Disruption in the workplace impacts both the bottom line and employee culture. As the labor pool evolves, differences in communication styles, appearances and backgrounds present challenges to leadership in trying to manage conflict resolution. It is important to remain cognizant of how the brain processes information and how you, the leader, can use this knowledge to your advantage to minimize or even eliminate disruption in the workplace. Joe Fedison was our guest in this segment and is an Expert in the field of how brain chemistry impacts decision making and how to achieve favorable results by applying his techniques. Author, Trainer, Speaker, and Business Mentor, Joe has dedicated his life to mastering effective communication techniques.
The brain uses 20% of the body’s energy each day. As the day progresses, decision fatigue can set in and impacts the person’s ability to make clear and effective decisions. Recognizing that this exists is one of the key takeaways from this discussion. By arranging important meetings and decisions earlier in the day will result in better decisions made. Joe shares with us a study that showed how the number of favorable outcomes that Judges make peaks early in the morning and then trends downward throughout the day to the disadvantage of the offending counterpart. If you understand this and how the brain allocates resources throughout the day, you can take advantage of this from both ends, whether as a salesman making a pitch earlier in the day, or as the one who is making the decision on a pitch.
Joe talks about the evolution of the brain and how earlier mankind lacked a developed prefrontal cortex which is responsible for personality, expression and decision making. As it developed, it came into conflict with the hypothalamus which was an older area of the brain and helped keep people safe when confronted with a threat. It caused people to react in the traditional fight or flight way that we all know of when we encounter a threat. Today as our society has evolved into an intellectual society, our brain can perceive differences in opinions or others not liking us as “threats” and if we are not cognizant of this, we can react irrationally with the fight or flight response. By understanding that you need to shut off that area of thought and allow the pre-frontal cortex to analyze and then respond, you give yourself a much better chance of a favorable outcome to the dispute.
All decisions break down into three components, a logical, an emotional, and a faith based component. Effective decision makers will have higher degrees of logic in their decision making than the other two components and it’s important to be mindful of this spectrum too and ask yourself “Is the decision I am making logical, emotional, or based on faith in the unknown?” Remove yourself from the emotion and faith in business and focus on logic. Save the emotions for your friends and family and the faith for Sunday. Not that we should not have or show emotions in the workplace, we are all human, but just that we recognize that key decisions need to be thought through because of the impact they can have on so many.
Joe speaks frequently on this topic and a variety of other topics too relating to Time Management, Rapid Conflict Resolution, Focus & Insight, as well as Stress-Less Communication. These talks make excellent lunch and learns or as a speaker series for your staff or for you one on one. Learn more about him and his resources at www.engagedactiontraining.com and reach out to him today at 813-451-3637 for your next speaking engagement. You can see the full interview at www.thatyoutubechannel.com and please subscribe for more entrepreneurial discussions.
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