Leaders are faced with the ever-increasing pressure, not only to perform personally, but also to create highly effective and cohesive teams that give them an edge on their competitors.
Even 10 years ago, it seemed fair and reasonable that when given a clear brief, defined resources and a stable environment a team would ‘form, storm, norm and perform’ its way to success (over weeks or months, if not years). For many, that luxury no longer exists. Even where a team’s composition stays fairly stable, most teams are faced with multiple, often unpredictable and at times competing change initiatives (both externally and internally). More teams are coming together across locations and timezones to work in decentralised, virtual teams. It’s clearer than ever that we need a science for building teams and, more importantly, teaching teams to build themselves.
At Neuro, we believe the answer is to focus on equipping leaders and their staff with the skills to build responsive teams. A responsive team is one that adapts, no matter what the world (a.k.a your new company strategy, market competitor, restructure, merger or crisis) throws at it. Like biological systems, responsive teams lean into challenge, strengthen relationships and come out the other side stronger and with a renewed sense of accomplishment and purpose. Sounds too good to be true, right?
Social neuroscience can help set the foundation for more responsive, adaptive teams
Social neuroscience is the overnight success that’s taken generations to build. Somehow, in the last 5 years of mayhem, perhaps in the darkest pandemic days, we’ve all stumbled across dopamine and serotonin. Some of the hardest-edged humans found themselves missing colleagues they disliked, and in the process discovered the importance of connection, community and shared humanity. In our tricky times, the science of what makes us human (social neuroscience) was ready to share insights patiently established through countless hours in MRI, EEG and behavioural labs. All of a sudden, we all came to understand that the world of work is… has to be… fundamentally human.
At Neuro, we couldn’t be happier with this trend. By working with neuroscientists, psychologists and leading teams (at the University of California, University of Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Queensland), we’ve spent the last 20 years exploring the drivers of sustainable human performance and the enablers of human-human collaboration. We’re passionate about ‘re-humanising work’ and bringing out the best in people, so we’ve been digging beneath the surface on what makes for a responsive team and what work you need to do to get there.
The good news? After analysing many diverse frameworks and methods, hundreds of papers and diving deep into the science of human interactions, some consistent human needs emerge. And when you look through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience, it’s easy to see how these needs enable more effective team performance in the face of uncertainty and change.
What’s the secret in a nutshell?
Rather than focusing on control and process, leaders can focus on the needs and motivations that sit behind human behaviour. Meet these needs (in a meeting, a change process, a difficult conversation) and the speed and quality of discussion and collaboration goes up.
Equip your team(s) to nurture these needs in their work with each other, and responsive, collaborative teamwork emerges — whether the leader is there or not.
One of our proudest moments has been working with a market-leading insurance company to embed this methodology to support their organisation through substantial change.
The story of that company’s journey is familiar enough:
Major restructure and role changes (including some downsizing)
Over 150 specific initiatives focused on efficiency, to be delivered by various groups across the organisation
A Board-mandated target to increase employee engagement
Our brief was clear but challenging — work with us to build the skills that will empower the organisation to do more, with less, in a way that our people find meaningful and rewarding.
Over six months we trained leaders, developed custom tools and developed internal champions who could coach teams to meet the social brain’s needs. The result: an average +23 point bump in employee net promoter scores (eNPS) after working with a team, and an overall lift in eNPS across the business from – 60 to +40, even as teams grappled with challenging objectives, regular change, and an uncertain future.
From science theory to real-world application: Understanding and engaging the social brain’s six needs to drive better team performance
These six needs of a high performance team, which we remember with the acronym ‘RELISH’, help explain some of the predictable challenges and opportunities in how teams work together. RELISH provides a new lens through which leaders can view the complexity and intricacies of human behaviour. It helps clarify the core elements of human motivation and offer a comprehensive approach for leaders to understand themselves and others in the team environment.
RELISH introduces the specific areas leaders need to focus when building a team for sustainable performance:
Relatedness
Expression
Leading the Pack
Interpersonal Connection
Seeing the Facts
Hope for the Future
The RELISH method explained
1. Relatedness:
The brain needs to be part of a group that is cohesive, fair and safe and obsesses about the risk of not ‘fitting in’.
From our earliest ancestors humans have evolved to be part of groups, not only to satisfy needs for interaction and companionship but, most importantly, in order to ensure physical survival. The ones who survived were those who could work together to hunt and gather, warn each other about dangers and maintain knowledge by learning from each other. The infants that instinctively stayed in the middle of the group were safer than those that went wandering.
It is not surprising that neuroscientists have discovered our brains are hard-wired to keep us within social groups and are wired to raise the alarm at the mere possibility of social exclusion. Compelling studies by Professor Matthew Lieberman at UCLA have revealed that experiences of social exclusion activate the same regions within the brain that are activated when a person experiences physical pain, with the alarm signals just as strong. The brain’s interpretation of social exclusion therefore mirrors its interpretation of physical danger.
For leaders looking to build a high performance team their first task is to make sure that each member of the team feels secure in the value they add to the group. This isn’t about being liked, it’s about being respected and valued for the contribution a person makes to the group. When team members don’t feel safe or are unclear on how they add value, they may resort to playing politics in order to maintain their position in the group. These divisive strategies can destroy group cohesion and dramatically reduce the team’s performance.
Need
To feel a sense of safety and belonging within the group.
Function
The primary social function of Relatedness is to ensure safety by maintaining an individual's position within a group. The need for Relatedness promotes the learning of, and compliance with, specific roles and understood social rules. It recruits the brain's ability to acquire and automate behaviour and patterns of thinking (i.e. culture) so that the individual will be accepted within the group.
Enabling sustainable performance
When Relatedness is healthy, team members are loyal and committed to the team. Adapting to change is understood as part of the team's purpose and function, and the team leans into challenges together.
2. Expression
The brain needs to express emotions if it is to function properly.
When we become emotional, whether it is a positive or negative emotion, our bodies become flooded with neurochemicals that change our breathing, heart rate and muscle responses. In the brain, these neurochemicals affect what we can remember, how we perceive the outside world and how we process information. In times like these it is all too easy to find yourself carried away by instinctive emotional responses because our emotions prepare our bodies to run when we are afraid, fight when we are angry and rest and heal when we are relaxed. Although strong emotional reactions were critical to the survival of our ancestors, they create a lot of conflict and can often be disruptive. Workplaces often expect employees to try to eliminate, suppress or ignore their emotional responses. This is exactly the wrong approach to achieving high performance teamwork.
Other UCLA studies show that being asked to control our emotional responses (called 'masking') can dramatically reduce performance on even simple cognitive and physical tasks. When we ask our teams to 'control their emotions' at work, we force them to use parts of their frontal lobes (the 'higher thinking' part of the brain) to keep the brain's emotional system quiet, but this reduces the brain capacity available for any complex thinking. So what's the alternative? Lieberman's studies have shown that the best way to manage emotional reactivity is, in fact, to become aware of them and to find the right word to describe an emotion. This approach (called 'labelling') leads to big decreases in activity in the amygdala (the brain's 'danger detector'), meaning we get over things faster.
To build effective teams, leaders need to understand that emotional responses are an inevitable part of working in teams. If team members are emotionally triggered by each other or by external inputs but are unable to express this within the group in a constructive way, their agility, creativity and overall mental capacity for completing complex tasks will diminish. As a leader, creating a culture that enables your team to identify and label their emotions appropriately can liberate a surprising amount of enthusiasm and creativity that will then fuel your team's performance.
Need
To have the freedom to express emotion constructively when it arises.
Function
The primary social function of Expression is to draw us towards rewarding, pleasant outcomes and away from negative or painful outcomes. It promotes survival through a diverse range of internal states that drive rapid behaviour in response to changing external circumstances. Once our emotional insights are shared with the group through Expression, the brain can get on with more valuable tasks at hand.
Enabling sustainable performance
When expression is healthy, team members are able to express themselves constructively and quickly generate innovative and thoughtful responses to immediate problems. The emotional strain of change can be expressed quickly and resolved effectively. The team finds ways to enjoy and 'play' in the face of uncertainty or new challenges.
3. Leading the Pack
The brain needs status to feel as though we are achieving.
It's taken a while, but we now know for sure that your grandmother was right: money can't buy happiness. In fact, studies of hundreds of participants across many cultures show that once our basic needs have been met, the relationship between money and happiness is astonishingly small. And more importantly for teams with high performance demands, multiple studies have shown that monetary incentives can actively inhibit the brain's ability to respond adaptively to solve problems.
So how can leaders find ways to motivate their teams to brilliant performance? Research conducted by people such as Dr Caroline Zink and further highlighted by authors such as Daniel Pink, show that status, recognition and independence are key drivers of motivation and performance and in most cases have a greater long-term effect than money. In a team environment, we all have a need to be personally successful and to be recognised.
Recognition for a 'job well done' triggers the release of dopamine (the neurochemical responsible for creating positive emotions like satisfaction and pride), while having a high status within social groups leads to the release of serotonin, which boosts positive moods and physical resilience.
To drive high performance, leaders must align individual aspirations and motivation with the team's goals and have the ability to redirect individual competitiveness towards shared competitive advantage.
Need
To set and achieve goals that allow for personal and group success.
Function
The primary social function of Leading the Pack is to allow individuals to pursue individual goals, either within the constraints of their social network or by competing to change their position within the network structure. It promotes survival by enabling individuals to focus on personal goals even when that involves competition with other members of the group. Fulfilling this need activates parts of the brain called the striatum involved in reward, motivation and drive.
Enabling sustainable performance
When Leading the Pack is healthy, team members are highly motivated and put in significant discretionary effort. The team knows how to turn a 'big challenge' into achievable goals that build momentum. The team celebrates success (big and small) to keep motivation and energy high.
4. Interpersonal Connection
The brain needs to feel connected with, and genuinely understood by others.
If one person was to watch another person hit their finger with a hammer, something amazing happens in the onlooker's brain. European neuroscientists, Dr Peter Their and Dr Giacomo Rizzolatti, discovered that the same regions light up in the brain of the person watching as in the brain of the person who is actually hit by the hammer. This is because the brain's mirror neuron system is dedicated to helping us interpret and understand others. This system helps us feel what other people feel and is intrinsically linked to the positive relationships we form with others. It allows us to empathise and understand others, to feel what they feel, and put ourselves in others' shoes.
When we feel empathetic towards someone, the brain triggers the release of the neurochemical oxytocin which fosters love and forgiveness and strengthens the bond between people. Oxytocin is particularly evident in new mothers when they are forming an attachment with their child. It is also crucial in day-to-day work life for establishing strong interpersonal connections between people and amongst teams.
In order to create a high performance team, leaders must create a sense of empathy and dare we say it… even love… within their teams through facilitating processes whereby team members really get to know each other's strengths. This involves learning what people are passionate about doing and where they shine the most, which is the essence of embracing diversity. Diverse teams are not always easier to manage but they make better decisions and create better solutions.
Need
To feel understood, supported and connected to others on a personal level.
Function
The primary social function of Interpersonal Connection is to foster understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others and promote altruistic behaviour based on positive emotion. It promotes survival by enabling cooperation and mutual support with others in the group through close personal relationships.
Enabling sustainable performance
When Interpersonal Connection is healthy, team members have empathy for each other and a clear understanding of the strengths of other people in the team. The team becomes cohesive, appreciates the value of collaboration and invests in building genuine understanding of each other's perspectives. The deep regard for each other means the team is willing to forgive small friction points and misunderstandings, enabling faster, more effective collaboration.
5. Seeing the Facts
The brain loves feedback and seeing progress.
The brain is a complex self-regulating machine that adapts constantly to external feedback. The primary source of this feedback is through the eyes and large regions of the brain associated with visual processing. Often we need to 'see it to believe it' and the brain is always looking for continuous feedback. It is very important for human motivation to be able to see continuous improvement in our situation whether this means achieving more, learning more or making more of a difference. Motivation quickly diminishes when we can't clearly see the progress we are making.
Leaders must become skilled at being able to simply and accurately measure and track the performance of their team and the people within it. Leaders need to spend time developing their ability to provide constructive feedback that assists and encourages a person's development.
Need
To have the information needed to assess how progress is being made towards goals; to have the resources available to cope with current and anticipated demands.
Function
The primary function of Seeing the Facts is to perceive, interpret and recall relevant explicit information and patterns of data that can help an individual achieve their goals. It promotes survival by allowing individuals to perceive the reality of their situation.
Enabling sustainable performance
Team members have a clear understanding of how the team is progressing and so can adapt and change their approach to achieve their desired objectives. The team regularly identifies the right measures and metrics to track its own performance. Fuelled by curiosity, the team uses a 'love of learning' to make sure it has the right information and skills at the right time to deliver results.
6. Hope for the Future
The brain needs hope for the future in order to be able to move forward.
The brain is an anticipation machine – constantly projecting into the future consequences of staying on its current path. Importantly, our level of hope is directly linked to our sense of whether our current path will lead to a positive future. Vision is the end result of a current trajectory.
We call vision a lag indicator rather than a lead indicator. If, as a leader, you have been able to effectively implement the previous five steps then your team will naturally be more optimistic and hopeful about their future and being a part of your team. In order for a team to have vision for the future, leaders must effectively implement the previous five steps and show their team that by continuing along their current trajectory, a positive future state exists.
Need
A sense of positive anticipation for the future.
Function
The primary function of Hope for the Future is to anticipate the future so that the brain can 'download' new ideas, paradigms or concepts if there are fundamental changes in the world ahead that require a new map of understanding. Hope for the Future promotes survival by allowing individuals to adapt to major changes in their external environment that require completely new approaches.
Enabling sustainable performance
Team members have a sense of the team's current trajectory and are optimistic about future opportunities and challenges. The team keeps an eye on wider trends impacting the team and can optimise its respond to new challenges mindful of the bigger context.
'RELISH'-ing collaboration for adaptive teams
In our experience, when these six needs are met in teams, the results are exceptional.
We have found in our work with CEOs, leadership teams, senior executives and senior partners of many of the largest firms that getting the balance right between individual and team performance can move from an unsolvable tension to a win-win once you work with the brain mind.
If there's one thing we all know, it's that the business of your company is going to keep changing, which means the skills you need for your people are changing. In the face of uncertainty, the answer is to focus more on humans, not less.
While exponential technologies (artificial intelligence, robotics, the ever-falling prices of memory and sensors driving the rise of 'smart-TVs', 'smart'-fridges, 'smart' cars – even 'smart' blankets) keep us busy changing our business models and mechanics, using RELISH to build more human-centred relationships pays off in the emergence of adaptive, resourceful teams that keep rising to meet their challenges.