0:06 so now we're going to dig into the brain
0:09 science of teams and groups and the
0:11 first model I want to show you you've
0:13 probably already seen before it's Bruce
0:16 tuckman's work on group development and
0:18 he studied how groups develop over time
0:20 and found that they go through five
0:23 stages and he named them forming
0:27 storming norming performing and
0:29 adjourning and what he discovered is
0:31 that each of these phases has some clear
0:33 things that the group is doing together
0:35 and each phase is characterized by
0:38 certain issues and challenges and we
0:40 know that teams develop in this way I've
0:42 seen this play out in groups that I've
0:44 been part on and groups I've supervised
0:46 and his model looks at you know the
0:48 group getting more and more into the
0:49 groove essentially that they eventually
0:52 move to this performing stage so I first
0:54 want us to look there let's look at
0:55 what's happening in the brain when
0:58 groups are performing at their
1:00 best I always like to tell folks that
1:02 why I go to Neuroscience is because
1:05 biology is universal it cuts across
1:07 everything it cuts across our age and
1:09 our gender and our race and ethnicity
1:12 and where in the world we live and work
1:14 because underneath all of our wonderful
1:16 diversity and believe me I love our
1:20 diversity we're identical biologically
1:21 and so what we're finding when we study
1:24 the Neurology of teams and scientists
1:27 are using machines like MRIs as well as
1:30 these brain caps uh there's EEG G and
1:32 tms's that stands for
1:35 electroen and transcranial magnetic
1:38 stimulation uh what we find is that we
1:39 can learn a lot about what's happening
1:42 in the brain and they can study now
1:45 using these caps teams working in real
1:47 time with each other and see what's
1:49 going on so there's a few researchers
1:51 that are doing groundbreaking work in
1:52 this area and what they've discovered is
1:54 there's kind of three key things that
1:56 happen when teams are performing well
1:59 the first is neural synchrony the second
2:01 is rhythm of te team and the third is
2:03 mere neurons so let me tell you a little
2:05 bit more about each of these when we
2:07 look at neural synchrony what scientists
2:09 can look for is first of all which
2:12 region of the brain is lighting up and
2:14 in addition they can look at brain waves
2:16 and find out what's happening in the
2:18 individual brain waves of every member
2:21 of the team and sure enough teams that
2:24 are performing well achieve neuros
2:26 synchrony but what we know is that when
2:28 teams are working well you'll actually
2:30 see every member of the team they brain
2:32 waves come into alignment and you can
2:33 see it on these charts they literally
2:36 start to mirror each other and it's
2:38 pretty fascinating because you can see
2:41 stuff neurologically that you wouldn't
2:43 necessarily see by observing the team if
2:45 you were in the room with them and what
2:47 Stevens and Galloway found in their
2:49 research was that there were neural
2:50 signatures for different parts of how
2:52 groups work together for example
2:54 identifying the problem forming
2:57 Solutions sharing ideas starting to come
3:00 to one idea and dealing with expected
3:01 challenges they each had a different
3:04 neural signature and in fact the team
3:06 would drop into alignment and then
3:07 something would kind of throw them out
3:09 of alignment the brain waves would
3:10 scatter and then they'd come back to
3:13 alignment and they call that the rhythm
3:15 of team which is how quickly the team
3:18 realigns on a neurological level the
3:20 other thing that was really interesting
3:22 was that when teams were doing really
3:24 well the brain waves had a fractal
3:27 pattern now fractals are kind of
3:29 mathematical formulas that get displayed
3:31 in nature we see them a lot in nature in
3:33 patterns and it turns out that healthy
3:35 teams have a fractal pattern in their
3:37 brain waves which is kind of
3:39 fascinating the third thing I want to
3:41 introduce you to is mirr neurons and
3:43 mirr neurons is something that we all
3:45 have in fact monkeys have them too and
3:46 that's how they were discovered there
3:48 was researchers who were working with
3:50 monkeys and they were on a break and the
3:53 researcher went to grab something to eat
3:55 and started eating and they noticed that
3:56 the brain waves and the monkey were
3:58 going off and it turns out it was the
4:01 same region for eating in the monkey's
4:03 brain and so they did more research and
4:04 they found that when we observe
4:07 something in another the same part of
4:10 our brain fires it's not exactly the
4:12 same strength but it's more ghosted or
4:14 or lighter version of it but this is
4:17 true for not only actions like grasping
4:18 and eating you can see some of the
4:20 images here from the research but it's
4:23 also for emotion and so how mere neurons
4:25 help us in terms of teamwork and group
4:28 work is it facilitates learning so we
4:30 learn by watching others observational
4:32 learning as well as our connection to
4:35 each other our empathy for each other
4:39 and our compassion now Dr Marco iaboni
4:41 at UCLA he's a neuroscientist and he
4:44 actually studies autism and he
4:46 discovered that it's actually a deficit
4:48 in the mirror neuron system that
4:49 contributes to the symptoms we see in
4:52 autism and his book is mirring people
4:54 now mirror neurons are also thought to
4:58 be related to group contagion meaning
4:59 that when people are excited other
5:02 people get excited or when people are in
5:04 fear other people get into fear because
5:06 we pick up on our emotions with each
5:08 other and in fact one researcher said
5:10 groups may be more contagious simply
5:13 because their actions resonate louder
5:14 and if any of you have worked in an
5:16 organization you've seen this sometimes
5:17 some of your workers start to get
5:19 worried or excited about something and
5:22 it has this contagion effect across
5:23 other members of the group it's
5:25 something to pay attention to because
5:26 it's biologically driven by the mere
5:29 neuron system next I want us to look at
5:31 the different types of teamwork that exist
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