May 7, 2008

• an interesting article from the NYTIMES...May 4th

  
  Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
  
  

  

  writePost(); new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html

  
  

  By JANET RAE-DUPREE

  Published: May 4, 2008

  HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for
  them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the
  unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules
  the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In
  the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a
  negative connotation.

  So it seems antithetical to talk
  about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But
  brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new
  habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain
  cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

  Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of
  habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing
  new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step
  outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both
  in the workplace and in our personal lives.

  But don’t bother
  trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn
  into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we
  deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can
  bypass those old roads.

  “The first thing needed for innovation is
  a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open
  Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking
  Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president
  calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to
  kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is
  always exploring the many other possibilities.”

  All of us work
  through problems in ways of which we’re unaware, she says. Researchers
  in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to
  approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally,
  relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. At puberty,
  however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only
  those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first
  decade or so of life.

  The current emphasis on standardized
  testing highlights analysis and procedure, meaning that few of us
  inherently use our innovative and collaborative modes of thought. “This
  breaks the major rule in the American belief system — that anyone can
  do anything,” explains M. J. Ryan, author of the 2006 book “This Year I
  Will...” and Ms. Markova’s business partner. “That’s a lie that we have
  perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity. Knowing what you’re good at and
  doing even more of it creates excellence.”

  This is where
  developing new habits comes in. If you’re an analytical or procedural
  thinker, you learn in different ways than someone who is inherently
  innovative or collaborative. Figure out what has worked for you when
  you’ve learned in the past, and you can draw your own map for
  developing additional skills and behaviors for the future.

  “I
  apprentice myself to someone when I want to learn something new or
  develop a new habit,” Ms. Ryan says. “Other people read a book about it
  or take a course. If you have a pathway to learning, use it because
  that’s going to be easier than creating an entirely new pathway in your
  brain.”

  Ms. Ryan and Ms. Markova have found what they call three
  zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm
  of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond
  current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the
  middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true
  change occurs.

  “Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,”
  Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain
  healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things,
  which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally
  begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s
  and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even
  help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked
  folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio
  station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No
  one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines
  makes us more aware in general.”

  She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.

  “Whenever
  we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our
  emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big
  enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from
  what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight
  or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have
  access to our creativity and playfulness.”

  Simultaneously, take a
  look at how colleagues approach challenges, Ms. Markova suggests. We
  tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than
  those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for
  executives who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and
  promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are
  strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.

  “Try lacing
  your hands together,” Ms. Markova says. “You habitually do it one way.
  Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t
  it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old
  with the new.”

  AFTER the churn of confusion, she says, the
  brain begins organizing the new input, ultimately creating new synaptic
  connections if the process is repeated enough.

  But if, during
  creation of that new habit, the “Great Decider” steps in to protest
  against taking the unfamiliar path, “you get convergence and we keep
  doing the same thing over and over again,” she says.

  “You cannot
  have innovation,” she adds, “unless you are willing and able to move
  through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”

  Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley.

  • 11:49 pm
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