E H T SYSTEMS ® FEATURE THINKE R BUILDING SHARED UNDERSTANDING VOL. 21 NO. 7 SEPTEMBER 2010 CHANGING OUR SYSTEMS BY CHANGING OUR BRAINS: THE LEVERAGE IN MINDFULNESS BY ELAINE B. JOHNSON A ccording to recent findings in This article explains why mindful - and connect. Brain cells connect as a neuroscience, not only do sensory ness —being fully aware of the present result of our experiences. Daily life experiences and actions change the moment and regarding it with open - builds the brain, continuously, moment brain’s physical structure, but so does ness and curiosity—is the compelling by moment. We make our Selves. thinking. Concentrating on reasons to responsibility of all human beings. It For example, humans are born be grateful can rewire the brain to explains why all of us are by definition with the capacity to distinguish every incorporate an appreciative attitude. obligated to examine and develop our one of the sounds contained in the Imagining that you are playing a five- inner context —the Self that thinks well, 6,000 languages spoken on earth. Par - finger exercise on the piano can enlarge sees clearly, and decides intelligently. ticular neurons are genetically assigned the space in your brain devoted to Our survival as individuals, organiza - to receive particular sounds. The more manipulating the fingers. In these ways, tions, and a species depends upon it. an infant hears a single sound, such as our thoughtful response to the context “gr,” the more that “gr” is wired into a we inhabit at any moment has the Our Inner and Physical tiny cluster of neurons in the brain’s power to shape our personalities and Contexts auditory cortex. The cluster of neurons values as well as influence our actions. For the purposes of this discussion, I holding “gr” comes alive with electrical This discovery that thought alone use “context” in two ways. Strictly activity when—and only when—that changes the brain’s physical structure speaking, the word “context” means distinctive “gr” sound enters the child’s validates strategies that practitioners of “the situation that surrounds us, with ear and passes to the brain. Clusters of systems thinking and organizational its conditions.” I use it to designate neurons—circuits—in your brain hold learning have long appreciated. These inner context, the mental state inside all the sounds of the language you strategies—effective with everyone our heads that envelops us—such as speak. In this way, experience decides if from primary school children in the our ideas, tastes, attitudes, moral princi - Italian will make sense to you or sound Netherlands to employees in global ples, social rules, and worries. Used this like gibberish. corporations—include listening with - way, “context” is synonymous with Experience also wires the brain for out judging, speaking honestly, looking “Self” or “Mind.” music. During the first few years of life, a for interrelatedness, nurturing relation - I also use physical context to refer child’s brain can wire for any kind of ships, and asking fresh questions. Brain to the world surrounding us now. The music. Because in the United States chil - research suggests that such mental Self is always moving from past to dren hear Western music, by the age of awareness, attentiveness, and creative future in a physical space with its own five, their brains have formed circuits questioning can actually transform our conditions. We live among family, that hold Western musical sounds. Five- brains from rigid, automated respon - friends, teams, clubs, and neighbors. We year-old children know the customary ders to thoughtful, alert, searching, and occupy a workplace consisting of office chord progressions in Western music. open creators of Self and the world. furniture, equipment, tasks, deadlines, These examples from music and speech and colleagues who interact, apply demonstrate that use sculpts the brain. knowledge, make choices, interpret Because personal experience gen - events, and sometimes bring us coffee. erates the Self, therefore, one might In the workplace—or in any phys - well ask, “What experiences, what ical context—people, objects, and influences, made me the Self that I call events are woven together. Indeed, the ‘I’?” and “Will I, my Self, choose to TEAM TIP word “context” comes from the Latin rewire my brain by paying attention to “contexere,” meaning “to weave new contexts that offer new experi - By exercising mindfulness in the workplace, you and your team may together.” Woven together in our inner ences, or will I refuse?” experience less stress and be more context, our Self, are all those attributes Perhaps the most obvious influ - alert to new opportunities. we refer to with the pronoun “I.” The ence that shapes the human mind is Self, the Mind, emerges as brain cells culture, the context that envelops us (specifically, neurons) weave together from birth. Culture is, of course, a 2 Copyright © 2010 Pegasus Communications, Inc. ( www.pegasuscom.com ). All rights reserved. For permission to distribute copies of this article in any form, please contact us at [email protected] . social invention. This invention is com - Life,” people who hear of a discovery sonal experience is that the brain is a municated to us by our grandparents, that challenges their way of thinking social organ. It loves the company of parents, friends, teachers, colleagues, typically say immediately, automatically, other brains. Indeed, it demands the and others. These people form a social “It is not true. It is impossible.” Eventu - company of other brains. To survive and network that hands down rules of ally they may admit, “Well, perhaps it is flourish, it must belong . Belonging is so behavior. They give us opinions about possible.” Faced with irrefutable evi - important to the brain that it spends its education, political parties, right and dence, they concede, “Ah, it is true.” In downtime—when it is thinking of wrong, the war in Afghanistan, and off- time, they incorporate that new infor - nothing in particular—rehashing rela - shore drilling. They tell us what mation into their own “User’s Guide to tionships, asking, “Did I belong? Was I knowledge is worth learning. Culture Life,” saying, “I thought so all along.” If accepted? Did they like me?” wires circuits in our brains, and, mirac - it is a popular discovery, invention, idea, “Social to the core,” as Michael S. ulously, a Self emerges. or procedure, some might even claim, Gazzaniga put it in Human: The Science Culture encompasses more, of “I thought of it first.” Behind What Makes Us Unique, the course, than the social inventions of When culture produces results no brain also delights in gossip because people inhabiting a broad geographical one wants, people automatically dis - gossip makes it feel included. Men and region. The term also alludes to narrow tance themselves from those outcomes. women alike spend hours gossiping. contexts, such as universities, reading We treat unwanted results as if they Cell-phone conversations are rarely groups, and NASCAR races. Econom - had an independent existence of their about Tolstoy or astrophysics. They’re ics, for example, is an academic disci - own. For example, human beings have about personal matters. Women spend pline with its own culture. This degraded 21 percent of the topsoil in one-third of their conversation talking academic discipline’s culture does not the world’s arable land and have about themselves. “My friend gave me train economists to be ethicists who reduced 80 percent of humankind to roses.” “I really do want that facelift.” ask, “How can the economy be made poverty, and yet we automatically dis - “We meet every winter to ski.” Keenly to serve society?” Nor does the culture avow responsibility for these condi - interested in others, women spend of economics departments train econo - tions. We claim to be prisoners of two-thirds of their conversation talking mists to be historians disposed to ask, systems and powerless to alter them. about other people. “The last time I for instance, “Should the Federal We say we can do nothing. saw her, she looked upset.” Men also Reserve System, created in 1913 as an Not just when our “User’s Guide love to gossip. They call it “exchanging entity privately owned by the nation’s to Life” faces a daunting or unwanted information” or “networking,” but it’s leading banks, continue to exist in its context, but in any context—familiar still just gossip. Furthermore, men present form and continue to issue all or novel—we humans tend to run on spend two-thirds of their time talking U.S. currency, so that the federal gov - automatic pilot. In a meeting with col - about themselves: “I beat my own per - ernment must borrow money from the leagues, the Self automatically down - sonal best in that marathon.” “I con - Federal Reserve Bank to meet its loads a reaction: “Seen it before, know vinced the boss to use my design.” “I financial obligations?” it well.” Relying on customary think she likes me.” Rather than consult history, eco - thoughts, we make customary judg - Belonging is so important that not nomics departments focus on designing ments. As Ellen Langer, a Harvard psy - belonging generates actual pain. When theories, abstract models divorced from chologist, points out, instantly we we do not belong—when we feel ethical and historical contexts. Their interpret events, hastily we decide what rejected, ignored, mocked, or repri - models deal with describing, analyzing, they mean, immediately we judge and manded—we experience the same hurt and preserving the current economy, reach conclusions about what is going that physical pain causes. Two brain which, for better or worse, depends on on around us. We defer to authority, regions respond to physical pain. The market activity leading to continuous continue the same old practices, and same two regions also respond to social growth.