When humans feel safe, valued and have a sense of belonging, their brains release a number of important chemicals.  Oxytocin (our bonding and relationship hormone) and serotonin (our feel-good neuro-transmitter) enhance our sense of connectedness to self and community, and lead to increases in cooperation and creativity and to deeper engagement, collaboration and flow.

Social awareness and our desire to ‘belong’ or ‘fit in’ are intrinsic to our anthropological growth. We are wired to want to feel welcome and valuable parts of our social group.  Concern about what others think of us is also an essential driver of prosocial behavior, and we are a social species by design.  We humans have thrived for 50,000 years not only because we’re driven to serve ourselves, but because we are also inspired to collaborate with and serve others.

Early humans were threatened by almost every aspect of their environment, and even today there are forces we perceive as dangerous both outside and within our organizational environments. And while they perhaps are not carrying the same literal threats to life, our systems often still perceive them in that way. Intimidation, humiliation, isolation, feeling dumb, feeling useless and rejection are all stresses experienced inside organizations yet all are entirely avoidable. It should be the goal of leadership to set cultures of safety, inclusion, empowerment and that are free of danger, bullying and the like.  Ones that offer a sense of belonging and the sense that all voices are valued and heard.  This means offering them a strong culture based on a clear set of human values and beliefs, that gives them the power to make decisions and offers and environment of offering trust and empathy. 

Close studies of high performing organizations reveals something fascinating. Their cultures—ones that support employees to feel safe, fulfilled and valued, instead of a more hostile competitive scenario where each group was in pursuit of finite resources—resembles the conditions under which the human animal was designed to optimally function and thrive as a species,which also works to help those organizations achieve the same.  If certain conditions are met and the people inside an organization feel safe, serotonin and oxytocin flow and the access to that 95% plus of our processing power opens. Together they are able to achieve things none of them could have achieved alone and the results are that their organizations tower over their competitors.

“Business is a uniquely human enterprise.”

A shining example of this principle is 3M which owes its development of the Post-it Notes, and so many of its other products, to one simple thing: its culture of sharing. The cross-pollination of leads–combined with an emphasis on sharing product lines–has led to an atmosphere of collaboration that makes 3M a place where employees feel valued.  ‘Innovation from interaction’ is one of the company’s favorite mottoes.  More than 80% of 3M’s patents have more than one inventor.  The company has over 20,000 patents, with over 500 awarded in 2012 alone.  In 2009, in the middle of a very tough economy, when other companies were slashing their R&D budgets to save money, 3M still managed to release 1,000 new products.  3M’s products are ubiquitous, though typically unnoticed–and almost always taken for granted. 3M has succeeded because they have a corporate culture that encourages and rewards people for helping each other and sharing everything they learn. 

Instead of leading by using carrots and sticks, we clearly need the type of methods that release oxytocin and serotonin, which can facilitate the 95% and bring out the best. The Process-Oriented Leadership approach is explicitly designed to do exactly this!

By learning some simple skills —the skills of CHOICE— Leaders can learn to access the 95% and facilitate their direct reports and teams into the same.  It’s a win-win strategy. This is surely the only form of leadership that makes much sense in this rapidly changing business environment where innovation and adaptability are essential.