The Brain, Behaviors & Culture

Tom Moriarty, PE, CMRP

Alidade MER, Inc.
(321) 961-4306 cell
(321) 773-3356 office
tjmpe@alidade-mer.com
 Why present on this subject?

• Do we want people that are well-trained and

skilled at their job?
• Do we want a workplace culture that people
want to be a part of?
• When we spend money on training do we
want the training to be effective?
• Do we always get a good return on the time
and money invested in training?

2
 Neurons – The Building Blocks of our Brains

• Neurons have four parts

1. Cell body – responsible for the sustainment of the neuron
2. Dendrites – tentacle like projections from the cell body.
Approximately 10,000 dendrites per neuron.
3. Axon – Usually only 1 axon per neuron, transmits signals from the cell
body to terminals.
4. Terminals – connection points at the end of the axon for making
connections (synapses) with dendrites.
• Number of neurons
– Formerly estimated as 100 billion neurons.
– Dr. Suzanna Hurculano-Houzel (Ted Talk: What’s So Special About the
Human Brain); new method for calculating neurons in all brains.
– Human brains have about 86 billions neurons.
• 16 billion in our cerebral cortex; responsible for complex thinking.
• Far greater than the next closest animal brain.

3
 The Process of Connecting Neurons

Dendrites
1. Dendrite releases an
electro-chemical
substance
(neurotransmitters).
2. Terminal of adjacent
neuron connects with
Axon
dendrite to form a
synapse.
3. Electrical signal transfers
from the dendrite to the
terminal through the
Cell Body (Soma)
axon to the cell body to
the next dendrite and so
forth.
Terminals
4
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-parts-of-the-neuron-and-their-function
 Primate Brains

• Gorillas have ~2.5x the body size of humans,

• Humans have ~2.8x the brain size of gorillas.
• Why do humans have bigger brains?
– Humans organized, cultivated food, got more nutrition from
food by using fire for cooking.
• Less time looking for/eating food; more time for cognitive reasoning.
• Cooking makes food easier to digest, yielding more nutrition.
– Comparison with gorillas;
• More time & energy consumed searching for and obtaining food.
• They spend 8 to 9 hours per day eating raw vegetation; lower
nutrition content, harder to digest.
• Large bodies consume a lot of energy.
– Energy Balance.

5
 Kinda glad things worked out the way they did!

6
 Human Brains

• Human Brains are different

– Size of the brain and quantity of neurons
• Humans have typical primate brains in terms
of neuron structure and energy consumption
rate.
• But we have greater neuron density.
• Cerebral cortex controls higher cognitive
functions – reasoning capability is much
greater.
– Energy consumption
• Human body consumes about 2,000 kCal/day
• 1 billion neurons requires 6kCal/day, at 86
billion neurons that about 516 kCal/day
– Human brains are 2% of body mass, but
25% of total energy consumption
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 DNA & Experience-Based Connections

• ~ 17% of neuron connections formed at birth.

– Biological functions
• Breathing, heart beat, nervous system, digestion, etc.
– Sensory functions
• Ability to see, make noises, hear, touch, smell, taste.
• ~ 87% of neuron connections happen through
experiences.
– Happens every moment of every day.
– Sensors pick up information from the environment
– The brain processes the information.

8
 Parts of the Brain Important for Memories

• Hippocampus
– Specialized for coding sensory information.
• Allocates experience-based memories to temporary storage.
• Temporary storage may later be converted to long-term memories.
– Generates a coding scheme for new sensory data.
• Like a database index or file compression "dictionary“.
• Supports efficient, compact and organized sensory information storage in the
cerebral cortex.
• Cerebral Cortex
– Part of the brain used for complex and focused thought.
– Consumes tremendous amount of energy.
• Basal Ganglia
– Part of the brain that recognizes patterns and runs sequences.
– Using patterns and sequences consumes very little energy.
– If we did not have this capability, we would be overwhelmed by
9 the volume of data our senses collect.
 Short-Term Memories

• Every fraction of a second our senses are collecting

information.
• The Hippocampus
– Weeds out unimportant information.
– Breaks apart sensor information into specialized sub-data.
– Color, vertical lines, horizontal lines, slanted lines, spacing,
audible tones, movement, etc.
• Example:
– Recognizing the Letter ‘K’
• Relative size, spacing, vertical, horizontal, and slanted components are
all stored through different neuron groups.
• Each type of sub-data follows different neuron paths.
• New sub-data is recorded as short-term memories.
• Different, but similar types of ‘K’’s will have sub-data stored in
different, but similar neuron sections.
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 DNA & Experience-Based Connections

• Brain Processes
– Use it or lose it.
• If we don’t convert short-term memories to long-term
memories the short-term memory will dissipate.
– Blossoming & pruning.
• Before the age of 24, or so, different parts of our brains are
accelerating and stagnating.
– Windows of sensitivity.
• At different times, our brains are more susceptible to
emotional or traumatic events.
– Myelination
• The insulation that covers axons and provides insulation to
protect the signals being transmitted among neurons.

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 DNA-Based & Experience-Based Neuron Connections

What does it mean?

Experience-based connections happen throughout our lives.

Everyone has the capability to learn throughout our lives.

Younger people have much greater neuroplasticity; they

learn new things easier.

Older people have a much larger store of knowledge.

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 Short-Term Memories

• Short-term memories are unstable.

– Initial synapse connections tend to be weak.
– Only linger between a few seconds to an hour or two.
– Can be stronger if linked with traumatic or emotional event.
• Short-term memories can be extended through repetition
to a few hours or a couple of days, but they may still be
unstable short-term memories.

Attendance at presentations (such as this one), or single

training events (like workshops) load information into short-
term memories.

If we don’t use the information, it will be lost.

13
 Raise your hand if you remember the name
of this equation?
An example of
long-term

𝐴2 + 𝐵2 = 𝐶2 memory!

14
 Converting Short to Long-Term Memories

• Spaced repetition.
– Example: Learning the Pythagorean
Theorem.
• Explanation puts the theorem in short-term memory.
• Homework, quizzes and exams repeat the memories.
• Applying it 12 years later on a carpentry project
means it was converted to a long-term memory.

• Engaging multiple senses.

– Learning to drive a car;
• Voice (instructions and coaching),
How do you make
• Hands on wheel, foot feeling pressure on brake things stick?
and accelerator,
• Experiencing slowing down and accelerating,
• Hearing engine sounds.
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 Converting Short to Long-Term Memories

• Leverage similar experiences (pattern hooks).

– Putting yourself in similar surroundings, or
circumstances as when the memory first occurred.
– Pilot simulators, CMMS self-paced training, etc.
• Dramatic/Significant emotional events.
– Mother yelling, highly excited, jerking a child from
the path of on-coming vehicle.
– Witnessing a car crash or other traumatic event.

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 Why Classroom Training Doesn’t Get Results

• Only 20% of formal training information is retained.

• Don’t exercise the short-term memories.
– Not converted to long-term memory or habits.
• Absorbed by the blob.
– System has not changed; same demands, unable to apply.
– Policies, processes, procedures, measures, culture hasn’t changed.
• Boss doesn’t require improved habits.
– The boss assumes trainees will apply what they learned, but is not
attentive nor assertive to make it happen.
• Materials sit on a shelf.
– As the short-term memories fade, less chance of applying.
– Reference info not readily available.
• Not provided assets needed (tools, time, equipment, funding, etc.)

17
 Classroom Training

The reason so little is gained from classroom

training… it’s not the content or the trainees
attitude.

The problem is that the information is seldom

effectively put into practice.

18
 Creating Habits

Rats are used because their

brains are a good analog for
human brain basic function.
1. Rat placed behind
partition.
2. Reward (chocolate)
consistently place at one
end of the ‘T’.
3. Partition is raised.
4. Rat smells reward, Test is repeated dozens of times.
searches excitedly.
5. Eventually finds the
reward.
19
20

New Task Brain Activity Habit Brain Activity

Control Shifts from Cerebral

Cortex to Basil Ganglia.
(The Learning Curve)

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life

and Business (Kindle Location 389). Random House Publishing Group.
Kindle Edition.
Rat ‘T’ Maze test measuring brain activity after
initial and repeated runs of the same task.
 Habits

• Repetition (“using it”) strengthens neuron

connections.
– The first few iterations the brain works hard.
– With repetition, connections become stronger.
– Cerebral cortex hands off to the basil ganglia.
• Sensory inputs are deemphasized, less brain energy
needed.
• The basil ganglia manages the patterns.
– The Habit Cycle: Cue, Routine, Reward.
– Once habits are established they never go away.
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 Old Habits and New Habits

• Old habits are persistent – they are not erased.

– People can/will revert to old habits when:
1. There is a payoff greater than a consequence, and,
2. They perceive the old habit as better than the new one.
• Leaders must:
1. Specify the right behaviors.
2. Provide what is needed to enable the right
behaviors.
3. Guide the right behaviors with positive and
corrective feedback.
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 Culture

• Culture is what most people do, most of the time.

• What ‘people do’ are behaviors.
• To obtain the culture we want, we need to shape behaviors.
• We shape behaviors by:
– Defining, training (short-term memories) and repeating
(transitioning to long-term memories),
– Providing what’s needed to perform the behaviors, and
– Giving consistent positive and corrective feedback over
time.
• Repeating the right behaviors creates the right habits.
• The right habits become the right culture.

23
 Defining Behaviors and Providing What’s Needed

Proactive Improvement Realm models

additions or modifications to assets,
guidance and execution.

Control & Stability Realm models the

elements for day-to-day activities.
• Guidance includes policies,
processes, procedures and
measures; the right behaviors.
• Assets are the things that are
needed to perform the right
behaviors.
• Execution is leadership and
management; guiding the right
behaviors by deploying assets IAW
guidance.

24
 Defining Behaviors and Providing What’s Needed

Control & Stability Realm

• Guidance and Assets must be

developed together.

• Can’t expect people to know

what you want without it being
clearly defined.

• Can’t expect people to perform

to guidance if they don’t have
the assets needed.

Guidance, assets and execution

creates a system for supporting the
right habits.
25
 Can a system that does not adequately train
leaders be expected to execute the right habits?

Source: 2015 Alidade MER/Plant Services Magazine Team

Effectiveness and Motivation Survey.
26
 Key Points

1. How the human brain processes

learning.
2. New memories and transitioning
to long-term memory.
3. The problem with classroom
learning.
4. We can acquire new habits
throughout our lives.
5. Old habits don’t leave – leaders
must create and sustain the right
behaviors.
6. The right behaviors, over time,
becomes the right culture.
Improve by challenging yourself…
Take this short-term information and
use it, don’t lose it.
Tom Moriarty, PE, CMRP
Alidade MER, Inc.
(321) 961-4306 cell
(321) 773-3356 office
tjmpe@alidade-mer.com
Linkedin.com/in/alidade-mer

27
The Brain, Behaviors and Culture

Tom Moriarty, PE, CMRP Hank Kocevar, CMRP

President, Alidade MER, Inc. Reliability Professional, Alidade MER, Inc.
(321) 773-3356 (757) 617-0384
tjmpe@alidade-mer.com hank.kocevar@alidade-mer.com

Abstract

Managers and supervisors get things done through other people. Managers, supervisors and other
people all have brains. No two brains are exactly alike. The way the human brain works is fascinating,
and we are learning more and more every year about how it works. It’s important to understand how
people learn and how learning is committed to memory.

When we are training people or asking them to perform activities in certain ways we need to understand
the best ways to convert the learning into behaviors. Providing people with information or training informs
people what we’d like them to do, or how to carry out activities, such as closing out work orders correctly.
When people are exposed to a new concept, it is first put into short-term memory. But that form of
memory may only be retained for moments to days. Reinforcing a short-term memory several times, and
by different means, helps to drive the concepts into long-term memory. An example is when homework is
given by teachers. As people use what they’ve learned the connections between neurons gets stronger
and stronger. The stronger the neuron connections become, the permanent the memory.

Physically performing an activity is a behavior. Behaviors that have been repeated some number of times
become habits. Habits are a way for human brains to manage energy. Human brains consume less
energy when they can run habits on auto-pilot. Therefore, the brain attempts to drive behaviors into
habits. The more our behaviors can be carried out by habits, the more energy that is conserved for more
intensive thoughts that are not habits. If you’ve ever experienced driving home through your
neighborhood while thinking about something completely different than operating your car, you’ve
experienced a habit.

New habits are created in a new neuron pattern within our brains. Old habits do not get erased. This is
why people often revert to old habits when there is no consequence for deviating from the new behavior.
Consistency, attentiveness and assertiveness are needed from leaders to make sure the right behaviors
and habits are being performed.

Page 1 of 8
Our Brains
We need to start with a discussion about our brains, so we understand how our own brains function –
generally. From the functional understanding we can explore how learning occurs and what affects our
ability to learn, and the ability of our team members to learn. That allows a foundation for understanding
what works best for transferring knowledge. A couple of key points that you should take away from
reading about the brain:

 We are all biological beings. The processes that result in learning and the formation of habits are
explainable. Knowing something about these processes enables us to leverage them.

 The brain has the capability to learn over the course of our lives. This is important because it
means that a tradesperson can gain knowledge, skills and abilities to become a master
tradesperson, or an excellent supervisor. Supervisors can become excellent managers, and so
forth.

 The way the brain works explains why many adult classroom training events rarely deliver robust
or sustained improvements. Spoiler alert – it’s because there are not enough practical exercises
or repetition of the newly learned concepts after the training event. People need to practice and
exercise new knowledge and skills to be effective.

The brain is an extremely complex organ that is still not fully understood. We will discuss the parts of the
brain that are important in the context of human behaviors.

Dr. Susanna Hurculano-Houzel has a wonderful TedTalk video called “What’s So Special About the
Human Brain” and she published a book called “The Human Advantage: A new understanding of how our
brains became remarkable”. Compared with other primates, human brains are larger in proportion to our
bodies, we have the largest cerebral cortex and our brains use a higher percentage of our body’s total
energy consumption.

A correlation has been identified that our brains began accelerating in capability as our ancestors began
cooking and cultivating food. Cooking releases more of the nutrients in food. Cultivation meant we didn’t
have to spend as much time hunting and searching for food. Humans began getting more nutrients and
spent more time using our reasoning capabilities.

For many years scientists estimated there were 100 billion neurons in the human brain. Dr. Hurculano-
Houzel developed an innovative way to calculate neurons. Her procedure determined that humans have
about 86 billion neurons in total, 16 billion of them in our cerebral cortex. The more neurons in the
cerebral cortex, the more complex your brain behavior can be. Human cerebral cortexes are by far the
largest in the animal world.

The total energy consumed by our bodies is about 2,000 kCal/day. Each 1 billion neurons require 6
kCal/day. With our brains being only 2% of our total body mass, that 2% of mass consumes about 25%
(86B neurons x 6 kCal/day = 516 kCal/day).

Neurons, Dendrites and Connections

In this paper, the word ‘brain’ will be used to refer to the physical components and biological transactions.
We will use terms like thoughts, or the mind, to describe processes or outputs from the physical
components. Basically, the brain is the hardware and the thoughts are the software.

Neurons are the basic structures that make up the brain. They provide the conduit that electrical signals
are transmitted through. All neurons have the same physical structure. The structure includes the cell
body, dendrites, axons and terminals. The cell body primarily maintains the functions of the neuron.
Each neuron has about ten thousand dendrites. Axons are tentacle-like appendages that act as multiple-
wire conduit. The axons branch out into multiple sub-branches called terminals.

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For any electrical pathway to be established there must be connections between dendrites and the
terminals adjacent neurons. The electrical signals then transfer between a transmitting dendrite to an
adjacent receiving terminal. So, the entire process is that a signal moves from the first cell body, through
the dendrite to the terminal, up the axon to the cell body and to another
dendrite. The electrical signals continue until the signal reaches the
destination cells in an encoded section of the brain. More on that later. Example of Effortful
Processing
There are two determining factors, or forces that influence how the neurons
get wired together; genetics and experience. Genes provide the basic In 1980, I was being
schematic for how a human being gets constructed. The instructions are in trained at the Coast
the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of each person. DNA is a self-replicating Guard Training Center
material present in living organisms; they are the main component that carry in Yorktown, VA. The
our genetic information. DNA is what makes us all unique. training courses would
eventually lead to my
Genes, encoded with DNA, determine which of the initial 17% of neurons becoming a Machinery
get connected and in what order. Think of these structures and the Technician. One of our
sequencing of connections as being the hardwiring of the brain structures. many courses was on
The gene-based connections are for basic functions; such as breathing, diesel engines. A study
heartbeat, making sounds, sight, etc. Like a computer operating system question asked ‘What
that fires the hard drive, screen and keyboard. The gene-based are the five functions of
connections provide the opportunity to sense and create experience-based a diesel engine fuel
connections. system?” Thirty-seven
years later I remember
Experience-based connections come from the interactions between a
the answer. Metering,
person and their environment. The gene-inspired hardwiring provided us
timing, rationing,
with the capability to sense the world outside of our brains. The sensors
atomization and
provide sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Signals picked up by these
distribution. It was
senses are processed and transmitted through our neurons and deposited
committed to memory
in a complex filing system. Experience-based connections can be thought
using an acronym
of as extensions of the basic connections. Like software applications that
MTRAD through
use operating system.
repetition. It remains
An example of this process is how we learned language. Most babies come readily available for
into the world with the ability to feel, to make sounds, to hear and to see; retrieval.
hardwired genetic neuron connections. As a baby begins interacting with
the environment (hearing a parent’s voice and seeing facial movements)
these sensors provide experiences that guide the baby towards forming sounds that mimic the sounds
they hear. The development of a vocabulary of a specific language is an example of specific experience
resulting in specific neuron connections. Later in life we associated visual shapes (written letters and
words) with sounds. That allowed us to read and write.

The process of creating connections among neurons is at work at every moment of our lives. The more
neurons that connect and the more those connections are used, the stronger the connection between
neurons become. When you were in high school attempting to remember a math formula it was more
quickly learned, and stayed with you longer, the more you wrote down the equation, did homework and
solved problems on quizzes and exams. It was better if you worked several problems over a couple of
days, especially in the company of others, because your learning was more elaborate (more on this later).
By firing the math equation neurons many times, the connections were exercised and became stronger.

Encoding
The hippocampus is the part of the brain that that’s responsible for encoding new memories from
experiences. It’s central to our acquiring knowledge and skills. Encoding allows experiences to be
converted into a form that can be stored within the brain and recalled later.

Page 3 of 8
There are several types of encoding that our brains do. We’ll focus on the methods associated with
learning new training material.

When we consciously and deliberately focus on an experience or piece of information it’s called effortful
processing. This is how we remember (or try to remember) our friend’s phone number, an account
number and password, or and address for an upcoming meeting. We usually need to write down a lot of
these types of information or repeat the information several times before it gets retained in our memory.
Effortful processing requires our brain to filter out unimportant information and to create the initial neuron
connects for information that may be useful.

A second type of learning is automatic processing. Automatic processing is usually closely tied to
emotions; anxiety, fear, sadness or joy. An example is a traumatic experience such as seeing a car
accident. With automatic processing, we can easily recall the location, what lead up to the experience
and what came after the experience. Other examples of automatic processing is when there is a
significant event like the birth of a child, an amazing sports moment (for me, the 1980 U.S. Olympic
Hockey team, miracle on ice). Automatic processing seems to create well organized memories that can
be recalled easily. This type of encoding allows us to recall the information readily.

Not all encoding results in the same persistence of the memory. All encoding processes share two
characteristics:

1. The more elaborately we encode information at the moment of learning, the stronger the memory
that will be formed.

2. The more closely we replicate the conditions at the moment of learning, the easier it is to
remember.

In the first case, the more detailed and the more tied to emotion, the more persistent the memory. The
more personally someone is linked with an experience, the more likely it will stick. This is why it is best to
introduce changes to people in terms of ‘What’s in it for me?”, from the message recipient’s perspective.

In the second case, contextual or environment encoding, a memory is more robust if you can recreate a
similar context or environment as when the initial exposure to the experience was created. This is why it
is best to reinforce training with practical application (exercises or coaching with feedback). The more
your behavioral and environmental situation is aligned between learning and recalling the higher
likelihood that the memory will be retained.

In scientific terms this is called context-dependent or state-dependent learning. When our brains are
processing new information, it first looks for similar experiences. The more elaborate (tied to emotion) or
closer in context, a new memory is, the more likely there will be similar experiences or memories. Similar
experiences travel along the same neuron pathways.

This is sort of like an internet key word search. The more similar the experiences are to experiences
already in memory, the more hooks there are for linking past experiences with new experiences. They
travel along similar pathways.

In an instructional or coaching environment, how can you create more links? Use as many examples as
you can that are similar or expressive of the learning you’re trying to convey. Use illustrations, stories or
other methods that will be familiar to person your training or coaching. Give them plenty of feedback so
they know the links that they established are getting good or not good results.

Memory and Habits

Remember in Neurons, Dendrites and Connections we said that only about 17% of neurons are
connected by DNA-based encoding, or gene-based connections. The other 83% of our connections
occur because we gather experiences through our senses and encode and store those experiences in

Page 4 of 8
memory. That capability to collect and retain experiences means we don’t have to relearn how to tie our
shoes, speak a language, brush our teeth, or relearn thousands of other simple tasks every time we do
them. Imagine if you had to relearn every minor activity or reconstitute every thought each time it needed
to be done!

Every moment of our existence our senses generate huge amounts of An average person can
data from what we are experiencing. Each sensor (vision, hearing, hold about seven pieces
touch, etc.) inputs raw data. The raw data is broken up into discrete of information in short-
segments of sub-data. The sub-data is rapidly, and simultaneously, term memory for up to 30
transferred to various, specific areas of our brains. seconds or so. You can
As an example, let’s look at just a visual input. Our eyes pick up light retain a larger amount of
frequencies that form images. Our brain deconstructs the image into information in short-term
various features; colors, motion, geometry, and other characteristics. memory if it is presented
in a set of smaller
Geometrically, for example, the image is broken down into lines; such numbers, like an area
as straight lines, curved lines, diagonal, vertical, etc. The same code, prefix and suffix of a
dissection of components happens for other aspects (color, motion, phone number. You can
etc.), of all of our senses. The brain converts external input into sub- also retain it for a little
data electrical signals. longer if you repeat the
information over and over.
The electrical signals travel through the neurons to the section of the
brain that house those types of sub-data. Exactly how the brain
synchronizes all these tiny details and recalls these patterns is not
fully understood. Researchers have dubbed this the ‘binding problem”. That it happens, is indisputable.
How it happens is not yet fully known.

Short-Term Memory
Once experiences have been sensed and encoded we have the ability to retain the memory for a short
period in our short-term memory. Short-term memory is a collection of small, highly active, temporary
memory storage areas. These are work spaces that the brain uses to process newly acquired
information. Each section of this space specializes in discrete types of sub-data. All of these short-term
memory spaces are operating simultaneously. There is a controller for managing these work spaces and
allocating experiences to between short-term and long-term memory; the hippocampus.

We have an astronomical number of experiences every day. The immense number of experiences our
senses gather would probably overwhelm us, if we couldn’t weed out important from unimportant data.
Our hippocampus manages the process by moving important stuff to short-term memory, and by letting
other non-important stuff fade away.

The process of converting short-term to long-term memory is a process called consolidation. All of the
temporary work spaces have limited capacity and so short-term work spaces have a limited duration.
Short-term memory is the bridge between the encoding and processing phase and provides a temporary
storage location for the first few seconds of a memories existence. If a memory is not relocated to a more
permanent memory location, it will be lost; sort of like a computer random access memory (RAM) that
gets over-written. There is a very high likelihood that a short-term memory will vanish.

A human brain can retain about seven pieces of information for about 30 seconds. If there is no further
effort to drive that information from short-term memory to long-term memory the information will be lost.

If you want to extend that information beyond 30 seconds to a perhaps an hour or two, you need to repeat
the information. This is called maintenance rehearsal and is effortful encoding. You’re basically
prolonging the time the information is held in short-term memory, but it is not at that point a long-term
memory.

Page 5 of 8
Long-Term Memory
If a person loses their ability to
Long-term memory includes things you remember that occurred
convert short-term to long-
more than a few hours before. Memories are converted from short-
term memory, life would be
term to long-term through consolidation. Consolidation is the
much more difficult. That
process that stabilizes a memory after the initial experience is
person might meet you in the
sensed. There are two types of consolidation; synaptic consolidation
morning and at mid-afternoon
and system consolidation.
they could meet you again
 Synaptic consolidation occurs within the first few hours after with absolutely no memory of
sensing and encoding. This type of consolidation is directed having ever met you before.
by the hippocampus (the brain’s CPU). In one well-known case, a
man lost this capability. He
 System consolidation happens as the strength of the neuron had long-term memory of what
connections increase and begin to rely less and less on the his face looked like in a mirror,
but over the years, his brain
hippocampus. This happens over a period of weeks to years.
was unable to update his
Repetition is the driver of system consolidation.
memory of his appearance as
An important thing to keep in mind is that long-term memories have he aged. After several years
different persistence and quality. A persistent, high quality memory he could not recognize his
allows you to recall an event, skill or situation with precision. Less own face in a mirror.
persistent and lower quality memories may need some help to be
brought back up, or become fuzzy when you try to remember them.

Behaviors and Habits

Think about how you drive home from work. Are you conscious of the turns into your neighborhood, and
into the spot where you park your vehicle? Do you consciously thinking about the pressure you put on
the gas pedal or brake pedal? Was your total concentration on steering the vehicle? If you’re like most
people who have lived in one location for a year or more, probably not. Most of us don’t think about the
physical act of operating a vehicle when following a familiar
route. We think about our spouse’s upcoming birthday,
something that’s bugging us from work, what time you need to “While older people have more
get your kid to soccer practice, or something else? difficulty than the young with rote
memorization, such as
In the book ‘The Power of Habit’ (Duhigg, 2014) the author
remembering lists of words or
talks about the habit loop as a repeated sequence of cue,
numbers, they actually tend to
routine and reward. In our driving home example, the cue is
perform better than young people
when we are in our vehicle on a familiar route heading to our
in the recognition and recall
home. The routine is following the path we normally take
of facts and tasks.
home, with sub-routines for traffic signals and other common
This is partly because older
aspects to the drive home. The reward is arriving at home
people, having accumulated more
without incidents. We probably also derive some satisfaction
real-life experience and
from parking in the exact location every day; give or take a few
information, have a denser
inches. Less than two inches if you’re obsessive.
network of linkages and
What happens when you are a few hundred yards from your associations in their long-term
driveway and dog runs in front of your moving car? In an memory, and partly because they
instant, the routine has been disrupted. Our brain snaps out of have had time to more efficiently
the ‘drive home’ sequence and the reflex action ‘stop the car organize their facts and
immediately’ sequence takes over. An object moving into the experiences in a more easily
path of your vehicle is another cue, an aggressive stomp on the accessible hierarchical form.”
brake while rapidly checking your rear-view mirror, is the
routine (and perhaps an expletive of two after the dog is known

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to be ok). The reward is that you didn’t turn an oblivious Labrador retriever into a conversation with the
neighbor’s kid.

The act of driving home is a sort of autopilot. Learned behaviors consolidated into long-term memory and
converted into a habit.

Remember that effortful processing is very energy intensive. Habits are less energy intensive because
we simply engage a routine. They free our conscious thinking from having to constantly consider every
simple activity. The brain energy saved allows us to channel more energy to cognitive activities that
consume higher amounts of energy. The more intently we are thinking about something, the more energy
the brain consumes.

It's also very important to understand two things about habits:

1. Habits can be good or bad. It takes leadership to define the right behaviors, and to ensure people
consistently execute those behaviors.

2. Old habits remain in long term memory. They never go away. Without attention, people can
easily revert to old habits, and they will.

It would be highly inefficient and extremely frustrating if we couldn’t drive common behaviors into habits;
we would have to relearn routines (how to drive home) all the time. Our brains are designed to drive
repeated tasks, or sequences of tasks, into habits.

We can define guidance that informs people of the behaviors we want. Through education and coaching,
we can provide repetition and feedback that let’s people know they are exhibiting the correct behaviors.
It’s the leader’s job to ensure the guidance is carried out consistently. Over time, those behaviors can
become the habits. The right habits are the things we want our work place culture to be based on.

Always remember:

Culture is what most people do, most of the time.

What ‘people do’ are behaviors.

If we want to drive culture, we have to drive behaviors.

Over time behaviors become consistent habits.

Consistent habits, over time, become the culture.

Key Points
1. The problem with classroom learning. Classroom learning often does not have enough exercises
and examples. Students don’t go back and review or repeat what they learned. They aren’t
placed in familiar emotional or contextual environments. When the student gets back into their
work environment they may not be held accountable to implement the training. When people
don’t use what they learned, those learned data are not repeated often enough to drive them into
long-term memories.

2. How the human brain processes learning. It is a biological process that deconstructs what our
senses detect in microscopic details. Effortful encoding is used to process new information. It is
extremely energy intensive. Each new detail is encoded by the hippocampus into either a
temporary short-term memory location, or a slightly longer short-term memory.

3. Persistence of new learning and how to commit learning to memory. The brain weeds out useful
from non-useful information. Useful short-term memories are placed in short-term memory

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 locations. These short-term memory locations are not stable. If the information is not repeated
the neuron connections will not be strengthened and the connections will wither and become
disconnected.

4. If we want to drive important information (training) into long-term memory we should:

a. Ensure the memories are repeated many times over a long enough period of time to
strengthen neuron connections sufficiently to result in long-term memories.

b. Link new learning with as many similar experiences that the person may have. Similar
memories piggyback on the same neuron pathways. Like an internet search, the more
hooks or search terms that are used, the more likely you’ll be able to retrieve the
memories your looking for.

c. Increase the emotional content by relating impact of the memory with anxiety, fear,
sadness and joy.

5. Old habits never leave, but new ones can be formed. To sustain the habits, leaders need to be
attentive and assertive in not letting old habits displace the right habits.

6. Culture is what most people do, most of the time. What people do are behaviors. If we want to
drive a culture we need to drive behaviors. Over time, behaviors become consistent habits.
Consistent habits over an extended period of time becomes culture.

Keywords
Brain, neuron, axon, dendrite, terminal, hippocampus, DNA-based, experience-based, cerebral cortex,
encoding, senses, short-term, memory, long-term, behaviors, habits, culture,

References
Duhigg, C. (2014). The Power of Habit. New York, NY: Random Hours Publishing Group.

Medina, J. J. (2014). Brain Rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Walsh, D. (2004). Why Do They Act That Way? New York, New York, USA: Free Press, A division of
Simon & Shuster, Inc.

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