This conversation originally aired December 6, 2022.

Dr. Michael Platt is a Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds joint appointments at the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Wharton School. He is the founder of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative and the author of The Leader's Brain.

Preston and Michael work through the neuroscience underneath three questions: Why do emotional interventions sometimes produce learning, and sometimes just produce resentment? What does it actually mean to have a "social brain," and what happens to it when you cut people off from each other? And what are the neurological precursors to the thing teams call flow?

Listen to learn the marble metaphor for habit and development, the default mode network as a muscle that atrophies without boredom, the role of synchrony in what rowers call "swing," and a standing challenge to the introverts in the audience (go talk to your neighbors).

Michael's closing recommendations are three things most likely to keep your brain and your team's brains healthy under pressure.

Welcome to the Teamcast.

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I'm Dr.

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Preston Cline, Director of the

Mission Critical Team Institute.

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Here, we discuss all things

mission-critical teams.

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These are teams of four to 12 people

indigenously trained and educated who

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solve rapidly emerging complex adaptive

problem sets, where the consequence of

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failure is death or catastrophic loss.

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With my colleagues and our guests,

we bring you insights from combat

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zones to emergency rooms, dedicated to

improving the success, survivability,

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and sustainability of these teams.

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We grapple with how to prepare for

future events and how to develop

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language and frameworks to transfer

critical, often unspoken, knowledge.

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Whether you're on a mission-critical

team or not, we aim to bring you

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the broadest range of topics and

guests as possible to help prepare

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you to perform when it matters most.

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Thank you for joining us, and

hope you enjoy the Teamcast.

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Everyone, welcome back to the Teamcast.

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I'm joined today by Dr.

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Michael Platt.

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Michael, thanks for joining us.

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I'm gonna do your intro in a second,

but I just really wanna say how

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much, how grateful I am for you to

take some time to be here today.

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Preston, I'd do anything for you.

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You're a fantastic friend and

colleague and collaborator, and

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I know this is a great way to

reach some really terrific people.

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I'm gonna start off by

embarrassing you a little bit.

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So the couple things that the listeners

should know right off the bat is Dr.

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Michael Platt is a neuroscientist,

among other things, but primarily

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known as a neuroscientist.

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And you should know in the world of

academics or the academy, is that it's

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often the person, a person's life goal

if they choose to be in the academics

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to be a professor or especially a full

professor at an Ivy League university.

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And to be that professor at, say, the

Wharton School or the Harvard Medical

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School or Stanford is a big deal.

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It is very rare, however, to get

nominated and get selected to be

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faculty at more than one of those

schools within a university, and Dr.

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Michael Platt is currently a professor of

neuroscience, a professor of psychology,

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and a professor of marketing at the

Perelman School of Medicine, which is,

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just so everyone knows, UPenn is the

oldest medical school in the country.

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And so Michael is a professor there.

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He's a professor at UPenn School

of Arts and Sciences, and he's a

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professor at the Wharton School,

which is often named as one of the

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top business schools in the world.

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So to be named as faculty in

all three is kind of a big deal.

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There's, there's a small list of people

around the world that can do that.

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The reason I first met Michael and we

became sort of friends and colleagues is

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because in the world of mission critical

teams, we're often encountering…

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Well, let me put it this way.

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Everyone's selling to

these teams all the time.

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Every kind of widget, every kind of

new gizmo, and a lot of it is, "Hey,

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we can make your brains work better."

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And I was constantly in these

team rooms where people were like,

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"Oh, here's this cool widget you

guys should buy for $50,000."

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And I would listen to it, and in

my classes, my neuroscience classes

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under, with Michael's colleagues, I'm

like, "I don't know if that's true."

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So I called up Michael and his partner

Zab at the Wharton Neuroscience

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Initiative, and over time they would

help me both learn and understand the

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neuroscience, but also sort of understand

what is true, what is potentially

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true, and what is just not true.

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And so I'll just pause there and say,

Michael, now that you've sort of been

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in your position, and I'm sure you get

asked this a lot, about how to sort of

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think about those things that can help

human performance from a neuroscience

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point of view and the amount of stuff

out there that's just fantasy and

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how you sort of parse these things.

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Yeah.

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Well, thanks, Preston, and

thanks for embarrassing me.

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But, you know, all of th- those

accolades do come with three times

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the committee meetings, so I feel

like I'm putting in the work.

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And I do remember when I arrived

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called me up and we went out to have

a coffee and, and I thought, "Who is

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this guy, and how did he find me?"

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And, um, and he's super intense.

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But this is really important stuff,

and super interesting, and really

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dovetailed with my passion, which,

you know, I've been a neuroscientist

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for a long time, masquerading kind

of, 'cause I'm, I'm an anthropologist

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by tr- by original training.

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But, you know, the idea coming here to

Penn and to Wharton was to say how…

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what can we learn from neuroscience,

the sort of consistent, real findings

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that you're talking about, right?

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What can we develop and apply in terms of

technology and analytics to human beings

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outside the lab and outside the clinic?

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So how can we take all those learnings

that might teach us how to help somebody

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who has a true deficit in, you know,

it could be language processing,

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it could be in impulse control, you

know, it could be in attention issues.

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How can we take that and we use that

to help your average everyday person,

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and in, and then in particular, in,

in your case, you know, people who are

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asked to do extremely challenging things

under, you know, unbelievable difficult

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time, you know, time constraints.

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So that's, that's a tall order.

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You know, I like to think of Wharton

Neuroscience as sort of one-stop

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shopping for you to come and say…

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you know, for anybody really

to say, you know, "What's real?

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What's hype?

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And can you please make this really…"

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I mean, the, the field of

neuroscience is so complex and

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w- you know, broad and deep.

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Um, you know, with 100, you know,

dozen, you know, many tens of thousands

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of people come to our annual meeting.

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How can you pr- turn that into

something real that's bite

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size that somebody can use?

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And so that's what we see as our

mission at Wharton Neuroscience,

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is to be able to do that.

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And you know, the good news is, is that

over the last 20 years, neuroscience

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has really, you know, through the

advent of modern brain imaging

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and, and new analytics and, and now

wearable technology, I think we've…

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we do have a really good sketch of

like, what are the circuits in our

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brain that support decision-making?

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What are the circuits that support focus?

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What helps kick our brains out of ruts?

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You know, what promotes resilience?

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And we're still learning

about these things.

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What allows people to

work together seamlessly?

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You know, what is, what is team chemistry,

which I think we're gonna talk about.

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And we actually kind of

understand those things, right?

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And, and we understand how they work in

the average brain, and then we understand

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a lot about what counts, accounts for

the diversity between brains, and that,

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that diversity, I think we're really

coming to appreciate not only in and of

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itself for people as individuals, but

in the ways that diversity can help us

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to solve extraordinary problems- Yeah

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right?

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By bringing people together who

have very different talents and

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very different perspectives.

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And it's, it's a great example, right?

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And we're gonna, we're gonna talk about

this concept of neurodiversity, the

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idea of cognitive diversity or the way

that we think differently and where that

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comes from, and some proxies around that.

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But one of the things I wanna point

out is, and just to amplify what you

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were just saying, y- your book, for

example, The Leader's Brain, that

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was published relatively recently-

Mm-hmm … one of the things that

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makes it so exceptional is there is a

lot of books o- on, on neuroscience,

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and I try to read some of them.

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And some of them are actually

pretty tough to read if you don't

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have a background in neuroscience.

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Yeah.

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And what makes your book so exceptional

is that a normal person can read it

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and go, "Oh, I get why this matters."

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And also for me, what matters about it

is that- The Mission Critical team is

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due is an applied research institute.

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We're trying to solve problems on Monday.

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And so there are times where I will

encounter a phenomenon where I'm looking

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at it and it's, I, I'm being told

one thing, but I'm watching another

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thing, and I can't square the two.

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Mm.

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And so, and I'll take us back

to about eight months ago.

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I had just come from spending two days

with Penn's orthopedic trauma unit,

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observing all of their residents.

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And we were looking at this

question of how to develop residents

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to become, you know, surgeons.

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Because nationally, residents

are experiencing high attrition.

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We're seeing a shortage of them.

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They're experiencing high

levels of depression, right?

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And, and the question is,

are we doing it right?

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Could we be doing it better?

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Everybody's asking this question, right?

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And Penn sort of leads the,

the front on this in many ways.

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And one of the residents said to me…

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I said, "Oh, how's it going?

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Like, what would you,

what would you do better?

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What would you different?"

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He goes, "I like it.

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I just wish they would yell at me less."

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And and I, I felt myself nodding.

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Like, that does seem

pretty reasonable, right?

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Like, to be in surgery and have

someone screaming at you seems a,

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like a pretty reasonable request.

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And so as I'm walking away from

this conversation, I of course do

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the thing which I do, which is to

say, "Well, let's just test that.

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Has there ever been a time in my

life where someone screamed at me and

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it actually helped my performance?"

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And I had to give a very reluctant yes

to that, saying, "Yeah, there actually

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have been a couple of times where,

like for example, I've had a bad habit-

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And somebody jacked me up, and it was

that emotional stimulus that helped

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me sort of check myself, mark that

moment, and help my hands do the thing

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my brain was trying to get them to do.

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And, and I brought this up to you because

you're often the person I will check

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in with just to go, "Hey, is there, is

there any way that I can explain this

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outside of this phenomenon that I…

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And I see this, what I, I think of

as a paradox, but maybe it's not.

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Maybe I'm just not

thinking about it right."

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And that's when you introduced me to this

concept of the marble, and I wanted to see

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if you would just walk us through that.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I mean, and, and I, I want to point

out that it's not my original idea,

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although I think I applied it in

this domain, um, for the first time.

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So I didn't come up with this metaphor of

a marble for development, but I, I think

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it, it's new to apply it in this way.

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So…

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And I came across this metaphor

when I was a student, and it was the

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metaphor for kind of thinking about

the evolutionary and developmental

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process for any animal, any organism.

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And it's sort of coming

through life, you know.

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It's born, and it's coming through life.

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You think about, like, a marble rolling

down a hill, and what it ends up like

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as an adult, let's say, is going to

be shaped by kind of where this canal

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it's in is sort of meandering across

the landscape and how shallow and wide

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it is versus how narrow it is, right?

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And so that's how, how, like…

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You know, think about identical twins

who are not so, you know, like, with the

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same DNA and maybe separated at birth.

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They're going to exhibit some

differences that depend on, you know,

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having grown up in different houses

but, you know, some similarities.

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So that's sort of the, the,

the sort of shallowness versus

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depth of the, of this canal.

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So now think about in your…

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in the case that we're talking about

here, and maybe with respect to

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these residents, you're, or anybody

really, who gets into a routine.

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So think about that canal.

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You're a marble rolling down this hill,

and the more you stay in one track, like,

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the more y- you, that canal gets deeper,

and the walls get, you know, get higher.

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So, you know, it is, it's a…

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What do you call that in, in snowboarding?

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It's a half pipe.

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You know, you're basically

stuck in this half pipe.

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Even if you go back up,

you're gonna come back down.

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And so sometimes, and this goes back to

that evolutionary scenario, sometimes

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to get out of that canal, you need an

extreme perturbation, like somebody…

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an earthquake that shakes the

whole, you know, foundation of

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the hill that you're rolling down.

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And then you pop out of that one

canal and into another one, right?

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And I think that that's pretty apt

for what happens as we get very

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solidified into routine, right?

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Into habits.

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And habits are a good thing because they

take off the cognitive load, allow you

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to operate more efficiently, but they…

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You can get stuck, right?

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And, uh, you can't see that there

are other ways of doing things.

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And so maybe getting yelled at, you know,

is, is sort of like that earthquake,

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maybe some kind of emotional upheaval.

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The…

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If we ended up talking about n- brain

circuitry, the parts of the brain that

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are kind of involved in thinking outside

the box and exploring new opportunities,

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that's what gets us out of that canal

They're actually sensitive to things

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like uncertainty and volatility

and lots of people being around.

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So those are the kinds of things that

can kind of push you out of that canal.

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You know, that marble can get to somewhere

it needs to be, but otherwise would have

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almost no likelihood of getting there.

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Yeah.

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So one of the things that I wanna

just do a caveat because we're,

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we've released this paper now sort

of looking at some of the assumptions

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we're making about developing future

members of, of mission-critical teams.

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And we know even before we released

it, that it's gonna be considered

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pretty controversial because what

we're saying is, "Hey, those residents

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that are getting yelled at, sometimes

it's actually appropriate," and

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people were gonna lose their minds.

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So just a, a couple of caveats here.

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I am not covering for idiots, right?

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Yeah.

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If, if you're just screaming at

somebody because you're frustrated,

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that's unprofessional and childish.

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You should not do that, right?

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If you're screaming at people because

you're frustrated rather than you wanna

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support them, that's unprofessional.

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However, if you're watching someone

who's struggling and you have to balance

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the development of, say, a resident in

this case, and the ethical needs of the

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patient so they're not injured- Mm-hmm

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then you've got to do something

very quickly to intervene on their

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learning, 'cause they're the ones

holding the scalpel, in such a way

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that will promote both their learning

and the patient's health, and that

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may require an emotional stimulus.

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And that emotional stimulus can be

anything from, "Man, Michael, I'm so

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disappointed in you," to y- you know,

like, to, "Hey, what are you doing?"

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But the key is, is that you have to

remember that after that's over, if you

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don't ha- help them make meaning of that

emotion, then that could be maleducated.

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Meaning that they could instead

of saying, "Oh, wow, it was really

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helpful that Preston yelled at me,"

they just say, "Preston's a jerk."

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Mm-hmm.

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And that doesn't actually

support any growth of anything.

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And which leads me to a couple of things,

and, and you can pick among these.

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One is, is what you've written about

in terms of the social brain, and

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also this idea that Kahneman is

known for, which is the thinking

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fast and thinking slow, right?

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In that it's, it…

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That we make decisions or we

navigate the world both cognitively

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or intellectually and emotively or

emotionally, and that they're intertwined.

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And one might suggest that if

they're intertwined from a thinking

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and decision-making point of

view, they're probably intertwined

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from a learning point of view.

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Mm-hmm.

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And so I just wanna sort of jump into

sh- so for you to check my math there.

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Yeah.

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And also just sort of get any thoughts

you might have Yeah, no, uh, those

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are both super important questions.

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I mean, my sense, just to kind of follow

up on the, the y- yelling at the resident,

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having been essentially that resident

in surgery in early in my career and

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having gotten yelled at many times.

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What's important is, as you said, n- that

you take it as a learning experience.

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So ideally, there would be follow-up

with the instructor, the cadre, who

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would then say, "Hey, here's why

I yelled at you, and here's what I

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hope that you take from this," right?

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So to put a, a sort of

compassionate, goal-oriented human

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being on the other side of that.

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So I think that that's critical.

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With regard to emotions and

cognition, yes, they are, they

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are inextricably intertwined.

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I mean, we love to…

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You know, when neuroscientists and,

and the lay public alike love to focus

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on like, "Well, here's the part of

the brain for fear, and here's the

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part of the brain for joy, and here's

the part of the brain for thinking."

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And, you know, that's hopelessly

simplified because all of these bits

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and pieces are connected to each other,

and you see that even in the kind of

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earliest stages of sensory processing,

like where visual information is

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reassembled into images from the pixels

that come in from your eyes, that

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that's sensitive to emotional factors.

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So like whether what you're seeing is a

snake or a p- bag of money, and depending

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on whether you're, you know, you're

rich or you're poor, and you've had bad

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experiences with snakes in the past,

that shows up all the way practic- not

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quite at your retina, but like pretty,

pretty early on in sensory processing.

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So to think that it's not there,

to imagine it's not there at every

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stage of subsequent processing

leading to decision-making and

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ultimately an output is just an error.

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It's there.

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Emotions evolved for a very good

reason, right, which is that they, uh,

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support decision-making by providing,

uh, prioritization, by providing

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emotional tone for identifying threats

and opportunities, and that helps to

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kind of put a finger on the scale.

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Like, let's say there's two options.

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You can, you know, like approach or

retreat, and emotions help to kind of

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tip the balance a little bit so you don't

get stuck doing nothing because, you

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know, ultimately decisions take time.

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It's a, a process that unfolds over time.

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But if two options are pretty similar

in terms of the evidence supporting

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them, it would be easy to just kind of

be like Hamlet and never do anything.

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But that, that sort of emotional coloring

of, "I've had experience with this in

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the past," or, "I really need to, you

know, get to work on time," whatever

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those priorities might be, that's…

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they come through emotions and support

the learning and decision-making process.

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Now, what's interesting, what we're

learning in neuroscience, like in the

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last five or 10 years, is that there m-

many Domains in which we make decisions

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currently, like in weird environments,

Western, educated, industrialized, I

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can't remember the R, and democratic

, rich and democratic environments,

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like basically where we live, that

are not the environments our brains

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spent millions of years evolving in.

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And so we do stupid things, things

that, you know, Danny Kahneman

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and others have made a career out

of kind of, uh, trying to explain

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these so-called irrationalities.

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And a lot of those irrationalities

just arise from constraints on

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the way our brains were built

and designed to be efficient.

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And, um, a lot of the time what

you see is that we do stupid things

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because we're constantly learning and

constantly updating with that sort

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of emotional tone, and some of that

emotional tone is like a volume knob

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that turns up all the information

you're getting, signal or noise.

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And one way to kind of At least

minimize that is, is like through

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regulation, through deep breathing,

through saying, you know, "Okay, I

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do, I do this every day for a living.

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Sometimes things go good,

sometimes they go bad.

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It's what counts is in the long

run that, you know, things that,

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that we come out on the winning

side rather than the losing side."

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So I, I think that, you know, so

it's, this is both saying that

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emotions are deeply involved

for a very good reason, right?

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Our brains are kind of built to do this

in a very different kind of environment

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than we're in right now, and if you

wanna kind of turn down the volume a

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little bit on, uh, to, so you don't

make mistakes, you know, one way you

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can do that is through regulation.

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That was a long-winded answer,

but, um- No, I, I actually really

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appreciate it because- … we

covered a lot of territory.

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No, it, it, uh, it was actually really

helpful for me, and it segues perfectly

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into some other questions I have

for you, which is one of the things

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that we're noticing over the last 20

years is because the teams have had

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such extraordinary access to leading

thinkers in human performance- Mm

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that they are, with r- good intent, trying

to download as much as this information

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to young operators, brand-new folks like

nurses, young doctors, young operators,

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as quickly as possible, thinking that

if they do a PowerPoint on breathing,

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then the students themselves will be

able to figure out when to apply it.

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Yeah.

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The problem is, is that the first

time that something gets blown up or

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there's a 300-pound man screaming at

you, and you're, y- the intellectual's

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like, "Oh, this is the part where

breathing would help," it's- … you

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have nothing to connect it to.

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And so we're finding that when it comes

to developing that really important

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emotional regulation, we're finding that

we need to sequence experience first

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and then teach the theory to apply it

to the lived experience, that we can't

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teach the theory in the absence of the

lived experience because there's- Yeah

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nowhere to anchor it.

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Does that seem- Right … does

that seem right?

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That totally makes sense to me.

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You just won't know how to apply

what, what part of the, the, that

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whole experience do you even begin

if you haven't had the experience.

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It's just all theoretical.

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Yeah, we don't…

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It turns out we don't, you know, in

general, people don't learn so great

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f- just from didactic information.

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Right.

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Just lecture.

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So we, we learn, we learn

much better through, through

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participation, through action.

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Um, that's what our brains

are really designed to do.

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It's not to say we can't

otherwise, but it's…

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You're, you're engaging your body.

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You're engaging every aspect

of the, the system that is you.

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In a way that's not true if

you're sort of sitting in an

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armchair reading from a textbook.

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So this actually brings us to the next

important point, which is, you know,

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in your book, The Leader's Brain, you

talk about the social brain, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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And one of the things I will point out

to people is there is a reason other than

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crowd control why we learn in classrooms.

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What COVID taught us about being

together in a learning environment,

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and about how much the dialogue,

the exchange of ideas- Mm

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creates something that's sort of unique,

that's synergistic, in a way that sitting

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by ourselves reading a book can't get to.

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And I wanted you to sort of say that

as a preamble to, to, to get you to

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sort of think about the social brain.

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Yeah.

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So the social br- you know, this is

my, like my favorite topic because

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it's, it's something we're actively

working on in the laboratory.

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But each and every one of us

has what we would call a social

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brain network in our heads.

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You know, whether you're an introvert

or an extrovert, it's there.

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This evolved, you know, a long time ago

in our primate ancestors and is a key

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feature of the human adaptive toolkit.

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It's why we can do things that other

animals cannot, because we can come

412

together in groups, we can cooperate,

we can learn from each other.

413

We don't have to develop all

the expertise on our own, right?

414

And that is something that really

hasn't been seen on the planet since.

415

So that's why we've been so successful

at taking over the planet, I mean,

416

for, for better or for worse right now.

417

And that kind of a, a part of the, the

sort of, um, contract with our social

418

brain network is that because we depend

on other people to help complete the

419

jigsaw puzzle that is humanity, it means

that we, we actually really do need them.

420

So the data is becoming really, really

clear, and it's something we've been

421

working on a lot, is that social

support is critical for resilience

422

and, and that can be, you know, having

lots of friends or deeper friendships.

423

And actually, it's amazing because the,

the more friends you have, the bigger

424

your social brain network, and the

bigger your social brain network, the,

425

the more you have to work with, the

better you're gonna be at, at that job.

426

And some of that depends on what you

got from your parents, but most of

427

it depends on what you did with it,

your experiences, and how much you

428

actually exercise your social brain.

429

So it's like a muscle, and the more

you use it, the bigger it grows, and

430

the bigger it grows, the better it does

its job, the better you're gonna be

431

able to navigate any kind of complex

social situation and, and the better you

432

will be at recruiting social support.

433

So we now know that people who

have more social support live

434

longer, healthier, happier lives.

435

They make more money too because

they are more persuasive.

436

They're better at building

trust with other people.

437

They're better at teamwork.

438

They're better at, at creating cultures

that enable teams to work together.

439

So I mean, what an amazing

capability, what an amazing

440

device we have in our heads.

441

And now when you, you brought up

COVID, I mean, you think about like

442

what that did to people, right?

443

What, what isolation did to

people, like what cutting off

444

all of those social connections.

445

It was…

446

It-- You know, first of all, anxiety,

depression, suicide, drug use, they

447

all went through the roof and it seems

like pretty clear it was a direct

448

consequence of, you know, shutting down,

closing people off from each other.

449

But it also made it really clear how

much we need each other and how much

450

like, as you said, learning With other

people around learning in a social

451

environment, it's just different

from, you know, learning on your own.

452

And we're still piecing together on

what those differences are, but we

453

definitely are in a different state.

454

Mm-hmm.

455

Um, our brains are in a different

state than when we're alone.

456

So one of the things that I wanna follow

up on this is, one of the things we've

457

discovered over the last couple of

years is there's been a growing moment-

458

movement, uh, certainly in special

operations where folks that grew up

459

historically on heterogeneous teams

where they're working with the same eight

460

people for years at a time, and th- their

social network is really restricted to

461

their family and those eight people due

to the immersive nature of their world.

462

Yeah.

463

Suddenly over the last few years, we're

now seeing that these people are being

464

split up in ones and twos and sent over

to create ad hoc team, what we're calling

465

tactical swarms, where teamwork is less

important than the action of teaming.

466

Yeah.

467

Which is to develop teams, which is

to build, to rapidly have the capacity

468

and capability to rapidly build

teams of strangers, much like what

469

happens in a medical trauma team, so

resuscitation teams, excuse me, where

470

swarms of people who don't really

know each other have to come together

471

urgently to solve a complex task.

472

And when I think about your work in

sort of the social brain, I think

473

about this problem because what we've

seen is some of these folks that have

474

grown up on heterogeneous teams really

struggle to initially learn how to be

475

good at teaming, but they can learn.

476

Just as you said, it's a

muscle and it grows over time.

477

Yeah.

478

And I don't know if you

have any thoughts on that.

479

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really

interesting observation, and it

480

resonates with what we see in

business to- now too with agile teams.

481

So, you know, where people

come together temporarily.

482

They have to, to achieve some goal.

483

They have to, you know, take some project

to execution, and they disband, and then

484

they go somewhere else, and that's a

pretty novel thing in human history too.

485

Yeah.

486

Because, you know, you think about the

fact that human beings, for most of

487

our evolutionary career, lived in small

bands of somewhere between a dozen and,

488

you know, four or five dozen people.

489

Mm-hmm.

490

So you knew everybody face to face,

and you would've known them over your

491

lifetime, and you would've worked with

them day in and day out, and you would've

492

apprenticed under them, and, and, you

know, in some ways, that's what you're

493

kind of talking about is these, you

know, these heterogeneous teams, but

494

they were together for a long time.

495

And now you've gotta find a way

to disengage, sort of disconnect,

496

reconnect serially, a- and

do that quickly and deeply.

497

And so, you know, I, I think this

is one of the most fascinating and,

498

and, um, challenging facets of kind

of current, you know, society cur-

499

Yeah … you know, ways of doing things.

500

And so that's actually where a lot

of our work is aimed is saying, well,

501

because we have some biomarkers or

biological markers of what good team

502

chemistry looks like, you know, aside

from what people say, which can be

503

biased and incomplete, we can…

504

That allows us to evaluate, to benchmark

different ways of like, how do we

505

get dialed in with you really fast?

506

Yep.

507

A- and, you know, I'd love to do

more work with you on that too.

508

Yeah.

509

Because I, there's so many opportunities

and it could have so much, can

510

create so much good in the world.

511

Absolutely.

512

I think one of the things that's really

interesting about COVID as well is going

513

back to what you were just saying, one

of the things that I noticed at the

514

Wharton School is that, you know, we

get students from all over the world.

515

We're not unique like this, but

many universities- Yep … and the,

516

the role actually of a college or a

university is often taking society's

517

somewhat isolated individuals, young

people who maybe grew up in a very

518

strict, say, patriarchy, right?

519

Where, where the, the father was

in charge, and maybe you're the

520

first female to leave the family.

521

And this happens at Wharton, it happens

at Harvard, it happens at universities

522

where, you know, we're seeing, we're still

seeing first generation women who- Yeah

523

… are leaving the home for the first

time, and I mean the family compound,

524

and coming to a very sophisticated

learning environment with a very diverse

525

group of people and being told, "Hey,

yeah, audience participation, classroom

526

participation is 50% of your, your role."

527

Yeah.

528

Right.

529

So figure it out, right?

530

And you're going from zero to 200

miles an hour without a lot of

531

understanding about what the rules are.

532

But I think it's really useful because

as difficult as it is, that, their

533

capacity, their learned capacity

to do that at that age will serve

534

them for the rest of their lives.

535

Absolutely.

536

And, you know, and, and important

point, you're catching them young.

537

Yeah.

538

So it…

539

I mean, we, our brains are flexible

and plastic throughout life, but it's

540

definitely easier to do these things

when you're young, and you really

541

consider the fact that your brain is

really adolescent until you're 25.

542

Yeah.

543

It doesn't stop, quote,

unquote, "maturing".

544

In my case, maybe hasn't yet,

but, um- There we go … but it,

545

you know, that, that means that

there's a lot of lability there.

546

I think the challenge you point out is

really profound that, you know, data

547

from our, our good friend and colleague,

Talya Wheatley up at Dartmouth, where

548

she, she basically scans the brains of

every single MBA candidate who arrives

549

on campus before they start school,

before they've met anybody, and has

550

looked at these biomarkers of closeness.

551

And you can actually predict who's

gonna become friends and who's

552

not- Yeah … just from these like

scans before they ever met anybody.

553

Yeah.

554

What's really interesting is that-

Individuals who come from more diverse

555

kind of cosmopolitan locations, and their

ki- their brains are more primed- Yep

556

… to connect with people more easily, right?

557

And so if you've grown up in

somewhere rural, perhaps somewhat

558

iso- It makes sense, right?

559

Intuitive, but the data's now,

I think, pretty definitive.

560

It's just a lot harder.

561

Yeah.

562

Right?

563

It's a lot harder.

564

You, it's harder to kind of y- you know,

in, in some sense for the, the marble to

565

get out of that deep canal and to be able

to have a lot of different endpoints.

566

Yep.

567

So here's…

568

I'm gonna flip it a little bit

because I wanna talk just briefly

569

about the default mode network and-

Mm-hmm … and sort of explain what

570

that is, but I'll give you the context

in which I wanna talk to you about it.

571

So what we're seeing right now at a lot

of the front end of the selection and

572

assessment pipelines is, we've known for

a long time that if you take something

573

like BUD/S or any boot camp, typically

when people drop on request or quit,

574

it's not during times where it's busy or

adversity or stressful or they're getting

575

beat on, it's times where they're quiet,

where they're sitting by themselves

576

without being able to talk to anyone

and they're alone in their thoughts.

577

And, and this is not a

criticism, what I'm about to say.

578

We have a generation that's grown up

that's always had access to electronic

579

stimulus, whether it be audio or video

or computer or tablet, where they've

580

never had to sit in the back of the car

on the family road trip and just stare

581

out the window and entertain themselves.

582

Yeah.

583

So what's happening is, and we're seeing

this not just in a s- an assessment,

584

but we're seeing this where an elite

athlete maybe gets injured and is

585

suddenly in a hospital bed by themselves

without stimulus sort of going,

586

"Oh my God, my life's just changed.

587

What am I gonna do?"

588

Or a veteran's been blown up in a

hospital bed, "What am I gonna do?"

589

And so what we're finding and what

we're recommending is that some of these

590

teams and universities need to go back

in time and intentionally create some

591

white space that force some reflection.

592

And part of this, I think, and this is

where I'm sort of turning it over to you,

593

is because I, I've come to believe that

the default mode network, that sort of

594

supercomputer in our brain, is also like

a little bit of a muscle, and if we don't

595

exercise it a little bit, it might atrophy

in ways that, that will not support

596

us optimally in those moments where

we are alone inside of our own heads.

597

So I want to say that out loud so that

you can either correct me or, or whatever.

598

Well, no, I, I think that, I think

a lot of what you said is really

599

interesting and, and resonates.

600

It does seem to be the case that people

who are digital natives, people who've

601

grown up, and even, uh, uh, people

who have been adults for a long time,

602

through this easy access to multiple

channels of stimulation, it, I think,

603

has- It means we're never bored, right?

604

And when you're never bored, you're

never spinning, you're never-

605

mind's never wandering, you're

never spinning out new scenarios.

606

So this default network, mode network that

you talk about, and we- we're some of the

607

pioneers in studying it, it comes online

when you are not focused on something,

608

some stimulus, some routine, right?

609

Something that, you know, keeps

you away from, from boredom.

610

It's an ancient piece of

equipment on the one hand, but

611

it's really elaborated in humans.

612

I mean, and it is engaged not just

when our minds wander, but when we

613

project ourselves into the future,

all the different possible scenarios.

614

When we project ourselves

into the past, so it's, it's

615

important for kind of time travel.

616

It is there to support flexibility and

thinking outside the box and creativity.

617

Yeah, I mean, I think that, that I, I'm

very concerned that we are in multiple

618

ways creating uh, generations, you know,

that will be potentially impaired in

619

their ability to do that at precisely

the wrong moment in history when we

620

need them, you know, the most- Yep

621

reserves of creativity and forward

thinking, you know, to solve these big

622

challenges that are confronting society.

623

I mean, I think it's pretty

straightforward to, that in most cases,

624

the, the brain is, is like a muscle, so

whatever you're exercising a lot gets

625

amplified and, and takes up more space

in your brain, and whatever you're not,

626

you know, using a lot kind of atrophies.

627

I mean, it's kind of interesting.

628

Like, the part of the brain that we use

to read, which is not there by e- not

629

put there by evolution, 'cause we only

have, you know, created reading and

630

writing a few th- thou- thousand years

ago, but it takes the space that you

631

would normally use to process faces.

632

Hmm.

633

So it's like people who are illiterate

actually seem to be better at,

634

like, recognizing faces than people

who are highly, highly literate.

635

So that's just sort of one, one example

that we never even kind of consider.

636

Not to say one is better than the

other, but it is a, it's a trade-off.

637

If you're, if you're only working, you

know, back and bis, then you're not gonna

638

get your, uh, delts and tris in shape.

639

Yep.

640

So the, just to say this sort of, uh,

uh, to connect a couple of different

641

things here, is that, you know,

for those listening who may not be

642

sure what we're talking about, the,

the way it's been described to me

643

is the default mode network is the

thing where you're struggling with

644

a problem, you're getting nowhere.

645

All of a sudden, the next morning,

you wake up and take a shower, and

646

the solution pops into your head.

647

Yep.

648

And it's because the sort of supercomputer

in the back of your brain that needs to

649

be untasked in order for it to work got

activi- activated might not be the right

650

term, but it got engaged and suddenly

could solve your problem by bringing

651

together a lot of different things.

652

Is that a, is that a fair description?

653

I think it's a, it's a very apt decision.

654

Absolutely.

655

Yeah.

656

And you see, I mean, and when we talked

about neurodiversity, we see that people

657

who are really creative, but also people

who are on the sort of attention deficit

658

hyperactivity End of the spectrum,

they have kind of hyperactivity in

659

this default mode network, which

accounts for why they're, you know,

660

a bit different and a bit talented in

that direction, but lack, you know,

661

can often lack focus and vice versa.

662

Yep.

663

There's been some interesting stuff

which you've sent to me, which is this

664

notion of, and we've seen this in, in

mission critical teams a lot because

665

often we will see people that will seek

out mission critical teams, and this is

666

what I was talking to Art Finch about

in our last Teamcast, which are folks

667

who have what we call now really wide

neurodiversity, meaning that they might

668

have a different learning profile.

669

M- maybe they're autistic, maybe

they're dyslexic, maybe they have ADHD.

670

But these folks, their superpower

might be that they're really creative,

671

they're really nonlinear thinkers.

672

Yep.

673

And that we don't wanna make the

mistake of school because school's

674

not really built to manage a lot

of those folks from a behavioral

675

point of view, but as a society, we

don't wanna actually weed that out.

676

Yeah, I mean, this is…

677

I, I preach this all the time.

678

Caveat, I'm not a clinician, but th-

here in the US, public school systems are

679

mostly designed for behavioral control.

680

I mean, you know, you pack 30-some

young people into a classroom,

681

that's pretty challenging to manage.

682

And so people who are by inclination

a little bit, you know, free thinkers,

683

more like to, you know, feel the urge

to get up and move around, that's

684

gonna be problematic, you know?

685

And so it's interesting to have charted

the, over the last 20 years- The rise

686

in diagnoses of attention deficit

problems and the concomitant prescribing

687

of stimulants, which turn up the

focus in your brain, but turn down the

688

ability to explore and to be creative.

689

And we have data, for example, showing

that actually in, in certain kind of

690

foraging situations where you're sort of,

you know, searching for resources, people

691

who have A- ADHD profiles actually do much

better be- than, than people who don't.

692

Yeah.

693

Which is interesting, and there's some…

694

there's a lot of other

interesting data out there on it.

695

So I, I'd be concerned about squashing

that through the combined forces of public

696

school education and basically prescribing

drugs to control- Yeah … these problems,

697

some of these differences in behavior.

698

And it's, it's interesting because some

of the mechanisms, so what we will often

699

say, just going back, is, and what we

were just talking about, which is I will

700

say to people, "Hey, look, at 2:00,"

which is sort of the low part of your

701

circadian rhythm, "get out of your chair,

go outside, take a walk, be bored."

702

The problem is, is the downside of the

social brain is that you've got all these

703

voices in your head saying, "Man, if

I do that, people will think I'm being

704

lazy or a slacker, or they might be

whispering that I'm not doing my work."

705

And so there's this societal need to

get people moving and thoughtful and

706

reflective, and there's all this pressure

to stay at your desk and do your work.

707

And I, and I'm often at a loss

to how to help people bridge

708

that k- that sort of tension.

709

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I coach

business leaders on this

710

all the time to not only…

711

and I give, you know, I give them the

evidence, they usually will buy it, but

712

to make space for themselves to move,

to step away, to step a- disengage

713

from routine, but also to provide

that space for the peop- you know,

714

for their employees, for their teams.

715

Yeah.

716

They need, they need that.

717

They need…

718

and, you know, it's gonna be a different

cadence for each person and depending on

719

their job, but, you know, just sitting in

one place all day long is not healthy for

720

anybody for a whole variety of reasons.

721

Yeah.

722

So going into our last question before

we start to close this down is many

723

people on listening will have heard of

the concept of flow, and they'll often

724

have their teams trying to get to a

place of flow where everybody's moving in

725

sequence and time and space seems to slow.

726

But some of your research on synchronicity

is showing from a, from a neuroscience

727

point of view that there are some

things that we can do as precursors

728

or ramps into or pathways into flow

that we can both think about, study,

729

and structure to get us closer to

being able to construct those moments.

730

Is that a, is that a fair description?

731

Well, I would say first off that

we don't really know exactly

732

what flow is in the brain.

733

Okay.

734

And that's largely because most, you

know, let's be frank, I mean, most

735

neuroscience studies are done to try to

understand what's going wrong in, in,

736

you know, individuals' brains who have

some kind of, of brain health concern.

737

Until recently, we have lacked the

technology to also measure brain activity

738

in people doing things actively, right?

739

So which is typically when we, we

think of flow states occurring.

740

You're in the moment, you're doing

something that you enjoy, that you

741

love, um, is very active, and so

that has been a, a challenge, too.

742

That said, I mean, we do…

743

One of the, the things that we've

been really interested in is this

744

notion of kind of group flow.

745

Yeah.

746

Like when you're with other people

and you're doing something, you

747

know, hopefully constructive or

sometimes just fun, you know, and

748

you have this feeling, this…

749

And it's hard to explain, but you

have this feeling of, like, something

750

bigger than yourself, and you're

caught up in something, and, you

751

know, you don't notice time passing.

752

And we think it is precisely this

notion of, of synchrony, physiological

753

synchrony, that when our, when we

have good chemistry with someone, when

754

we're working together, our brains and

our bodies begin to synchronize their

755

physiological activity, and that's

associated with all this good stuff

756

like increased trust and collaboration

and teamwork, and you name it.

757

But it's also associated…

758

We, we did this study with

rowers in the Penn Rowing Team.

759

It's also associated with this

sense of group flow, which

760

in rowing they call swing.

761

It's kind of this, like, even though

you're all pulling on your own oar, the

762

feeling is you're pulling on one big oar

together, and you feel really linked up.

763

And I think that's really kind of

fascinating because, you know, it, it

764

capitalizes on a couple of things, which

is we're wired to be social, right?

765

And when we do things as a group,

especially if we do them, you know, in

766

the case of rowers, they're literally

synchronizing their movements, and when

767

you synchronize your movements really,

really well- In the presence of, you

768

know, with other people, this leads to

this feeling of, of, um, you know, that

769

I think of almost supernatural, right?

770

Yeah.

771

Y- what, what Emile Durkheim, the,

the father of sociology, called

772

collective effervescence, which is

a- Yeah … term that I just love.

773

This sort of just, you know, you

just feel bubbly and heady, you know?

774

That's where we all wanna be,

I think, most of the time once

775

you've had that experience.

776

Yeah.

777

And kind of how do you get back there?

778

Yeah.

779

That's the real challenge.

780

It's, you know, it's really interesting

because this brings us back to almost

781

to the beginning of what we were talking

about because after, you know, watching

782

hundreds, maybe thousands of teams over

the last 30 years in very difficult

783

environments, what you, what, what

I've noticed over and over again, there

784

are certain thematic similarities, and

one of them is a high functioning team

785

that's operating really well gets quiet.

786

Hm.

787

So it's- Yeah … it's one of the things

that happens is little by little they

788

stop verbally communicating unless

it's required, but everybody kind of

789

understands, and the body language, and

everyone kind of knows where everybody is.

790

So it's so interesting because, uh, in an

outside of a learning environment, if I

791

walk in and see a leader screaming, I'm

like, "Man, have you missed the point?"

792

Like - … "Man, do you not understand

the context that you're in?"

793

Right?

794

Because this is antithetical to what

right likes, looks, and feels like.

795

Yeah, absolutely.

796

Absolutely.

797

I mean, I, I, I'm having e- only

experienced that a few times, but-

798

Yeah … yeah, that's palpable.

799

Yeah.

800

Absolutely.

801

So as we, as we start to close this

up, and I'm eternally grateful to you

802

being here 'cause I know how busy you

are, if you think about our audience

803

and you think about the work they're

doing in medicine or in tactical

804

law enforcement or fire, NASA, as a

neuroscientist, as you, as you look out

805

across these really urgent, complex,

social, team-based environments- Mm-hmm

806

uh, with high consequence, and you

were, and you were to make a couple of

807

just general recommendations, nothing

like critical, but for, for people

808

to sort of look after themselves

and look after each other, what are

809

some of the things you might say

from a neuroscience point of view?

810

That's a great question.

811

Again, you're bringing me one of

the most challenging questions that

812

there is with big consequences.

813

But, you know, it kind of like if you're

thinking about brain, brain hacks, you

814

know, how can I keep my brain healthy

and alive and keep my, the brains

815

of my teammates healthy and alive, I

mean, the first thing you, you should

816

do is engage in physical exercise.

817

So we know that physical exercise

is the, the one key thing you can

818

do to stave off cognitive decline.

819

It, it reduces inflammation.

820

It, it basically slows down the

aging process in your brain.

821

And so, you know, you, we talked

about that default mode network.

822

It's, it's really vulnerable, for

example, and o- one of the first networks

823

to kind of fall apart in Alzheimer's.

824

Yeah, e- physical exercise is gonna

help protect your brain against that.

825

Similarly, social exercise.

826

So we, we talked about how important it is

for- Teaming, but just in terms of brain

827

health, it's one of the key factors that

will keep your brain, again, alive and

828

healthy and high-functioning, you know.

829

And I, and I think your body as well.

830

So those are two, two

really important things.

831

I think making space for yourself

and making space for your team,

832

so recognizing the fact that you

can't go twenty four/seven, that

833

stepping away is really vital, right?

834

To, to…

835

especially to preserve those

parts of the brain that are really

836

necessary for, for flexibility and

creativity in, in novel environments.

837

So I think those are kind of

the three key things that- Yeah.

838

You know, and I, I guess then, I guess

you, you asked me to, to think about the

839

people, you know, on your team as well.

840

That also means, you know, making

space and, and, uh, you know, uh,

841

attending to them too, which, which

requires being present and listening.

842

And we know that that is beneficial.

843

That, uh, that actually increases

the perception that you're a leader

844

is actually if you are a listener,

you listen to other people.

845

And if you are forthcoming and

honest, if you're true to yourself

846

about, you know, what you're feeling,

your own em- sharing your own

847

emotions, not in an overbearing way.

848

But, you know, it, it increases

your, your humanity, and I think

849

that levels the playing field.

850

I mean, if there's one thing that

actually kind of get back to this social

851

brain network is that one of the biggest

vulnerabilities to-- of the social brain

852

network is to status and hierarchy,

which is, like, so, so challenging

853

for a lot of these mission critical

teams where it's built into the system.

854

But what we now know is that, like,

the higher up you are, the higher

855

up you think you are, the less

active your social brain network is.

856

Got it.

857

So kind of flattening that hierarchy,

and one way to do that is to be, to be a

858

human being So it's interesting because

there's a couple things you make me

859

think about, which is if you think about

generals and admirals and CEOs, right?

860

Yeah.

861

The thing that they lose is white

space and also their social network,

862

and the thing we need them to have the

most of is probably those two things.

863

Right.

864

So we're gonna have to figure out a way

to help our leaders create both white

865

space and also be able to socialize

in an environment where there's a lot

866

of people that are after their time.

867

Absolutely.

868

Absolutely.

869

And so, yeah, how do you build

that into the job description?

870

And I think it's a huge challenge,

but that's where, you know, that's

871

where building, creating the

right kind of team and ecosystem-

872

Yeah … is, is really critical.

873

And just as a reminder to the audience,

I know that we have a high percentage

874

of introverts listening to us, and

you're nodding along to, to, uh, to

875

Michael and saying, "Yeah, people

should go out and be more social."

876

Not people, you.

877

You.

878

You should go out social, and not

just with your two buddies, but,

879

like, with neighbors, for example,

who you have nothing in common with,

880

but learn how to have small talk with.

881

Yeah, I mean, I think it is, it…

882

The, the, uh, analogy to the

gym is a good one, right?

883

Which is that if you've got particular

areas of your, you know, fitness that

884

are not so good, you don't ignore them.

885

You try to, you know, if you're…

886

You try to work on them, right?

887

If you g- your lower back is weak,

you don't just give up on it.

888

Right.

889

You try to do some

exercises to strengthen it.

890

And we know that whether you're an

extrovert or an introvert, you get

891

the same benefits from, from working

on your, on your social network.

892

Yeah.

893

Well, sir, I wanna thank you

so much for taking the time.

894

I know you're, you're super

busy, and I'll close this out.

895

But before I do, any last

comments that you wanna make?

896

I think I covered it all, and you

know, I just want everybody…

897

You know, if you are interested in

more, you can follow me on social media.

898

I'm pretty, pretty out there, so if

you want to a steady diet of this

899

mashup of neuroscience and teaming

and business and performance and

900

athletics, you know, follow me on

Twitter or on LinkedIn, and that's

901

a good, good way to keep up to date.

902

We'll put both of those in the show

notes, everyone, along with a link to

903

his book, The, The Leader's Brain, and

the various places that you can see Dr.

904

Michael Platt's research.

905

Wanna thank everybody for joining us.

906

Thank you, sir, for being with us,

and, um, see everybody next time.

907

Thank you again for

listening to our Teamcast.

908

If you found value in this discussion,

the best way to support our work

909

and ensure you don't miss future

episodes is to subscribe and

910

leave us a quick rating or review.

911

It'll help us reach more people who

need to hear these conversations.

912

For more on Mission Critical Team

Institute, including all of our episodes

913

and show notes, visit missioncti.com.

914

You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.

915

And if you're a mission critical

team looking to learn more about

916

our programs, reach out directly

to our Director of Operations, Ms.

917

Janese Jackson, at [email protected].

918

That's [email protected].

919

Until next time, thanks.