All the Brains in the Business

The Engendered Brain in the 21st Century Organisation

Kate Lanz, Paul Brown

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030221522
• eBook ISBN: 9783030221539
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

The power of gender difference, not gender equality, is a secret source for success. Some smart businesses are starting to wake up to this fact. This book explores why and how.

Properly valuing brain gender diversity in the workplaceisone of the biggestand largelyuntapped sources of competitive advantage for modern businesses. Recent advances in neuroscience provide the key to unlocking it.

Modernresearch showsthat there are gender-based differences in the brain – it's just not as simple as a binary between a 'male brain' and 'female brain'. In fact, our brains are like a mosaic where many of the tiles are available in thousands of shades on a spectrum between pinkand blue. The problem is that our workplaces tend to be governed by structures, processes and cultures that arepracticallypure blue.All thebrains in the businessthat are elsewhere on the spectrumcannot thrive as they might, sosources of productivity, creativity and agility go untapped.

Anyone who manages people needs to understand how the brain works and the impact it has on how people work together as teams. Anyone who wants to unlock the talent and productivity ofallof their people needs to understand how recent findings around male- and female-type brains should shape the way they manage.

Leading applied neuroscientistsand international corporate coaches Kate Lanz andPaul Brownshow you why and howto accessallthe brains in your business.

© The Author(s) 2020

K. Lanz, P. BrownAll the Brains in the BusinessThe Neuroscience of Businesshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22153-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Brain Sex and Biological Sex

Kate Lanz¹ and Paul Brown²

(1)

Bedford, UK

(2)

Vientiane, Laos

Kate Lanz

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Kate says:

The Case for Creating Optimal Brain Conditions

During the financial crisis, I was coaching an extremely experienced, bright, delightful gentleman who had been hired to help the company in question to get themselves out of the trouble they were in. In our second session, he looked at me and said, ‘Do you know what? I have to switch myself off in the morning just to survive the day here and I switch myself back on when I get home and see my kids’ faces as I open the door’. I was horrified—what an awful way to spend one’s life. The company in question were paying him a substantial sum to help them get back on track. I found myself asking, ‘Why would you pay that brain that much money and then create the conditions that switch it off like that?’ The return on investment on his brain power was appalling.

So began my research: what does it take to create the conditions for optimal brain performance in the workplace?

Optimal brain energy flow, such that the powerful, decision-making part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is facilitated to do its best work, is good for business. Creating innovative solutions and having the agility to move from strategy to execution fast are becoming increasingly important in the modern, global economic environment. It’s the people in the business—their brains—that either enhance innovation and agile execution or slow it down. Brains that are enabled to thrive to work optimally are brains that like to come to work and they produce the neurochemistry for performance.

The Sex of Your Brain

It became very clear, very quickly that in order to answer the question, ‘what does it take to create the conditions for optimal brain performance in the workplace?’, biological sex differences simply could not be ignored. There are differences between a male and female brain (Brizendine 2007a)—and knowing how to access brain gender difference is a source of competitive advantage. However, it is not as simple as binary male–female brain differences. The apparent sex of the person does not define the functioning of their brain.

Each of our brains is different. Modern neuroscience suggests that we can characterise an individual brain within a three-dimensional space consisting of brain structure, neural connectivity and hormone levels. A combination of our unique nature and nurture determines where our brain fits within this space. On average, male and female brains exist in different regions of this space—there are measurable differences in structure, connectivity and hormone levels. Understanding where an individual sits within this space, which mixture of female–male characteristics they possess, is the basis for helping them to thrive. In our work, we are trying to help leaders understand the diversity of brains that they have within their businesses in order to create the conditions to get the best from them.

Added to the important acknowledgement of differences between the male and female brain, it is a truly fascinating and hardly recognised fact that the sex of your brain may not be the same as the sex of your body (Moir and Jessel 1989, p. 50).

How is that? In short, it is because the way your brain develops and the trillions of synaptic connections that make us who we are determined by the unique blend of nature and nurture. There are some fundamental biological facts which determine our biological sex. These combine with the influences of our environment throughout our lives, but notably in the womb and the first two years (Schore 2001) determine how our genetic blueprint gets expressed and shapes the neural pathways that make us—us. Our unique combination of nature and nurture determines the sex of our brain. Modern neuroscience is demonstrating that the majority of us have a ‘mosaic’ brain (Joel et al. 2015) that is a mix of both male and female characteristics. Our brain patterning within this space is as unique to each of us as is our fingerprint.

Biological sex drives different behaviours, yet within these differences lies a far greater subtlety and source of significant performance potential for business. Knowing how to access the total brain sex diversity in a business is a new source of serious competitive advantage. By enabling different sexed brains to be allowed to function in a thrive rather than a survive mode, businesses can truly tap into all the brains in the business. Company-specific research is showing an increased latent productivity of between 30 and 50% demonstrating that often in modern work cultures there is significant brain power wastage occurring. This book aims to help fix that.

Before we take a look at some of the subtle differences that make everyone’s brain unique it is necessary to take a look at the overall big picture; what, on average, are some of the differences between the male and female brain?

Brain and Biological Sex—Key Differences Between the Male and Female Brain

There is a currently a naïve interpretation of feminism which seeks to assert the exact equivalence of men of women. It states that there are no significant differences between male and female brains and that social sexual stereotypes bias the way brains develop. While our social environment has some impact on our sense of self this claim is simply fake news; the science is unambiguous and it is important to understand a little about how these measurements have been made if we are to benefit from the latest discoveries.

Sex differences between male and female brains show up in the three main biological parameters that define the space within which all brain types exist. These are: particular structures within the brain characterised by volume and density differences (Cohen 2014); blood flow and thus subsequent connectivity between different brain regions (Ingalhalikar et al. 2014) and quantities and potency of certain hormones (Brizendene 2007b). Let’s have a brief look at each of these to get us started on our journey of understanding brain sex difference.

Structural Differences Between the Male and Female Brain

In 2014, in the first meta-analysis of its kind into sex differences in the brain, a team of international neuroscientists (Joel et al. 2015; Cohen 2014) established that there are indeed specific structural differences between the male and female brain. On average, men’s brains have larger total volume than females, though both contain the same number of neurons. Research also shows no difference in IQ between men and women (Gilmore et al. 2007; Willerman et al. 1991; Witelson et al. 2006).

The 2014 meta-analysis showed that in terms of volume and density in particular brain structures, there are differences in the limbic and language systems between men and women—the limbic system is the area of the brain responsible, in general, for emotion and memory. An interesting asymmetry was found in sex differences between the structures in question. On average men showed higher densities, mostly limited to the left side of the limbic system, whereas women showed larger limbic volumes in the right hemisphere which is more related to language, discovery and emotion. Women also showed larger specific limbic structures such as the right insular cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus—the parts of the brain that are responsible for emotion and worrying about what is going on for people.

So—what do these differences mean? In isolation, not much. However, within the context of the other major differences between the male and female brain and an understanding of brain sex as opposed to biological sex, important nuances relevant to the workplace emerge.

Blood Flow and Connectivity Differences Between the Male and Female Brain

The second major area of difference between the male and female brain is in the blood flow and neural connectivity across the network of neurons that make up the brain. In a groundbreaking study from 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania, Associate Professor Regini Verma (Ingalhalikar et al. 2014) found greater neural connectivity from front to back and within each hemisphere in males and greater connectivit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Brain Sex and Biological Sex
• 2. Conditions for Optimal Brain Function
• 3. Survive, Thrive and Flow
• 4. Brain Sex-Based Attention and Communication
• 5. Power, Politics and Pressure
• 6. Problem Solvers and Solution Seekers—The Difference Between Intra-compared with Inter-hemispheric Connectivity
• 7. The Beginnings of a New Motivational Theory, from the Engendered Brain
• 8. The Business Case for Valuing Brain Sex Difference
• 9. How to Ignite All the Brains in the Business
• 10. Exhaustion, Energy and Excellence—The Male/Female Differences
• 11. Creating the Mind of the Organisation
• 12. The New Organisational Paradigm
• Back Matter