Exercise 2: Awaken Your Learner

By Michael O'Brien, Ed.D

Your mind has two primary modes of operation. Call them the Auto mind and the Executive mind. Think of your Auto mind as the part of the self that handles your routine affairs, such as driving to work or doing a preliminary diagnostic on a patient. Think of your Executive as the part that pays attention, purposefully changes, and learns new skills when necessary; such as in your role as a physician leader working with a project team of people you don’t know well or present on a new topic to a group unfamiliar to you.

Neither mode of operation, in itself, is good or bad. It is good, however—in fact, vital to a physician's leadership role—that you develop the ability to choose which mode to operate in at any given time.

Your Mind on Autopilot

Left to its own devices—when the Executive in you leans back, as it were, feet on the desk, hands behind the head—the mind will spend most of its time running in the Auto mode. There is a certain logic to this: it conserves energy and allows you to respond to the demands of your environment with the least effort. Proper use of the Auto mind allows you to accumulate a reserve, to maintain a surplus, of what amounts to high-octane mental rocket fuel for those critical moments in life when the big move, the important decision on a critical case, the bright idea, or the new direction is needed.

The Auto mind runs the programs for feeling, thinking, memory, and sudden reaction. The Executive mind has the capacity to observe this process and to choose which programs to run. Naturally, the division of labor between the two isn’t rigid; they often do job sharing. As a physician leader (or for any leader) it is the capacity of the Executive mind that must be cultivated.

Executive in Charge

To illustrate: the Auto mind is the only reason a baseball batter can ever connect with a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fast ball. If it were the Executive mind trying to do the job, the batter would still be analyzing the pitcher’s windup long after the barely visible ball had already slammed into the catcher’s mitt.

But here is an interesting paradox. The Auto mind is also the reason that a pitcher with a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fast ball can fool a batter by throwing a slow change-up. The batter’s Auto mind takes in the situation—the count, the inning, the score, whatever body language the pitcher is conveying—and says, “Here comes the heat, get ready, swing,” making the batter tie himself into a knot and look like a complete fool as a fat slow pitch floats lazily across the plate. There’s nothing like an embarrassment like that to wake up a batter’s Executive mind. Now it’s the Executive mind glowering back at the pitcher through the batter’s eyes, daring the pitcher to throw the same pitch again.

The Auto mind and Executive mind are good teammates, natural teammates, and natural learners.

So while the mind’s tendency toward homeostasis, to run in the Auto mode, is usually a good idea, it isn’t always a good idea. It’s best to keep the Executive in a sort of semi-alert state all the time. You want to let the Executive decide when the Auto mind is equal to the task at hand and when it’s time for the Executive to take over.


Knowing When to Switch

How do you know when the Auto mind process is working for you or against you in your physician leadership role? There’s only one way. From time to time, you must examine your assumptions in critical areas of your job and your life. Once you’ve brought them to consciousness, you can assess their accuracy and evaluate whether they are a help or a hindrance. Without doing this, the personal initiatives you are taking at any given time are likely to be unbalanced. Your actions will probably be too reflexive and not intentional enough if you do not consciously review them every now and then.
Here’s how: Write down three beliefs you have about each of the two focus problems, that you previously identified in Exercise 1. (Let your thoughts flow freely; don’t belabor or edit them. If you’re keeping a Journal, do your writing there.)

Example:

Let’s say one of your focus problems is chronic financial stress. Your entries might look like these:

1. I must have some learning disability when it comes to earning and managing money.
2. My parents weren’t good money managers. Maybe they taught me their faults. Or maybe my financial incompetence is ­hereditary.
3. I’m afraid I don’t have either the aptitude or skills for earning a secure livelihood.

Now, write down three positive alternative assump­tions (you don’t have to believe them, just write them).

Example:

1. I can learn to manage money. The truth is, I’ve never really worked at it.
2. My parents certainly had the intelligence to be better money managers. It obviously wasn’t very important to them.
3. I’ve never honestly worked at developing my skill at doing what I really love. If I did, I know those skills would support me nicely.

In a simple statement, assess the likely consequences of both sets of assumptions.

Example:

I’ve always had these negative beliefs about myself, and I’ve never experienced anything but frustration with money. If I started believing in myself, my earning and handling of money would probably improve.

Which consequences would you prefer? Go ahead, write it down.

(Note: This exercise is being used here to inven­tory assumptions about a specific topic—the ­focus problems of exercise 1. It can also be an effective tool for shedding light on the general assump­tions that so often unconsciously govern our lives. For example, applying it to assumptions about yourself, your health, your job, your family, your relationships, your sex life, your future, etc., can yield valuable clues for personal growth.)

Learning is an increase in personal currency. How will you get it, and where will you spend it?
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For more information on O'Brien Group's approach to Physician Leadership, please visit http://obriengroup.us/about-us/physician-leadership/