Your Brain at Work

Sometimes we would like to be able to rewind and replay different situations in our lives. This is the gambit adopted by the author, who replays a typical working day according to two scenarios.

We all recognize ourselves in the first scenario. It features our habitual behaviors and reflexes, whose negative impact on our concentration and performance we underestimate. For example, a recently-promoted young project leader rapidly answers an urgent e-mail during a meeting, loses track of what is going on at the meeting and makes a bad impression on her new colleagues by giving a lackluster presentation.

The second scenario plays out the same situations again, but this time with behaviors that integrate the brain’s natural processes. In the preceding example, instead of trying to answer the e-mail during the meeting, which causes IQ to drop by up to 15 points (!), the project leader asks the entire group for a two-minute break to let her respond. Everyone uses this time to check their e-mails rapidly. When the meeting resumes, the participants can once again focus on the topic at hand, and the project leader is able to concentrate and makes a successful presentation.

The scenarios are very convincing and realistic. The “revised” scenario helps to identify behaviors and initiatives simple to put into place. The explanations drawn from neuroscience, however, are very detailed and require a great deal of concentration!