The Neuroscience of Learning

Professional development is often a challenging topic for executives. People may attend courses, hold degrees, then the company invests resources to train the employees but still, there is no guarantee employees will be competent. So where is the problem?

In a workplace, usually team leaders train new team members. However team leaders are not professional trainers and there is no bridge between reality and theory. Moreover they do their best to share their knowledge within the company but it’s up to each individual whether to adopt it or not. And this is where the problem lies, in adoption.

David Rock who came up with neuroleadership, in 2009 stated that the behavior of individuals in the work environment is mainly based on minimizing threat and maximizing reward. So when executives know the brain processes involved in reward, they can possibly enhance employees’ performance.

Better yet, we can learn these models to help out ourselves to become conscious and intentional learners! To do all this magic, we use the models SCARF and AGES. Let’s elaborate:

For effective learning, functions such as Attention, Generation, Emotions and Space need to be considered for information coding and retrieval and the part of the brain responsible is called the hippocampus. The AGES model argues that:

- For the effective activation of the hippocampus, the individual should give their full attention to the training material.

- However, full attention requires the secretion of dopamine and norepinephrine which are involved in the emotion of novelty and reward.

- Therefore, in addition to having an interesting educational material, simulations should stimulate the individuals’ interest regarding the role they assume within a group.

- Moreover, visual images and storytelling activate the hippocampus and mirror neurons, resulting in increased attention, mental representation, coding and perception of individuals about information.

So we should look for training material meeting the above criteria. Material allowing us to focus our attention, giving us the opportunity to tie the new information to our personal role (i.e. generation), enabling us to enjoy and evoke emotion through gamification or novel learning activities, and offering us time (i.e. space) to assimilate all the new skills and knowledge.

Let’s dive deeper in the SCARF model:

S → Status concerns an individual’s social standing

People approach things that improve status and void things that threaten it.

C → Certainty is about our ability to make predictions about the future

Uncertainty means you slow down or disengage. In contrast with a situation where you know what to do and a motivating reward is certain.

A → Autonomy is about the power to exercise control over your environment

When you have autonomy, you can take action. Unlike being micromanaged opposing autonomy.

R → Relatedness has to do with feeling connected to other people

Relatedness is about empathy. The more you empathize with someone, the more you are motivated to help them, because helping them is like helping yourself.

F → Fairness is about the human hardwired desire for it.

Fair exchanges are intrinsically rewarding. When it comes to day-to-day interactions, maintaining the perception of fairness is important when it comes to motivating people.

The idea is to use this model to design interactions to minimize threats and maximize rewards in each of these 5 domains to motivate people more effectively.

Many people are well motivated to learn. Their strong motivation is underpinned by a drive to acquire new skills in relation to their job, and that in turn, will boost their confidence and value regarding their self-worth and the labor market. In simple terms, the prospect of promotion is a huge motive, as they will get a better income, better working and living conditions and higher status.

Enabling ourselves or our team members to learn in a fun and meaningful way by highlighting status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness is the key! Now you know how this works so make it a great learning day!