Make Different Safe

Every day is a chance to be starting DIFFERENT personally as a business and with your team.  You can align your promise with your team’s behaviors using proven tools – the tools of engagement–  by using the brains own shortcuts.

The brain pays attention to anything different, it’s a shortcut to survival.  If you understand the brains shortcuts, you can make decision-making and engagement easier and faster  … on the other hand, if you ignore these shortcuts, you can actually make it harder for people to engage with you.

The brain is predictable.  And the brain likes predictable.  The first goal, ALPHA is always to stay alive.  And the second goal is to save – not USE – energy  Cognitive cost refers to the amount of energy we spend to make a decision, the more energy is used, the more costly a decision.  So, efficient decision-making can be the difference between life and death.

For that reason, the brain is constantly scanning the environment for difference  – symbolised by the Greek letter Delta – because change can put us at risk. In simple terms… Difference can mean danger…  danger triggers decisions –   the easiest decision often can be to do nothing… to FREEZE –  fight flight freeze and forget are all decision-options based on stimuli we see in the environment.

Take the shortcut.  When you are engaging with anyone, ask yourself:  “In what way is this different? This proposal, this request …What is the Delta?   How can I help to frame that difference so it is seen as safe and not dangerous… so as to help myself and others engage and choose a better decision than fight, flight, freeze or forget.

Now if we can take these tips and put them into specific models to help us remember them, and build frameworks around them, we are far more likely to generate the habits we want and to reinforce the behaviors that make us who we want to be.