Neuroscience of Performance: People at their Best

New insights on performance emanating from the field of neuroscience

Executive Summary

Have you ever known someone who aspired to poor performance? Or an organisationorganization that intentionally fostered a culture of mediocrity? Probably not – in fact these concepts seem quite absurd. Yet organisationsorganizations seem to operate as if achieving high performance (in individuals and corporate cultures) was something contrary to natural human desire.

Human resources practitioners and business people alike know that high performance is paramount to business success. So they must surely be troubled by survey after survey, year after year, confirming the same levels of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with performance management processes. Rarely do managers or employees have anything positive to say, and most are predictably unimpressed with the process revisions and interventions planned for the following year.

In this paper we seek to understand human performance and its management by organisationsorganizations through new insights emanating from the field of neuroscience.

Part One, Understanding Performance: Look behind the key drivers of human performance and discretionary effort.

Part Two, Performance Levers: Explore what we now know through science about the body and mind and how performance is impacted by our physiology and psychology. We also explore how interactions with others impact us consciously and subconsciously.

Part Three, OrganisationalOrganizational Practices: Learn what currently works and does not work, and how mindful leaders can use new information to reframe the performance paradigm.