The New Brain for Business Institute Diane Marentette and Richard Trafton, Ph.D.

If you’re like me, you are probably in the middle of some change effort right now, either business or personal. If you are like most people, you also have quite a history of change efforts.

Who hasn’t? What business hasn’t? To steal from Dr. Phil, “How’d that work out for you?”

Every business, every business leader, and indeed, just about every person has some stories where the answer to that question is, “not so good!” One of the major reasons things turn out this way is that we just can’t pay enough attention. I mean it. We can’t. As in, we cannot! It’s just not possible to pay enough attention to make change easy or a sure thing.

We can’t pay enough attention because we have this wonderful little “autopilot” in our brain. OK, it really isn’t a real autopilot. It is a fantastic ability to process information “off-line”, outside of our conscious awareness.

Here is the good news. It is this ability to carry on mental activity in the background, outside of our awareness, that has allowed us to move to the top of the food chain. Just about all animals have some of this capacity. But, humans leave all the other animals in the dust when it comes to background processing.

The way this works is that we have a relatively small area of our brain where we consciously attend to things. To give you an idea of small, think of a 2.5 pound brain. Then imagine a portion of that brain about the size of your thumb. That thumb-sized area is where all conscious attention takes place. This should give you an idea of the proportion of our mental activity that operates in our conscious awareness - and outside of it.

When we are consciously thinking about something, planning for something, and focusing our attention on something, this is where it takes place. As humans evolved, we developed lots of amazing adaptive capacities. Most of them now operate while we are not paying attention. We learned whatever it is we are currently doing by intentionally focusing on it in the past. Once we are proficient, the process moves from this attention-focusing part of our brain to other parts that are adapted to carry out the task once it is learned.

Research in this area suggests that over the course of a day, between 90-95% of all we do happens without our conscious intention. This is quite small compared to our expectations for being in full control of ourselves.

So, as you are reading this article, do you have to intentionally move your eyes across the page?
Do you have to focus your attention on the mouse and your finger to scroll down?
Do you have to think about what each word means while you read?

Probably not. And that is a good thing. It means we can carry on most of our lives without wasting our attention on things that we have already “automated,” focusing our attention instead on things that are really important.

This is a huge evolutionary advantage. The capabilities of the human brain are truly astounding. Yet, we can still focus on only one thing at a time.

And that, of course, is the bad news. We can only focus on one thing at a time.

We have very limited attention resources. That is, when we have to pay close attention for extended periods of time, we get fatigued. Air traffic controllers have figured this out. They don’t work through an eight-hour shift. They just can’t pay attention that long. There is a really good reason that we don’t have six-hour piano lessons.

So, for most of us, we have a limited pool of attention resources. We choose where we want to use them, say on a strategic plan, or decision about a vacation destination. The rest of the stuff we leave to our “autopilot.” And, most of the time, that works okay for us.

It works okay until, that is, we want to change something we have done for a long time, something that has been “automated.” Unlike a real autopilot, we just can’t turn a dial and change the heading. Instead, there is “re-learning” or “un-learning” involved. Most of the time, we are not inserting new behaviors into blank space. More often, we are displacing existing behavior, behavior that has been “automated.”

Most of you know what this feels like. We concentrate like the dickens and finally get ourselves to use more positive words with our teammates, for example. But, as soon as we get distracted (or tired, or excited, or angry) we slip immediately into “autopilot” mode and use the same critical, harsh language we are trying to leave behind.

At this point, we berate ourselves and redouble the strength of our intention to do things differently. We make a clear public commitment to being more positive and promise to do our very best next time. And, of course, we mean every word of it. We really are going to try. Hard. Really, really hard.

The problem does not reside in our intentions. The challenge we must overcome, if we are to behave in new ways, is to create new “automated” behaviors. If you haven’t figured it out already, this is not easy to do. It requires intention. It requires attention. The very thing that is in short supply. Alas, what shall we do?

Start by forgiving yourself for being human. There is no need to question your character or the quality of your intentions, or your commitment to being a good person. You really can’t pay enough attention to change as quickly or effectively as you’d like. After accepting your humanity and the limitations it imposes on us, you can move forward.

Since you can only pay attention for short periods, craft your learning objectives into chunks that fit that limited attention pool. As a general rule, if you have set a learning or change objective and failed, you set the bar too high. You demanded more attention than you had available.

Crafting an effective change effort is rather like eating an elephant - one bite at a time. Most of our aspirations outstrip the very limited capacity we have for paying attention; for pulling things out of the “automatic queue” and intentionally working on them.

Break the path of change or learning into manageable chunks that fit our limited attention and intention resources. After all, it is who we are.

By Diane Marentette and Richard Trafton, Ph.D., authors of “A New Brain for Business” and founders of The New Brain for Business Institute, www.newbrainforbusiness.com, where they translate good science into good business.