{"id":37233,"date":"2024-04-04T19:19:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T02:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37233"},"modified":"2024-04-04T21:30:59","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T04:30:59","slug":"weight-and-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/weight-and-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Weight and Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember being the last person seated and taking my seat at the back of the plane. Exhausted from the conference, I quickly buckled in, began to rest my head against the window, and fell asleep before takeoff. In the midst of my sleep, the flight attendant woke me up and said, I’m sorry, sir, we are going to have to ask you to come off this flight. Defenses raised I defiantly oppose and ask her why? The flight attendant proceeded to tell me we are on a regional jet and this flight is overweight so I have to deplane due to weight and balance and since I was the last to board, I must to be the first to deplane. As I went back to the gate the agent sensing my frustration said it’s nothing personal but our planes can only handle so much.<\/em><\/p>\n

Weight and Balance is the predominant theme that runs through David Rock\u2019s book, Your Brain At Work\u201c. The premise of the book is to understand how our brain functions. The book claims to make leaders, employees, and people more effective at work by understanding cognitive disciplines. His book is structured in a play-like format based on four key parts, which Rock refers to as acts, with the first two acts centering on our brain and the way it functions.<\/p>\n

The second two acts focus on interacting with other people\u2019s brains. One of the compelling realities Rock touts is the biological limits to mental performance. This is tied to the prefrontal cortex which is the layer of the brain that allows us to make decisions and solve problems. The prefrontal cortex chews up our metabolic food like glucose and oxygen. When we use them up we don\u2019t have much for the next activity. As I think about the many instances where I am feeling lethargic or exhausted after engaging in one meeting, session, or conversation, it now makes perfect sense. I can think back to our Oxford intensive and Martin Percy\u2019s lecture. Sitting in anticipation of this master educator and hearing his perspective on Christ and the church was both edifying and riveting. At the conclusion of his didactic dump, I just had to sit in my seat for a minute, take a few breaths and unpack. Why?? Because Martin Percy violated my prefrontal cortex!<\/p>\n

The second half of the book deals with how to interact with other people\u2019s brains. This touches on Threshold Concepts of sorts. We often think we know how to release someone\u2019s brain, we have sayings such back calm down or try not to think about it, but Rock puts forth several fundamental truths worth following. He addresses this in his five scenes of collaborating with others:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Turning Enemies into Friends
\n\u2022 When Everything Seems Unfair
\n\u2022 The Battle for Status
\n\u2022 When Other People lose the Plot
\n\u2022 The Culture that Needs to Transform<\/p>\n

What resonates with me is the false propensities and methodologies we engage in as leaders with the end game of changing a person\u2019s mind. Leaders are tasked with the ultimate responsibility of leading but many fall short, expending failing energy trying to change people. However, It is widely proven you cannot change a person until they are willing to change their mind. Changing one\u2019s mind will not come the conventional route, Rock believes creating a change is by creating a safe space, allowing people to have insight to think for themselves. \u201cWhile the easy answer may seem to give people feedback, real change happens when people see things they have never seen before. \u201c[1]\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When a person is allowed to think and articulate for themselves, this creates a sense of safety helping to put the mind at ease and goals can be accomplished. As the mind has goals of its own the leader must skillfully navigate between the successful balance of an individual’s goals and the goals of a leader\/ organization. \u201c\u2026until people\u2019s minds are at ease, focusing their attention on your goals is an uphill battle.\u201c[2]\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This book parallels to Simon Walker\u2019s Undefended Leader as front and back stages are reintroduced. The basil ganglia is the part of the brain that stores routine functions. Rock suggests patterned thinking to create space to make our brains more effective. \u201cThe more you use a pattern, the less attention you will need to pay doing the task and the more you\u2019ll be able to do at one time.\u201d[3]\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As he makes his case for how the human species has limited brain capacity and the need to pay attention is somewhat synonymous with Daniel Kahneman\u2019s Thinking Fast Thinking Slow<\/em> book where he introduces system 2 thinking as a means of slowing down.<\/p>\n

Your Brain at Work<\/em> gives us a better understanding of our mental makeup with practical assistance. I must admit my initial reaction was here is another uppity scholarly brain book with some low-hanging self-help fruit. However, after reading and digesting this, It quickly moved me from low-hanging fruit to good-quality meat! At times while reading this, it felt like I was back in church similar to when the pastor is preaching and it is one of those sermons where you felt like the pastor was in your house, talking directly to you all while stepping on your toes and convicting you in the same message.<\/p>\n

Secondly, it gives a deeper insight with a behind the curtain view of audiences and their capacity to receive. The conflict for me arises as Rock asserts the brain can only focus on one thing at a time. I, like many are forced daily to juggle multiple thoughts, tasks and assignments which fall into my lap, and the tension arises with the understanding limited cognitive capacity breeds the potential threat for dropping the ball and ineffectiveness.<\/p>\n

While Rocks blueprint is both credible and reasonable my thought is how realistic is one at a time when life keeps life-ing?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] David Rock,\u00a0Your Brain at Work; Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.<\/em>\u00a0(New York: Harper Business, 2020),\u00a0 220.<\/p>\n

[2] Rock, 229.<\/p>\n

[3] Rock, 40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember being the last person seated and taking my seat at the back of the plane. Exhausted from the conference, I quickly buckled in, began to rest my head against the window, and fell asleep before takeoff. In the midst of my sleep, the flight attendant woke me up and said, I’m sorry, sir, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3163],"class_list":["post-37233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlpg03-rock","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37238,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37233\/revisions\/37238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}