The "Selfish" Chemicals

In "Alcoholics Anonymous" people don't get sober until they complete the 12th (and last) step of the program, which involves helping another addict overcome his addiction. It is the helping of another human that motivates.

Similarly, your best days at work were not the ones when everything ...

Rules keep our society moving forward. But we don't really trust rules, we obey them. Trust is something inherently human due to oxytocin.

This is the reason we often hate bureaucrats. They always follow the rules and never show the human side our brain understands better.

The first step to being a good leader is understanding that an organization is essentially a Circle of Safety. The people's insecurities vanish inside this Circle, but a bad leader will inevitably shrink or fracture it into multiple small ones.

Outside of the Circle

Efficiently leading an organization is something that many people struggle with these days. While there is no easy path to do it successfully, there are some guidelines and ideas that can surely help.

From Circles of Safety to happiness chemicals and empathy, follow me on this jour...

While layoffs can be a quick solution to make ends meet in financial statements, it does not mean they won't have long-term consequences.

The concept of "lifetime employment" guarantees an employee that he will never be fired. This was put into practice with good results. It will b...

"Destructive Abundance" is the state where protecting the results is prioritized above protecting those who produce the results.

Companies get in this state because the leaders only care about the score but forgot why they decided to play the game in the first place. Challe...

Leaders have the vision and should delegate the authority to the ones with the information, that they can trust.

Trust requires integrity - the capacity of someone to consistently adhere to some moral values.

There is a magic number of close connections that humans can have. That number is 150. If one of an organization's offices or factories has more employees, the human connections grow cold and won't be as motivated.

This is no empirical estimation. Old hunter/gatherer tribes...

Actually getting to see what impact your work has is infinitely more important than your boss complimenting you on it.

Due to human nature, putting money on the line is usually not as impactful emotionally as offering your time and energy to other people - our brains are not made to process...

We can never trust someone right away. Meeting a person for the first time naturally releases dopamine that masks how we actually feel about that person until the novelty fades; this is why we shouldn't get married after a week. Conversely, if after several years we still feel like we don't belon...

When discussing human behavior, we need to dig a bit into how the brain works. There are 4 primary chemicals for happiness:

• Endorphins
• Dopamine
• Serotonin
• Oxytocin

Let's see when each of these is released.

The other 2 chemicals are focused on socialization and our belonging to a group.

1. Serotonin causes the feeling of pride when others like or respect us.
2. Oxytocin is released to give us feelings of friendship, love, and deep trust. Without it, we ...

People tend to chase the title of "leader" because it comes with great perks. These perks, however, come with the responsibility they have over their subjects or employees. Those who do not uphold this duty accordingly are weak leaders.

Any perk you receive in a company or organization is m...

Aside from the happiness chemicals, there is also the notion of cortisol the stress hormone. Historically, it's released when danger is close and we need to get out of a life-threatening situation.

Unfortunately, unhealthy work environments lead to our bodies being inundate...