Lobotomies, Elephants, & Behavior Change

In 1935, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz developed a procedure called the leucotomy. I, like you, have no idea what a leucotomy is, so we’ll call it by its more infamous name: the lobotomy.

The lobotomy was the Ozempic of its day, exploding with so much popularity that Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize in 1949.

For those of you who skipped Psychology 101, the lobotomy is a procedure where practitioners drill a tiny hole in your skull via your nose and gently slice your brain with an ice pick. The idea was that by plunking the cerebellum in just the right way, it could relieve people of severe emotional pain – suicidal depression, nineteen-cups-of-coffee-like-anxiety, and other such mental illnesses. 

Egas Moniz believed that the lobotomy could, once mastered, relieve people of all sorts of mental health issues. And he looked to be onto something. After slicing brains and taking names, it seemed that patient’s depression and anxiety subsided.

Spoiler alert: once the 50s hit, people started realizing that taking an ice pick to the dome wasn’t all it was hopped up to be. Sure, their anxiety was gone, but so was their ability to make decisions, keep up with their responsibilities, empathize with other human beings, or go after ambitious goals. 

People missed work deadlines, skipped their child’s dance recitals for Law & Order SVU marathons, and became generally useless. Their motivation disappeared, and their decision-making was terrible.

The problem with the lobotomy wasn’t poking around the human brain with an ice pick as if you were trying to dislodge a popcorn kernel from your teeth. I’m kidding, of course that was the problem. But there was another problem.  

Egas Moniz was working off the same assumption we still carry to this day – that emotions are the cause of all of our pain and suffering, and if we can suppress or control them, we’ll be the vegetable-eating, affair-sustaining, daily-flossing human beings we were always meant to be. 

Sometimes, this message is explicit. Socrates, Descartes, Kant, Freud, the Ancient Greeks, and your favorite self-help guru have all preached something along the lines of “reason is the root of all virtue.” 

Other times, it’s more implicit. I work with a lot of coaches, and when clients stumble and crush a cheesecake, they immediately offer a healthy alternative (“But have you considered beet juice instead?”) as if their clients consciously deliberated, weighed the pros and cons, and thought the cheesecake would be the optimal choice for their waistline and skincare routine. By immediately offering alternatives, we’re implying that the cheesecake was an information problem (i.e., a reasoning problem) instead of an emotional one. 

We double down on this have-more-willpower message when we celebrate athletes who grind nonstop, businesspeople who work 90 hours per week, and health nuts who exclusively eat arugula. 

But most challenges aren’t logic problems. They’re emotional problems. Focusing on willpower or providing a meal plan is the coaching equivalent of the lobotomy. Having an affair, crushing a Five Guys burger, or swiping the AMEX on bottle service aren’t logical deductions; they’re emotional reactions. 

The Two Brains

To understand this further, it's helpful to know how the brain works. There are a million analogies out there by people way smarter than me, but my favorite is from Professor Johnathan Haidt. Haidt says to think of the brain as having two halves represented by a rider on top of an elephant. 

The rider – small and easily fatigued but smart, accurate, and methodical – represents our logical brain.

The elephant – impulsive and irrational but powerful and forceful – represents our emotional brain. 

The logical brain is methodical, rational and future-oriented. This is great for planning, organizing, remembering your daughter's dance recital, but it requires a lot of energy and needs a lot of R&R. So although great for providing direction, it doesn't pack a powerful punch for driving behavior.

The emotional brain, however, is a powerful driver of action. The problem is that it generally does what it wants, hates being told what to do, and reacts quickly and impulsively. 

So, no matter how great your rider's plans are, if your elephant isn't on the same page, your plans won't be executed.

The idea that we're going to double down on our rider – more self-discipline, willpower, meal plans, and lemon detoxes – and get to where we want to go is ridiculous. Instead, we need to focus on the big guy, the elephant in the room, the emotional brain. 

How to Speak Elephant

If step one is understanding that logical reasoning isn't going to drive behavior change, then step two is learning how to speak (and coach) in the language of that dopey elephant. 

Harry T. Reis is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who, like a freaking titan, set out to develop a universal theory to explain relationships. A single theory to understand:

• What makes some relationships last and others fizzle out?

• What causes us to connect effortlessly with some people and to be repulsed by others?

• Why does your bestie keep breaking up and getting back with her ex DESPITE the fact they're a terrible fit?

• Why do we listen to and find influence from some people and resist others?  

Reis found a single approach that could explain all of these questions. His theory was that some people's behavioral tendencies allowed relationships to thrive and profoundly impacted their ability to influence others. Reis called this "perceived partner responsiveness." 

We'll just call it responsiveness. 

Responsiveness is the ability to attune ourselves to others' wants, needs, and goals and take active steps to help them achieve them. It's the ability to nudge and influence the elephant.

Research shows that when coaches engage in responsiveness, it leads to all sorts of benefits. Clients feel closer and more connected, which leads to greater levels of influence and more engagement. It affects cognitive functioning, resilience, self-esteem, and emotional regulation and even impacts the stress hormone cortisol and blood pressure. When utilized correctly, it leads to less stress, fewer sick days, less burnout, and more satisfaction in their lives. All factors that drive successful coaching. 

Reis discovered that there are three elements to responsiveness.

1. Understanding

Understanding is the sense that "My coach understands how I see myself and what is important to me."

Before the elephant can be influenced, it needs to feel understood. As human beings, we HATE being treated as a number. We need to feel like you recognize our individual goals and challenges before we'll listen to you spew studies about the Krebs Cycle. It's that old adage: nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. 

As the great author and psychologist Philz Stutz once wrote, "When people feel understood, they want to do what you ask of them even if they don't fully agree. Empathy now enhances your authority."

Imagine this. You're at a restaurant and your server comes up to introduce himself. After some small talk, you learn that your server is a PhD student at Harvard. He's a brilliant student who will graduate at the top of his class and has a multiple six-figure job lined up. Impressive.

As it comes time to order, you tell him you'll have the garlic butter steak with the mashed potatoes. He nods like he understands, but when he repeats the order, he has you down for the salmon and broccoli. You correct him, he nods again.

When the food comes out, you're surprised to see the salmon and broccoli. When you tell the server (again) that you're a steak and potatoes kind of guy, he calmly says. "Whoops. I forgot. Honestly, the salmon is better for you anyway. You'll have that."

Of course, this is a silly illustration, but it highlights what we do with people all the time. We don't accurately hear people's wants and desires, we deliver the wrong advice, and, worst of all, we tell them what to do. The salmon is healthier anyway; you'll have that. 

Developing deep listening skills and empathy is not just about being a good listener, it's about truly understanding your clients' wants, needs, desires, values, priorities, challenges, fears, and more. This level of understanding leads to people feeling seen and supported, which in turn, opens them up more to your recommendations and influence.

2. Respect

In his research, Reis calls this component validation, but I like the word respect a lot more. It's the feeling that "My coach respects who I am and what I want." 

I'll never forget attending a seminar by a coach who was very well respected in the industry. Somehow, the topic shifted to personal dynamics and the impact of phones in social interactions. We were discussing the importance of presence and attention until the coach jumped in and said, "I disagree. It's not my job to get off my phone. It's your job to be more interesting than my phone."

Bro…

There's a great quote by Ron McMillian in the book Crucial Conversations. He writes, "Respect is like air. As long as it's present, nobody thinks about it. But if you take it away, it's all that people can think about."

As coaches and leaders, it's important we understand that there is a power gap. We are more knowledgeable about health and fitness than our clients. It's our job. But it's critical not to have an air of superiority. We're the experts and may have more knowledge on how menopause works, but we can't act as if we know more about Susan than Susan. 

The author, Mark Manson, gave some great dating advice that I believe applies here. He said, "Another one of my most common pieces of advice to men is that it's your responsibility to find something great in everyone you meet. It's not their responsibility to show you. Become curious. Stop being judgmental."

This is great advice for us as leaders, too. Remain curious and withhold judgment, and your clients will feel respected. When they feel respected, their elephants are far more open to listening to what you have to say.  

3. Caring 

The final component of responsiveness is caring. Caring is taking active, supportive steps to help people meet their goals. The key word here is active. People notice when you go out of your way and put extra effort into helping them. 

My love language is airport pick-ups. I know nobody wants to do it, so if you’re going out of your way to pick me up so that I can save some coin AND to keep me from spending a half hour with some guy from Uber named Josh in his old Honda Accord while he tells me about his DJ side-hustle, I know you care truly about me. And it’s human nature to reciprocate that care. 

One of Dale Carnegie’s Three Fundamentals of Influencing is to make people feel important. Using your scarce resources of time and energy to help somebody achieve their own goals is a powerful way to make others feel important.

This third and final component is essential and can’t be faked. When people feel like you truly care about them as human beings, they’ll do anything for you. Your retention will skyrocket, and your results will be exponential.

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To close all this talk of elephants and lobotomies, I want to acknowledge that responsiveness is a skill - a tough one at that. It’s something that takes time to develop and a ton of effort over an extended period of time. That’s probably why most of us don’t do it.

But the alternative is lobotomy solutions. And sure, they may work in the short term and earn you a Nobel prize. But I promise those chickens will return to roost, just like Muniz in the 50s.

If we genuinely want to drive change and improve the lives and performance of others, we need to move towards the language of the elephant—the language of emotions. And unfortunately, this isn’t a one-off tactic. As the authors Dan & Chip Heath wrote, “Responsiveness isn’t a tactic; it’s a religion. It’s a way of being.”