Leading Irrational Humans
This short 3-minute excerpt from my intentional leadership presentation explains the importance of understanding that humans are inherently irrational. That we must be aware that we are leading irrational humans.
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The text of Leading Irrational Humans
Humans use different parts of our brain depending on how much energy we have. how we feel. The brain is the most intensive energy exhaustive organ in our bodies. It uses an amazing amount of energy and because of that, we try to conserve energy with it. We don’t use it to its full capacity all the time and a study that illustrates that took place in Israel with Israeli parole judges.
in that study, it found that when an Israeli parole judge just starts working in the morning or comes back from their lunch break or even a bathroom break, if they’ve have more energy they approve 65% of the parole applications that are in front of them. Two hours later it goes to zero.
They approve 35% on average but it goes to zero. So it’s not how well you’ve acted or how much you deserve parole. It’s where do you fall on the pile. So if your name starts with a Z you’re not getting parole.
You all have done this. Let me give you the example of where we do things like this. When we’re driving today. When we’re driving. If we’ve driven for five years, you’ve experienced this. Have you ever been there? Like I’m a couple exits away from my exit. I have no idea how I got here. I don’t remember passing exit three or four but here’s exit seven and I’m getting off at exit eight. You start paying attention you started using that same part of the brain that approves 65%.
The part of the brain that can concentrate and really start thinking about things and stopped using the part of the brain that is just am I in danger? Is there a car too close to me? The real ancient part of the brain uses muscle memory driving now and all you’re looking for the signals that say I am gonna die and then you wake up and bring up the other part of the brain.
Now when every one of us was driving the first time behind the wheel we didn’t use that part of the brain I guarantee you that when you started driving, f a car was coming in the other lane on a two-way Highway you were freaking out. You were saying is it too close to me? You moved over to the right. Every parked car you noticed that you used the other part of the brain. You could not afford to conserve energy.
There’s a reason why this is important. There’s a reason why this is important to you as a leader because we need to understand the people that we lead don’t always use the most rational part of their brain.
