Note: In part 10—the final installment—of this slightly deeper blog series on new marketing and brain research, I provide my thoughts on the second of two books that inspired these posts.
Your Brain at Work holds significant content for marketers (Book cover ©2009 David Rock, Publisher: HarperCollins, used with permission)
While working on a project to draw out the marketing implications of new brain research, I met with a university professor who suggested this reading. I initially purchased the book because it challenged the famous research of George Miller, saying we can hold only three or four things in mind at any time rather than Miller’s seven. (Miller’s research is not necessarily wrong; it requires memorization by repeating a series over and over in your mind.) Though not billed as a marketing book, the more I read, the more implications I found for marketers.
Should I read Your Brain at Work?
Read this book if you’re…
- …a marketing or business leader
- …interested in the latest brain research to understand how the way our brains work affects communication, engagement and influence
- …or if you want to make better use of your own brain to improve interactions and performance.
Overall rating
Worth the climb (Reading this book is time well-spent.)
Quote that says it all
[T]he brain…appears to be like a machine. So much of [our] mental activity is automatic, driven by forces out of [our] control…While your brain is a machine, it’s also not just a machine…Your capacity to change yourself, change others, and even change the world, may boil down to how well you know your brain.
- David Rock (from Your Brain at Work)
What’s brilliant?
- Features the latest in neuroscience but explains it with a simple metaphor and straightforward language
- Offers strategies for maximizing brain resources
- Delivers the SCARF (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness) model describing five domains of social experience that the brain treats as survival issues (more important than treated in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
- Provides formulas for harnessing and controlling an emotional response
- Busts the myth of multitasking when conscious focus is required
- Carries examples of two people throughout the book to easily visualize how neuroscience can be applied in everyday situations
- Serves up actionable items that I immediately incorporated into my marketing and my life
What’s surprising?
- Offers strategies for tapping into the unconscious brain to gain insights into new ideas and solve problems
- Discusses the role of the evolutionary brain in a rapidly changing environment
- Researches the impact of trust and chemistry in the brain (see part 6)
- Shows how the intensity of a fairness response is often underestimated (see part 7)
- Explains how strong focus and engagement can lead to “hardwiring” in the brain in as little as three repetitions
- Highlights studies showing that continuous partial attention lowers our IQ (by an average of 5 points for women and 15 points for men)
What’s missing?
- Given Rock’s emphasis and explanation of the effectiveness of reaching the visual cortex, that has evolved over millions of years versus our much more recent language circuitry, more visual aids or tables would have made it easier to digest the information related to the functions of different parts of the brain
Well, that’s a wrap for the 10-part brain blog…Maybe I’ll take on a simpler subject for my next post…Maybe…
How does your marketing connect with the brain of your prospect?
You might also like…
What motivates us: new marketing and brain research (part 1 of 10)
NEW brain research part 2: Setting the record straight on Maslow’s theories
NEW brain research part 3: Become a marketing status symbol
NEW brain research part 4: Nothing’s certain but death, taxes and marketing
NEW brain research part 5: Autonomy and irrational decision-making in marketing
NEW brain research part 6: Can you relate to marketing?
NEW brain research part 7: Life’s not fair for marketers
NEW brain research part 8: The marketing implications of Maslow’s hidden levels
NEW brain research part 9: Book review: Bob Gilbreath’s Marketing with Meaning
Nurture marketing: a strategically superior alternative to drip marketing
The 10 golden rules of marketing white papers
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Just finished reading it last night. You know what? Rock took a super-thick and heavy topic and wrapped a very cool narrative around it (as a learning tool, of course). Give him serious credit for this book. Some of this stuff is cutting edge science, that dispels alot of myths about creativity, energy, and focus.
It’s a good slog, and f-ing brilliant. Take lots of notes!
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