The CIMBA Advantage

Knowledge and the Neuroscience of Leadership

Research into the neuroscience of leadership guided us in developing a more efficient learning environment. Understanding the limits of the brain's working memory through neuroscience shows that learning declines measurably when the instructional strategy is passively centered on information transmission and rote memorization. Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, the CIMBA instructional strategy is highly-interactive and experiential with professors and coaches asking pertinent questions and supporting students in working out solutions on their own.

From a neuroscience standpoint, this type of learning environment best leads students to greater "hardwiring" of information, thereby improving brain efficiency, and making information more readily recallable when it becomes important in decision making and problem solving. In addition, to further assist in this "hardwiring,” CIMBA’s action learning activities (MBA Consulting projects) provide a forum in which students experiment with their leadership skills and include the active involvement of our leadership development and process facilitation coaches who assist in that experimentation. By analogy, in comparing active versus passive instructional strategies, consider the difference between being told about the various kinds of bicycles (someone else’s thinking) versus learning how to actually ride one (your thinking).