How to activate the ‘seeking system’ of your brain | Dan Cable | Big Think

I can tell you that being playful and being curious are the root of innovation. There appears to be a part of our brain called the ventral striatum – that's the technical term – or you also could call it the seeking system. This system is urging us to explore the boundaries of what we know; it's the new and it's the desire to learn.

This is onboard in a part of our brain, and we can think about stimulating it. We can think about activating it. For example, when the seeking system is activated, it releases dopamine into our body. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that makes us feel more alive; literally, the feeling of zest or enthusiasm or curiosity wells up within us.

It's an innate feeling; it's intrinsic. What might be interesting is to think about what are some ways that leaders can stimulate that part of the brain. I think that there are three different approaches that they can use. One of the ones that is probably the easiest is experimentation. By experimentation, what I mean is playing with the boundaries of how we usually do things to try to understand if we can create a better effect.

Now, Google has moved away from this in recent years, but this early movement of giving people 20% of their time just to play around is something that 3M is still doing. Fifteen percent of engineers' time is bootleg time, where they're not supposed to work on their regular job; they're supposed to experiment and play around with the edges. We know that this is where a lot of these innovations come out.

You know that Google Maps or sticky notes; a lot of these come out of not a senior leader saying, "Do it this way," but a senior leader saying, "Play around, see what your interests are, and where they take you." I would call that a leadership practice or a leadership mindset that allows for the space to develop, to play, to invent, to create.

In addition to experimentation, this idea about understanding our strengths—playing to our strengths for humans—this idea about identity and what is my potential and what am I capable of on the planet; that seems to be something that is an ignition switch. It makes us enthusiastic to try; it makes us want to pursue the potential that we have within us.

Then, the third activator of the seeking system is this concept of the why of the work. Again, this urge within us is to understand the cause and effect of our actions. But so many of us at work don't really ever get to see or feel that final effect. Ways that leaders can help personalize the purpose is this third activator.

I'll give you one story about that. I can steal this story from Adam Grant. He looked at call center operators; but in this one, they were not trying to solve problems—they were asking for money. They were fundraisers. What he did is he randomly assigned half of the fundraisers to a condition where they just got to meet a student who was a recipient of the scholarship money.

This student sat with them and said thank you for ten minutes. He said, "Thank you, I just want you to appreciate what you do, because I couldn't afford school without you. I'm basically here because of you." Then, they just had a chance for ten minutes to chat with that person about what classes he or she was taking or trips that he or she may have taken. After that, they went away.

There were no group hugs; it wasn't a tearful exchange. But what's interesting is after those people went back to work, they were making on average three times more calls. Each of those calls was on average making about twice as much likelihood of getting money. So what they found is by increasing the personal connection with the recipient of the work, they were able to highlight the purpose.

They were able to energize these people. They were able to activate these people to not only make more calls and have more stamina at the rejection, but also to be more effective with each call. Most of us onboard, in the way that Henry Ford would have, we get them right into the job right away because we want efficiency; we want to get people up to speed quickly and there's not a wasted minute.

So it's job, job, job, and what's i...