In the previous post we looked at Getting in and out of the box at will …. Thinking and acting outside the box is not easy at all.
The post Three Things You Need To Know About The Brain To Build Great Teams by Everett Harper shows some reasons for this based on Ellen Leanse book, The Happiness Hack. We all want to be happy. Our brain experiences two forms of happiness:
- One, “hedonic” happiness, is associated primarily with fast reward dopamine cycles
- The second “eudiamonic” form seems to rise from longer, slower reward cycles associated with serotonin
The post states that we have been hacked and are now flooded with hedonistic fast reward happiness. We must break free when we go out to explore the boundaries of our box to finally start thinking and acting outside of it. Once we manage to leave the box this triggers new insights causing ‘eudiamonic’ happiness but also fear.
Fear is the natural response of the brain to new experiences. The brains main purpose is not to think but to keep us safe. Keeping us safe works best by following routines and patterns. So the safe place is in the box where we follow what used to work. To get outside and break with routines and habits requires explicit action, it’s hard.
And finally once you have left the box it will be hard to convince others to move. They comfortably sit in the box. The perceived good place is in the box, talking about better alternatives is perceived as negative. But routine tends to be boring – a convincing and exciting vision may help to get things going.
People often say that execution makes the difference. Maybe it is the decision to make the first step ….
References:
FINthinkers 
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