While interesting I urge everyone to treat reports of neuroimaging studies here as anecdotes rather than data. This article seems to meander between generally accepted statements about brain networks, standard management 'self-help' stuff and inferences that the research couldn't possibly have supported [1].<p>[1] An example is <i>"... different areas of the brain were dominant — those involved in social and emotional thinking. And the more adept strategic thinkers in the group displayed much higher levels of activity in these areas"</i> -- What does dominant mean? How did they identify the adept strategic thinkers? It's then followed by <i>"The potential conclusion is that people who are good at strategy are better at sensing or feeling their way through strategies, rather than relying only on logic and being rational …"</i> -- Which is laughable and insupportable by the earlier statement.<p>NB: I did neuroimaging studies for my PhD and it's a tool like any other. It can be wielded skilfully and with care (leading to amazing advances) or be completely abused (leading to quackery). Without going through the experimental design it's difficult to ascertain whether the researchers were <i>actually</i> measuring what they <i>thought</i> they were measuring. In addition to this, I've noticed that academics sometimes make claims in press-releases/news that are not supported by the actual research and not even mentioned in the peer-reviewed work.
Sometimes I feel like I'm on a different planet to readers of publications like the WSJ:<p><pre><code> "we all "know" that tight deadlines lead to inspiration"</code></pre>
Do we? I've never thought that. It's always seemed straight forward that stress and reduction in avenues of potential exploration lead to less creativity, and the few moments of stress driven "eureka" lead to strong confirmation bias in the wrong direction. If this is apparently not the view of most management/executive types, no wonder business/corporate culture looks the way it currently does!
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Everybody is aware of the classic—and revered—image of the hardheaded decision maker, who cuts through nonessentials and goes after cold facts. But researchers are finding the truth is much more complex: The best leaders seem to lean on their emotions much more than logic.
"<p>Did anybody read Kahnemann: Thinking fast and Slow?<p>Kahnemann shows how easy it is to trick our emotions and opts for cool reasoning and statical thinking. He proves that this leads to better decisions compared to allowing emotions to help in decision making. This is especially true in pressure situations. He won the Nobel Prize for this research.<p>That said, the key topic of the article (stress and deadlines lead to bad decisions) chimes in fine with Kahnemanns results.
Emotions may help talking with the team, but certainly not with making the best decisions.
End of the day, leaders make many decisions based on intuition. Facts guide that intuition, but running a company, team or other organization is more of an art than a science. This is obvious to anyone who has ever worked anywhere.<p>Can you train people to be more intuitive and clueful? The answer is of course yes.
This is far too charitable. I was expecting an exposition on the numerous findings that power makes otherwise intelligent people quick to make rash judgments, unempathetic, and generally stupid. (This is not to cheer for the powerless. Power relationships are negative-sum and have bad effects on both sides.) That's far more truthful than the executive cheerleading (and, more relevantly, executive <i>wannabe</i> cheerleading) in the WSJ.<p>I tend to agree that there's value in having subjective motivations, that can come from "instinct" (an overused and misused term in business) or emotion. Wanting to help other people is a noble and subjective goal. On the other hand, not paying attention to your data is like driving a car while blinded, on "instinct". It's a bad idea, because not seeing an obstacle doesn't mean it's not there.