Leaders: Learn the Neuroscience Behind Change Resistance to Master It

In the rapidly advancing world of technology, all business leaders must be agile in order to avoid fading into the background. They must be able to pivot, adjust their vision when presented with innovative strategies, and adapt to the major workforce trends headed their way. All of this requires one basic component: change.

Yet change is not so easy for humans and can breed anxiety and fear. But that’s not just because we are creatures of habit. Neurosciences and cognitive sciences show that change is difficult for humans for three core reasons.

Three Core Reasons For Resistance to Change

1. Habits are powerful and efficient

Your brain creates a mind map that sorts reality into a perceptual order and creates effective, quickly established habits This means your brain limits what it sees and reality conforms to past perceptions.

Why is this a problem? Because it means all of your lessons in life and business keep you from seeing things in fresh ways. Counter-intuitive isn’t it? The more experience you have, the more limited you can become. We’ve all seen leaders “stuck in their ways,” and know how frustrating, and potentially damaging to the business, this can be.

2. Your brain hates change

When you’re learning something new, your prefrontal cortex has to work very hard. And your brain uses 25% of your total energy! It’s no wonder why we feel worn out and our head hurts from learning.

3. You have to “see and feel” new ways of doing things

To really make a change, you can’t just read about something; experiential learning is critical. Why? Because as you learn, your brain actually changes, reflecting new decisions, mind maps, and reality sorting. So when change presents itself and you haven’t experienced what that change will be like, your brain will hijack the new thought patterns and try to put your mindset back into the old way of thinking.

These three factors paint a surprising picture: the limitations to growth are really self-imposed by the mind maps of former successes. All of our past perceptions hold back what we are able to perceive in the present.

Besides this unconscious self-limiting behavior, the fear that change elicits is also limiting. This is called “fear conditioning.”

What is Fear Conditioning?

The brain stores all the details from a particular fear stimulus, such as time of day, images, sounds, smells, and weather, in your long-term memory. That makes the memory “very durable,” but also fragmented, triggering the full gamut of physical and emotional responses every single time a similar fear stimulus shows up.

As research from the University of Minnesota explains it, “Once the fear pathways are ramped up, the brain short-circuits more rational processing paths and reacts immediately to signals from the amygdala.  When in this overactive state, the brain perceives events as negative and remembers them that way.”

So remember that initiative that totally bombed? Your brain may be using that experience to prevent you from other, more successful initiatives.

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Fear

Neuroscience has more to say on the topic of fear. The main thing to note is that when the fear system of the brain is active, exploratory activity and risk-taking are turned off. So when our brains anticipate loss, we tend to hold onto what we have. In simple terms, fear prompts retreat, which is the opposite of progress. And what do leaders need? Progress.

So how can leaders take all of these facts about change and fear in stride and make progress anyway? What do you do if your brain is constantly fighting change, yet you need to make changes in order to push your business to the next level? Here are three pre-emptive steps to take in order to initiate and become accustomed to change.

What Can You Do to Initiate Change?

1. Get out of the office

Stop going to your industry trade shows; see what other industries are doing instead. Don’t focus on current market segments – look at new ones.

2. Go exploring

Transform into an amateur anthropologist and spend a day in the life of your customer or non-customer. This helps you listen to real pain points and quickly come up with new solutions to persistent problems.

3. Build an innovative culture

It’s a big leap from thinking you are innovative to being innovative. Being innovative requires you to build a culture of innovation. How do you do that? By creating a methodology that encourages people to share ideas.

4. Experience the changes yourself that you’re asking your organization to understand

In “Neurosciences and Leadership,” David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz tell us: “When people solve a problem themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline.” This rush will inspire you to embrace and champion the change you are requesting of your teams.

Do you have any tips for instigating change in an organization? I’d love for my community to hear them. Please leave a comment below or find me on Twitter.