You know that cognitive fitness is clearly on the management agenda when the Harvard Business Review(HBR) publishes its thoughts on the matter. Perhaps, it is just catching up to scientific opinion that brain fitness is as important as physical fitness when it comes to managing.
Without regular brain exercise, experienced managers give up the right to think creatively. They become overwhelmed by floods of information and exploding demands on their time; their creativity stagnates; their mistakes multiply.
However, you can inoculate yourself against this trend — by beefing up your mental fitness.
Leaders who are as sharp at sixty as they were at 25 constantly hone their cognitive fitness: their ability to reason, remember, learn, plan and adapt.
Drawing from the rapidly expanding body of neuroscientific research as well as from well-established research in psychology and other mental health fields, the authors of this HBR article identify four steps you can take to become cognitively fit:
- Take advantage of your experiences
Everyday experiences such as observation, simulations, and case studies allow you to accelerate your learning with fresh perspectives valuable for informed decision making. It’s like watching a golf pro demonstrate the correct stance and swing: you learn from his experience. - Engage in play and games
To get the most out of play, participate in games and activities involving risk. Risk alerts the brain and activates your reason and imagination capacities. Activities like bridge, chess, sudoku and challenging crossword puzzles all provide rigorous neural workouts. - Search for patterns
Challenge and expand your existing mind-set, experience new places and listen to different viewpoints. Identify patterns in what you’re seeing to generate innovative business ideas. - Seek novelty
Novel experiences stimulate your brain to generate the new knowledge needed for pattern recognition. Engage in challenging activities such as studying a new language, learning to paint, trying your hand at new technologies, or taking lessons on a new musical instrument.
The more cognitively fit you are, the better equipped you are to make decisions, solve problems, and deal with stress and change. Cognitive fitness will help you be more open to new ideas and alternative perspectives.
But the best leaders do more than just enhance their own cognitive fitness. They also promote brain-positive cultures in their organisations by encouraging colleagues and employees to apply these four practices as well.
Reference
Gilkey, R. & Kilts, C. (2007). Cognitive Fitness. Harvard Business Review, November.
