How Understanding Neuroscience Can Transform MSP Business: 5 Things To Know

‘If your wellness program and your performance management and culture are not inseparable then your employees are failing to reach their greatest potential in life and work and your shareholders are not achieving your highest ROI. I guarantee your organization has not and will not reach its greatest potential until you intertwine these two objectives,’ entrepreneur and coaching firm CEO Aaron Brown tells the audience.

Wellness and performance are two sides of the same coin. That’s according to serial entrepreneur Aaron Brown, CEO of coaching firm True Increase. And when Brown says wellness, he doesn’t just mean the creation of safe spaces or yoga classes — that alone isn’t wellness.

“Why talk wellness or neuroscience? We as business leaders put a ton of effort into our worth careers, when often our marriages are failing, our children are suffering, our bodies are prematurely deteriorating [and] our employees are suffering, and many other significant challenges,” Brown told an audience of attendees at CRN parent The Channel Company’s XChange NexGen 2023 conference in Houston.

True Increase’s mission is to use neuroscience and technology to guarantee results in leadership, team, organizational development, and employee mental health and wellness. Brown believes that it’s critical to recognize the ways that humans can get “stuck” neurologically in a reactive mode. From there, humans can work to reverse that process to help people and employees get to a proactive, engaged mode in both their personal and professional lives.

At the event, Brown laid out the current state of employee morale and work-life balance, the science behind why many people and organizations aren’t rising to their full potential, and the steps that business owners can take to blend wellness and performance.

Here’s what Brown had to say.

The Numbers

“It’s irrefutable that something is significantly wrong with our world, our culture, and even our companies,” Brown told the audience, even despite an increasing focus on mental and physical health, work-life balance, healthy leadership, teams, and organizations.

A recent report from analytics and advisory company Gallup recently found:

* 79 percent of employees will quit due to a lack of appreciation

*75 percent of employees report increasing burnout

*66 percent report increasing stress

* 45 percent of employees feel emotionally drained from their work

* 33 percent report social isolation and loneliness

The Power of the Prefrontal Cortex

The smartest part of the brain — the “thriving” part of the brain, according to Brown, is the prefrontal cortex. Some activities that take place in the prefrontal cortex are executive functions, such as relating, decision-making and creativity.

Relating is connecting, intimacy, collaborating, influencing, etc. — all things that any MSP could use more of within their businesses, Brown said.

“Creating, ingenuity, problem solving, designing, planning, strategy, imagination, and so much more,” he said. “The prefrontal frontal creates meaning and handles nuance, and complex relationships and barriers. Everything we need to thrive.”

Except, unlike the “fight or flight” limbic system that runs at an astounding speed, the prefrontal cortex is slower.

“Whether you want success in life or in business, your ability to access your prefrontal is probably the single greatest determining factor,” he added.

Living In The Limbic System

The strongest and fastest part of the human brain, on the other hand, is the limbic system, which is responsible for our behavioral and emotional responses, especially related to the behaviors humans need to survive.

“Its job is simple: Keep us alive. Threat detection and response … fight, flight, freeze,” Brown said.

The problem with the limbic system, Brown said, is that it can take over every bodily system, even impacting speech and digestion, or everything not needed for survival. Because the system runs fast, it can create shortcuts and can often distort the truth.

“The prefrontal can deal in nuance. The limbic is binary — ones and zeros … What happens to our prefrontal or the ability to relate and create when the limbic is triggered? The prefrontal shuts down. [The limbic system] takes over our whole brain and our nervous system; our entire body,” he said. “This is why the body is the key to transformation and reaching our greatest potential as individuals, families and organizations.”

Unlocking Transformation

The key to optimization is knowing the design specification, Brown said. Every human has a heart, mind, soul and body, with the heart being represented by our emotions, our mind by our thoughts, our soul by our deeply held values, and our bodies represented by our five senses and major organs. Every successful individual needs to tap into all four to perform at their highest level, something every leader should encourage.

“I’m not saying you can’t be extremely profitable without this. Nor am I saying that your employees can’t achieve true wellness without your help. I simply say that all the evidence is in the leaders, individuals and organizations that get this. [They] are truly thriving and in most cases, obliterating the competition,” Brown told partners.

Creating an Integrated Experience

Moving out of the limbic system, creating safety, and connecting to the four different parts of ourselves helps individuals and businesses experience “integration” Brown said. He added that very executive who has followed this basic scientific process has seen breakthrough transformation with themselves, their families and their organizations.

MSP owners don’t have to be experts to start practicing these principles immediately, Brown said.

“If you do not, or if your wellness program and your performance management and culture are not inseparable then your employees are failing to reach their greatest potential in life and work and your shareholders are not achieving your highest ROI,” Brown said. “I guarantee your organization has not and will not reach its greatest potential until you intertwine these two objectives.”