Ron Karr, Former President of the
National Speakers Association, is
a nationally recognized keynote
speaker, executive leadership
consultant, and author of The
Velocity Mindset® (Amplify
Publishing, May 2021). He may
be contacted directly at Karr
Associates, Inc. (ronkarr.com).
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The Key To Knowing What’s Important
a sense of closeness, trust,
or connection and are more
likely to respond in kind. Our
distant ancestors developed
this response when it came to
successful procreation as well
as connecting with fellow tribe
members. The resulting, more
pro-social behavior fostered
cooperation, trust, and a greater
chance of survival.
The third hormone, dopamine,
is a built-in reward system for
activities or actions that satisfy
our needs.3 Besides the pleasure
reward, dopamine boosts our
mood, motivation, and attention,
as well as regulating our
movement, our learning capacity,
and our emotional responses.
While there is much more to say
on these and other evolutionary
traits of our fellow humans,
an awareness of these three
hormones, in particular, is
invaluable when it comes to
understanding what’s important
to our employees—and what
motivates them.
The Fight-or-Flight
Dilemma
As a case in point, some years
ago, a line supervisor at one of
my client’s plants was infuriated
by a worker’s constant mobile
phone use while on the job as
a welder. An important project
had been delayed and, in the
supervisor’s mind, the only
answer was to apply increasing
pressure to “get off the damn
phone!” As with many such cases
before and since, I knew that
the employee’s response to the
supervisor was a cortisol-fueled,
fight-or-flight reaction. Both
parties had narrowed their
focus, and neither was able to
imagine, much less process a
creative solution.
After conducting a simple
role-playing exercise with the
supervisor, he approached
the employee with questions
about his long-term goals—
which were to earn a master
welder certification. The
de-escalation very likely lowered
everyone’s cortisol levels and
the supervisor’s interest in the
employee’s future undoubtedly
raised oxytocin levels to the point
of engendering some trust. The
conversation turned to ways
of achieving master welder
certification, including working
more efficiently on assigned
projects. The subject of cell
phone use never came up.
Heart and Mind
All too often, executives and
managers strive for mental
agreement with the tasks to be
accomplished and the goals
to be met—the how part of the
equation. Very often, this ignores
why people do what they do, their
motivations, their heart, if you
will. This lack of context results in
tasks without purpose and speed
without direction.
As leaders, if we aspire
to influence others, our
responsibility is to make sure
the mental environment is
conducive to conversation. That
means having an awareness of
cortisol reactions and finding
ways of communicating that
don’t trigger them. Instead, we
seek to know what motivates
the other and, in so doing,
enlist the natural responses of
connection and genuine reward.
The object is not to control or
manipulate others’ hormonal
responses, but to understand what
is going on inside, and to change
our behavior—in order to help
everyone find mutually beneficial
solutions and buy in to them.
Notes
1Lindsey Konkel, “Cortisol: Everything You
Need to Know About the ‘Stress Hormone,’”
Everyday Health, September 6, 2018,
https://www.everydayhealth.com/cortisol/
guide/.
2 Jade Wu, “The Power of Oxytocin,”
Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,
February 11, 2020, https://www.
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/
the-savvy-psychologist/202002/the-power
oxytocin.
3“Dopamine,” Psychology Today, https://
www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/
dopamineR
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