The CIMBA Advantage

Process and the Neuroscience of Leadership

Research in the neuroscience of leadership encouraged CIMBA to adopt express rational thinking processes as an integral part of its learning environment. Specifically, CIMBA uses rational thinking processes developed by Drs. Ben Tregoe and Charles Kepner (KT) systematically observed and recorded the questions the most effective managers were asking subordinates and team members when making decisions and solving problems.

In learning and using KT processes, students (or managers, subordinates, and team members) create a hardwired, “shared mind map” in the form of KT’s common language, common guidelines approach to rational managerial thinking. Consistent with the dictates of the neuroscience of leadership, KT’s rational thinking processes provide focus -- “attention density” in the language of the neuroscience of leadership -- by making thinking visible and by asking the kinds of questions the brain naturally seeks to answer when action is required. Importantly, the shared mind map allows an individual to move brain energies away from thinking about how the decision making or problem solving process will proceed to what information will be required to systematically make the decision or solve the problem.

In this way, the bulk of the individual’s cognitive brain is no longer required for understanding the decision making process (which, without the shared express thinking process, would require each person to allocate energies toward understanding the other person’s thinking processes). The brain can then be used more efficiently for generating higher-level thought and reasoning inputs into the managerial concern at hand.

By significantly improving process communication, ambiguity and uncertainty are reduced and the manager benefits both from the subordinate’s or team member’s thinking and from the subordinate’s "buy in" later -- fundamental to the effective practice of management. By analogy, consider responding to another person's questions about how to ride a bicycle without common language, guidelines, or experiences (as opposed to questions about what a bicycle is).