Question & Answer: Can you think of an example from your own experience where you have changed your "frame"…..

As a Leader of a modest automobile firm, manufacturing two-wheelers for the domestic population of the country, I was in the opinion that women could not be employed in our Company owing to the large requirements of the field jobs because of the extremities involved in the physical forms such a long hours of working, exposed to physical issues such as adverse environmental conditions, etc. that I was in the belief that the women fraternity shall not be comfortable to handle.

However, my conflict situation arose when my ideology got vehemently opposed by the women section of the society and some part of the press media who termed my Company is a ‘Male chauvinist’ Organization. I was opposed upon various grounds for being so rigid upon my approach. My way of dealing was to ‘Avoid’ the conflict all together by ignoring the arguments placed by many parties. My Company’s work spoke about our dedication, commitment and quality of the products that we produced and the service that we provided to the customers. We usually never had issues regarding our performance but the competitors would always look out for a way to point their fingers upon us and to attempt to wipe us away from the industry.

It was then that one of our HR managers informed me about the Organizational cognitive neuroscience which is the neuroscientific study of organizational behavior, which outlines the relationship between our minds and how we interact within organizations. I could not really find much relevance to it until the manger went on to explain me the following:

Minds play a very important role in controlling our Organizational behavior. It is only when the mind is healthy, that an individual could be in the position to undertake better decisions which could be in the advantage of an Organization. A poor health may therefore impact the mind adversely. Also, it talks a lot about our mindset revolving around particular sets of ideologies as well that in turn helps in shaping the Organizational values on the part of the mindset. Some may be conservative in approach like how I was as a leader in my case, as he aptly depicted, while some open and broad-minded. The Organizational polices when formed on the basis of this mindset, becomes an identifying factor for the entire institution and this is how we can infer that there exists relationships between our minds and how we interact within Organizations.

Hence accordingly, upon the application of the same in the system, I learn that when neuroscientific study analyzes this mind, it could perhaps help in coming up with solutions that can help impact the Leader’s view more favorably in the interest of the women fraternity thereby bringing in more diversity to the Organization.

Post the application of this study to the conflict, I initiated women employment in the Company giving way to gender-equality with the considerations of the fact that women shall not only be employed for the desk-job or to the administrative duties within the four wall of my Organization but rather step out to the fields, generate the relevant information and furnish it to the leaders like me and to my Management team for fighting all the odds.

This is how I handled the conflict from being rigid to being very flexible in my decision-making ability.