THINGS

I like the quote from Andy Warhol, “They say time changes things but you actually have to change them yourself.” One of my best life lessons was coming to the realization that when I changed the way I looked at a situation – the situation itself seemed to change - when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!

EASIER TO SAY, THAN TO DO…

In our current economic dilemma, we become increasingly aware that some things have to be done dramatically differently for corporations and businesses to succeed and come out of this downturn, not only intact, but thriving. In my career in senior management, we often heard the phrase, “Organizations need to change to adapt to changing times.” Well, I first heard those comments almost two decades ago. It seems very few companies have been able to stick with the thinking process long enough to determine just what changes need to be made.

IT’S THE PEOPLE – NOT THE ORGANIZATION

Or, maybe they did come to conclusions about what actually had to happen – but they didn’t like what they discovered – that it was not a restructuring of the organization that would make the difference -it was a whole restructuring of the thinking processes, attitudes, values, etc of the people in the organization that was where phenomenal and lasting change would occur.

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” – Marcus Antonnius, Roman Emperor

TRIANGLE FOR MINDSHIFT

There has been much said about organizations needing to become more creative. Often that results in setting up a research or innovation section. That still sidesteps personal responsibility. I believe the successful organizations will be those who recognize the critical value of accessing the fully functioning minds of all employees - and that involves understanding current brain research.

LEFT BRAIN

For purposes of simplicity, the left hemisphere of the brain is often referred to as the rational, logical mind. This function is highly revered in western corporations. Many of the left-brain functions can now be dealt with through technology, or easily taught to people in emerging economies.

RIGHT BRAIN

Intuitive, creative, innovative thought resides in the right hemisphere. This function in most organizations, if accessed at all, is often deferred to the Communications, Research or Innovation departments and specific hirees are jettisoned into the organization based on their skills for creativity.

PREFRONTAL CORTEX

This more recently studied part of the brain, exists in the front area of the head, more commonly referred to in eastern thought, as the Third Eye. Brain research is pointing to this area as that which is being activated when compassionate, loving, ethical, spiritual thoughts are engaged. It is also called the Executive functioning area of the brain. It is where we learn to discern right from wrong, feel compassion, and understand the consequences of our actions.

This part of the brain is believed not to be fully functioning until the mid-twenties. Some researchers believe that stress blocks the synapses or messages from the impulse areas of the brain to the prefrontal cortex. If that is the case, dealing with reduction of stress in the workplace would be essential to incorporating more ethical, moral, and spiritual thought. Our present economic and political situations might suggest this part of our brain power is not being accessed much, if at all, by some banking systems, organizations, or political powers.

WHERE ARE WE HEADED?

It is my belief that successful organizations, and there are many examples out there already, will be those who combine all three lobes in a balanced fashion. Each individual will be engaged in activating their intuitive, creative, innovative abilities, choosing actions that will have the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of people, and carrying out those ideas in a logical, well thought-out plan.

My Monday Blog, Enlightened Orgs Best Practices, celebrates those balanced, beautiful minds and their accomplishments. In past economic recessions or depressions there were winners and losers. It will be so again.

This time, I believe the companies that will be most competitive will be those who can access and balance the full capabilities of the human mind…intuitive, creative, innovative, logical, rational, ethical, moral and spiritual.

Is your company aware that change is required but just not sure how to begin? As a former corporate manager, I know the challenges of introducing new concepts with the existing leadership. There are advantages to an unbiased third party facilitation. Contact me to discuss your organizations needs and to customize an approach suitable for your circumstance... info@soulabundant.com.

BLESS BLESS
JUDY BERG

Organizational Behaviour Consultant
author: Imagine Your Soul Abudant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness
more about: www.soulabundant.com
Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com. Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.

The Happiest Man In The World

Judy Berg — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:34:43 +0000

Mystery shoes
click for video

enlightened organizations: global trends: inspiration

WHAT MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY?…AND, WHATEVER DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH SHOES?

There has been a ground swell on the Internet to send old shoes to the White House showing support for Iraqi anger, following the Iraqi journalist shoe-throwing incident. US President George W. Bush used his finely-honed skills of side-stepping…this time to avoid physical injury. Is it possible the mystery shoes may be a statement to George W. Bush about how the country feels about US foreign policy?

If indeed, this is the solution to the mystery of the scattered shoes, it is also a statement from ‘Main Street’ crying, “Enough!. What is happening in global policy is wrong, it is immoral, it is inhumane.”

When we speak out about something we believe to be morally wrong, we are engaging the prefrontal brain capabilities. Extraordinary changes are possible in our society, as individuals recognize the need to balance all three aspects of the thinking and reasoning process, and then take action on ethical and moral grounds.

LEFT AND RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTION

Much has been said about the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Although we risk over-simplification, this left and right brain stuff makes for an “easy-to-relate-to” model when we refer to the left functioning of the brain as the area in which rational, logical, scientific thought arises, and the right brain as the centre for creative and intuitive thought. The western world is heavily reliant upon left brain thinking. The right hemisphere is more closely aligned with creative, intuitive thought processes, more commonly accessed in eastern and aboriginal thought and philosophy.

Generally speaking, cultures that are predominately reliant upon left brain thinking often dismiss the value and credibility of right brain thinking for decision-making, business, or governance processes.

PREFRONTAL CORTEX-THE EXECUTIVE FUNCTION

Ethical and moral stances emanate from a newly-studied brain function found in the prefrontal cortex. We can now put into the left brain/right brain mix, another component…it is the prefrontal cortex. Current study shows this area of the brain seems to be engaged when one is involved with thoughts of moral, ethical or spiritual nature. It is highly engaged in compassionate, loving thoughts. It is often referred to as the executive function of the brain whose role is making assessments between right and wrong, good and bad, anticipating consequences, and engaging in spiritual concepts of faith and trust. In other words, it balances the impulsivity of left or right brain singular thinking.

CORPORATIONS, INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNMENTS MUST BALANCE ALL THREE

We believe a Corporate MIndshift involves balancing and engaging all three brain functions. A highly functioning human being finds a balance between left and right brain thinking, and moderates choices of actions through the prefrontal cortex. Making a Corporate Mindshift means corporations, institutions, governments and individuals become more balanced and value the use of all three aspects of the thinking processes; taking into consideration logic and reason; creativity, intuition and cognition; and ethics, compassion, morality and spirituality, in ALL decision-making.

BLESS BLESS
JUDY BERG
Organizational Behaviour Consultant
author: Imagine Your Soul Abudant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness
more about: www.soulabundant.com
Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com. Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.
Enquire: attractingsuccess@soulabundant.com