The Leading Brain

A cutting-edge guide to applying the latest research in brain science to leadership - to sharpen performance, encourage innovation, and enhance job satisfaction. Featured on NPR, Success, Investor Business Daily, Thrive Global, MindBodyGreen, The Chicago Tribune, and more There's a revolution taking place that most businesses are still unaware of. The understanding of how our brains work has radically shifted, exploding long-held myths about our everyday cognitive performance and fundamentally changing the way we engage and succeed in the workplace. Combining their expertise in both neuropsychology and management consulting, neuropsychologist Friederike Fabritius and leadership expert Dr. Hans W. Hagemann present simple yet powerful strategies for: - Sharpening focus - Achieving the highest performance - Learning and retaining information more efficiently - Improving complex decision-making - Cultivating trust and building strong teams Based on the authors' popular leadership programs, which have been delivered to tens of thousands of leaders all over the world, this clear, insightful, and engaging book will help both individuals and teams perform at their maximum potential, delivering extraordinary results. Named a Best Business Book of 2017 by Strategy+Business

"*The Leading Brain *is the best integration of neuroscience and leadership that I have ever seen."
–Dr. Jonathan Schooler, **Neuroscientist and Professor at UC Santa Barbara

"Combines neuroscience and leadership in a way that is both highly informative and fun. The Leading Brain covers a vast array of fascinating topics, such as habit formation, emotional regulation, intuition, and optimal decision making. There are tons of useful strategies in this book that you can apply to your life and your work right away!"
-- Scott Barry Kaufman, co-author, Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind

“Breathtaking. It’s both a lecture on modern sciences and kind of a thriller. I’ve never read a book on management so fast.”
–Peter Gerber, CEO of Lufthansa Cargo
 
"Really enjoyable and informative. Covers much of what I teach my students, that they must take command of their own psychological machinery to be successful in any endeavor. I hope to incorporate many of the lessons in my lectures and recommend the book to my students."
–Ken Singer, Managing Director, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, UC Berkeley
 
“I very much like the approach to a complicated and much-misunderstood topic. I quickly gained confidence that I can understand, self-diagnose, and to some extent ‘hack' my brain in order to improve my productivity, health and happiness. Hagemann and Fabritius have gathered or generated great analogies and stories that support a skillful demystification of brain science without dumbing it down.”
–Jeremy Clark, Director of Innovation Services at PARC
 
“Amusing and inspiring. Most of the books in this domain explain behavioral patterns by using observation and experimentation…Looking at these phenomena through the lens of neuroscience definitely adds plausibility to the picture. I found The Leading Brain to be very well written and, for me, it was indeed a page-turner.”
–Marcus Krug, **Head of SAP Intrapreneurship, SAP AG

“What an interesting and helpful book.  Fabritius and Hagemann have introduced the most important findings of modern neuroscience to the business community—offering us a host of new skills to excel at work, and even with friends and family.  It’s highly original, remarkably informative and insightful, even humorous in many spots.  I am so happy to have read it!  You will be too.” 
–Helen Fisher, PhD., Senior Research Fellow, The Kinsey Institute and bestselling author of Anatomy of Love
 
“The book is fantastic! Well-written, good examples, excellent structure. And, unlike so many business books, which can be an ordeal to get through, The Leading Brain also has a fine sense of humor. Reading it produces the very feeling of “flow” that the authors describe so well.” 
–Matthias Hohensee, Silicon Valley bureau chief, Wirtschaftswoche
 
“Very good, extremely helpful, great examples, a must-read.”
–Klaus Poggemann, **Head of Legal, apoBank

*"The Leading Brain *is as insightful as it is accessible. In teaching us how our brain works, we are in the advantageous position of making our brains work better. This book is a must read for anyone who is a leader, will be a leader or even for those being led." 
--Kelly Leonard, Executive Director of Insights and Applied Improvisation at The Second City

"Concrete, energetic, and accessible, this is a must-read for anyone who takes a science-backed approach to business."
–Publishers Weekly

Autorentext
Friederike Fabritius is a neuropsychologist and a leading expert in the field of Neuroleadership. As an executive coach and leadership specialist, she has extensive expertise working with top executives from Fortune 500 companies. A sought-after keynote speaker, she has addressed large audiences at events hosted by prominent multinational corporations, including EY (Ernst & Young), thyssenkrupp, Trivago, and Audi.

Hans W. Hagemann, Ph.D., is managing partner/co-founder at the global leadership consultancy firm Munich Leadership Group, which counts Allianz Global Investors, Bayer, BMW, EY, Expedia, Montblanc, SAP, Siemens, and thyssenkrupp among their clients. He is a global expert on leadership and innovation who has led seminars, coaching sessions and in-depth workshops with top executives in more than 40 countries.

Leseprobe
CHAPTER 1

FIND YOUR SWEET SPOT

How Do You Gain the Right Mix of Neurochemicals to Perform at Your Very Best When You Need To? On May 15, shortly before dawn, Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr., wearing a new suit and carrying a metal box about the size of a large briefcase, took an elevator up ten stories,1 got off, and was promptly strapped into a padded chair by waiting attendants who were dressed in white coats. The area around him was extremely cramped, similar to what you’d find in a -typical commercial airline restroom. But Cooper, known as Gordo by his friends, wasn’t sitting in an airline bathroom. He was sealed inside a cone-shaped aluminum space capsule that was perched atop 200,000 pounds of extremely flammable liquid oxygen and was about to embark on a journey of 546,167 miles.2        The year was 1963, and astronaut Gordo Cooper was scheduled to be just the sixth American to venture into outer space. This was no joy ride. Several of the previous flights had encountered problems. Serious problems. A little more than a year earlier, Cooper’s colleague John Glenn narrowly missed being incinerated in the Earth’s atmosphere after his spacecraft’s heat shield had come loose.3 Despite the fact that the astronauts were all experienced pilots who had been chosen for their mental toughness, Cooper’s mission was bound to place even the hardiest fighter pilot under significant stress.        A series of holds in the mission’s countdown were agonizing even for the control room’s seasoned technicians. As Cooper was forced to endure yet another delay, doctors on the ground were closely monitoring his biomedical telemetry. What they saw from their readouts shocked them to the point of disbelief. Although it seemed almost inconceivable, astronaut Gordo Cooper was actuall…