The Fear-free Organization: Vital Insights from Neuroscience to Transform Your Business Culture

by Paul Brown, Joan Kingsley, Sue Paterson

Overview

Evidence from neuroscience shows that individuals and organizations are more successful when people are encouraged to take risks, explore new ideas, and channel their energies in ways that work for them. And yet many organizations are filled with bullies, vicious gossip, undermining behaviours, hijacking tactics, political jockeying for position, favouritism and other factors that instil fear and impede productivity. It is no wonder that organizations are actively looking at how they can improve and maintain the psychological health and wellbeing of their employees to the benefit of all concerned. The Fear-free Organization reveals how our new understanding of the neurobiology of the self - how the brain constructs the person - can transform for the better the way our businesses and organizations work.

Academic yet accessible, The Fear-free Organization addresses head on the issue that scared people spend a lot more time plotting their survival than working productively. The book helps leaders understand the neurobiology of fear, face the damage it is doing, and replace it with building relationships, managing energy flow and fostering trust. It guides you in making your workplace one that's full of energy, not adrenalin; focused on possibility, not profit; and generates independent thinking, not obedience so you can promote the psychological wellbeing that is strongly correlated with greater energy, motivation and better cognitive function.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780749472955
Publisher:	Kogan Page, Ltd.
Publication date:	07/28/2015
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Dr Paul Brown is Faculty Professor, Organizational Neuroscience, Monarch Business School Switzerland; Honorary Chairman of the Vietnam Consulting Group and International Director of SIRTailors. He is a clinical and organizational psychologist and executive coach.

Joan Kingsley is a consultant clinical and organizational psychotherapist. She is Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and is on the psychotherapist register of the School of Life. Joan is registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

Dr Sue Paterson is an oil and gas professional with over 30 years' UK and international experience. She worked for Shell International in exploration, new business development and JV management, as well as talent management, leadership development, learning and recruitment. In 2010 she set up her own consultancy.

Table of Contents

* Section - ONE: The person; ** Chapter - 01: Fear essentials and the development of the Self; ** Chapter - 02: The brain; ** Chapter - 03: Memories are made of this; ** Chapter - 04: Relationships; ** Chapter - 05: Trust; * Section - TWO: The organization, energy flow and profit; ** Chapter - 06: Fear in the workplace; ** Chapter - 07: The nature of energy; ** Chapter - 08: Leaders and HR; * Section - THREE: The future of organizations; ** Chapter - 09: The role of leadership; ** Chapter - 10: Change, adaptability and flow; ** Chapter - 11: The fear-free organization;

Editorial Reviews

"[T]he essential manual for effective management. It provides the practical methods needed to motivate people to do their best work. The authors explain, simply and understandably, how to apply the most advanced neuroscientific insights to business management. It is ground breaking and indispensable."

Dotson Rader

"If you work in an organization, you already know this: fear runs the place. What you may not know is that fear is going to ruin it, too, sooner or later. This book tells us why. Then it tells us how to change that."

author of Time to Think Nancy Kline

"This book superbly explains what is really going on together with fascinating insights on the fears that all of us have experienced in the workplace and which have such a destructive effect on culture. And then the authors provide some practical advice on how to change things for the better."

Charlie Geffen

"Fear pervades the workplace. It corrodes profits and stunts growth. This essential read equips CEOs with the tools to build a fear-free environment -and success."

Robin Morgan

"Boy, I wish I had read something like this a long time ago.  In my decades as a corporate leader, I observed and learned the hard way about a lot of themes in the book (eg building relationships, managing energy flow, fostering trust, triggering fear).  I came to know these things were real over the years but never really understood why they were happening until reading this book.

I believe many corporate leaders still believe triggering fear is more productive than triggering attachment — mainly because that's the only role modelling they've had and all they know how to do.  For many, building relationships, managing energy flow, fostering trust and avoiding triggering fear is all hard and unfamiliar work.  But the resulting increase in affiliation, work satisfaction, productivity — and yes, business results! — would be staggering if more leaders would roll up their sleeves and take the plunge."

retired Executive Vice President, Royal Dutch Shell - Thomas M Botts

"Emotions are at the very core of being human because they exert a powerful, often unconscious impact on how we think, feel and behave.  There is a wealth of research highlighting how extended periods of stress, anxiety and fear can inflict a damaging effect on our physical and psychological health with significant consequences for our personal relationships and quality of life.



Conversely psychological wellbeing is strongly correlated with greater energy, motivation and better cognitive function.

There is a zeitgeist and not surprisingly progressive organizations are actively looking at how they can improve and maintain the psychological health and wellbeing of their employees to the benefit of all concerned.

This book draws on robust psychological theory and the remarkable advances in neuroscience to provide the reader with fascinating and invaluable insights into how the human brain works.  Most importantly it outlines a range of effective, practical strategies to help build a healthier environment that can deliver real and measurable benefits to the individual, teams and the organization — the fear-free organization."

Founder and Director of Positive - Dr. Brian Marien

"If you work in an organization, you already know this: fear runs the place.  What you may not know is that fear is going to ruin it, too, sooner or later.  This book tells us why. Then it tells us how to change that.  It is a call to leaders to understand the neurobiology of fear, face the damage it is doing, say goodbye to it forever as a tactic, and replace it brilliantly — as in: see to it that your organization is teeming with joy, with relationships of dignity, with warranted trust.  Make it full of energy, not adrenaline; focused on possibility, not profit; generating independent thinking, not obedience; and spawning meaning everywhere because what really matters there is what really matters.This book gives us all of that by being both academic and accessible, by being, in fact, friendly and in places quite eloquent.  Most of all it hits the bullseye: dear is the problem and relationship of love are the solution.  The sophisticated version of love, that is, the kind that creates intellectual and practical rigour and leaves us smarter and makes us better leaders.  It's all in the brain, it turns out.  And leaders need to understand this particular dimension of the brain and stop fooling themselves.  The neurological fact is that fear destroys; trust creates.  Even the title is worth a month of pondering: The Fear-free Organization — not an oxymoron after all.  What a relief."

author of "Time to Think" - Nancy Kline

"I cannot remember the last time I read such a creative, engaging, and absorbing book as The Fear-free Organization.  Beautifully written, clearly structured and brimming with compelling case studies, this new work transports us into the psychological core of organizational life and provides us with rich recipes for understanding the complex and often tortured dynamics of the workplace.  Brown, Kingsley and Paterson deserve our congratulations for offering us an important set of solutions.  This book will be essential reading for anyone who has ever worked in an office."

Psychotherapy & Mental Health, Centre for Child Mental Health, London - Professor Brett Kahr

"The Fear-free Organization is the essential manual for effective management.  It provides the practical methods needed to motivate people to do their best work.  The authors explain, simply and understandably, how to apply the most advanced neuroscientific insights to business management.  It is groundbreaking and indispensable."

Contributing Editor, Parade - Doston Rader

"Leadership is about making sense, and this book makes a lot of sense.  I highly recommend it for leaders, and those aspire to become one."

former Shell Executive and currently Professor at Groningen University - Rien Herber

"[I]t outlines a range of effective, practical strategies to help build a healthier environment that can deliver real and measurable benefits to the individual, teams and the organization - the fear-free organization."

Founder and Director of Positive Dr Brian Marien

"I wish I had read something like this a long time ago. In my decades as a corporate leader, I observed and learned the hard way about a lot of themes in the book.... I came to know these things were real over the years but never really understood why they were happening until reading this book."

Thomas M. Botts

"Leadership is about making sense, and this book makes a lot of sense. I highly recommend it for leaders, and those who aspire to become one."

former Shell Executive and Professor at Groningen Rien Herber

"The jewel in the crown of all the recent books on this subject... All leaders of complex organizations should have this book by their bedside and their office."

Professor Patrick Pietroni

"Beautifully written, clearly structured and brimming with compelling case studies, this new work transports us into the psychological core of organizational life and provides us with rich recipes for understanding the complex and often tortured dynamics of the workplace."

Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy a Professor Brett Kahr