Neuroscience is learning why people are inherently afraid of change. The implication for business is that any major change, like new joint ventures, will provoke fear in the brain, the exact opposite reaction that leadership needs.
By Lisa Trumbull

Change is difficult for humans to manage, and there is a biological reason. Change triggers the fight or flight defense in the brain, but neuroscience has made another interesting discovery. Emotional fear and physical pain are activated in the same part of the brain – the social brain – and the social part of the brain works to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

Knowing this, it should not be surprising that Joint Ventures (JVs) tend to inspire stress and even physical pain because forming a JV is a major change. Change often leads to conflict because ancient neural networks attempt to protect a person from danger.

As neuroscience learns more about how the brain works, it is becoming clear that creating a brain-friendly business environment is critical to removing some of the fear and pain that accompanies change and for engaging JV talent.

Flight, Fright or Freeze?
The interactions between the environment and the brain drive human reactions. When someone’s brain registers pain, they change their behavior in order to relieve the pain. If a person experiences stress, also initiated in the brain, the body reacts in order to send an alarm that flight, fright or freeze is needed for protection.

Without getting too scientific, the brain’s limbic system includes the amygdala, a set of neurons that serve as the emotion center. These neurons make up the section of the brain that is responsible for detecting fear and creating a natural system of rewards or punishers. The amygdala is also connected to the pain modulatory systems in the brain. In the business environment, change is one of the experiences that can stimulate a host of negative responses in the brain.

Driving behavior over the last decade, Joint Ventures have become a popular strategy for market expansion and stimulating innovation. Though there are plenty of overall success stories, there could probably be many more if business leaders learn to engage JV talent in a more effective manner, beginning at the point of formation. What gets in the way?

Neuroscience may be providing some answers because JVs represent change, and for many employees, change is a threat. The threat is due to many factors such as the introduction of new, diverse team members; the typically planned limited life span of the JV which creates uncertainty; the need for a high level of cooperation between employees coming from different companies; the impact of the new governance system on employees; pressure to rapidly innovate; and the need to learn a large amount of new information.

Remove or lessen the threat, and people will engage much faster and in a more productive manner. The goal becomes the creation of a brain-friendly environment that minimizes negative emotions and fear, and stimulates a positive reward reaction in the brain.

When little thought is given to developing a brain-friendly environment in a JV, too much is left to chance. Fear stimulates the amygdala and inhibits cognitive functioning, reducing engagement levels.

More Pain than Gain?
Water Street Partners, a Joint Venture and Alliance Advisory Firm, decided to explore the question of employee engagement in the JV process, asking why businesses insist on utilizing tools that are not a good fit for the unique JV process.

The advisory company designed a survey instrument to assess talent engagement in joint ventures, and early data indicated that employees involved in the joint venture viewed the effort as “more pain than gain.” The survey found that the pain has many sources, including too much confusion, too many disputes, weak governance system, unrealistic targets, and poor performance management. It is a business-unfriendly environment in which those involved experience stress, and feel threatened by change, uncertainty, and a destabilized situation.

Developing a brain-friendly business environment is a strategy for helping people adapt to change in a productive way. The neuroscience-based approach recognizes that people have cognitive capacity limits and when inundated with competing messages from new sources, stress ensues as the brain (via the amygdala) struggles to focus and respond to the social threats. One of the simplest ways to relieve this stress is to manage the flow of information by establishing efficient and effective communication processes that give employees more control over learning in the new organization.

The NeuroLeadership Institute designed tools that help organizations improve performance through brain-based management coaching that focuses on improving the quality of conversations, enhancing diversity and inclusion by addressing conscious and unconscious bias, and embedding new behaviors in the organization through brain-based learning. Managing the learning process is crucial to talent engagement.

Engaging JV talent is more likely to succeed when people understand the value of the organization and when people learn incrementally. The brain processes information it has already gathered and stored, in addition to new information collected through the senses. Giving the brain opportunities to process internal or external input, rather than both at the same time, is more likely to promote innovative thinking which, in return, promotes engagement as people take ownership of JV success.

Setting goals is important, but the brain’s reward network responds in a more positive manner to less stringent ones compared to highly specific, rigid goals that force myopic responses rather than enabling people to find satisfaction in addressing challenging problems through creative thinking.

Inner Sense of Achievement
The JV will develop a unique culture over time, but fear of change can impede talent engagement. Making people feel they are an integral part of the change from the beginning is critical to talent engagement.

There are simple ways to accomplish this goal. They include managers regularly consulting with their staff to solicit ideas and suggestions, developing a social media forum for the exchange of ideas, ensuring that top management is highly visible and regularly updating the organization on JV progress, offering employees many opportunities to offer feedback, and giving employees regular feedback.

These are strategies for motivating people to accept ownership of the change and helping them create an inner sense of achievement, both important to engagement.