When governments issued lockdown orders earlier this year, organizations everywhere scrambled to move their learning programs online. Since then, a team at the NeuroLeadership Institute has conducted over 20 learning audits to assess how larger companies handled the transition. Unfortunately, our conversations revealed that most organizations took in-person learning programs, already poor at driving behavior change, and made them worse, not better.

We believe this is a terrible lost opportunity. Our research shows that virtual learning, when done right, can be dramatically more effective than in person workshops. In fact, an analysis of the likelihood of people taking action on…

By Dr. David Rock and Khalil Smith

We’ve written before on the importance of creating priorities, habits, and systems (PHS) when it comes to large-scale culture change.

But with so many organizations taking a renewed — or perhaps unprecedented — interest in reshaping their D&I efforts to boost inclusion, mitigate bias, and become more human overall, we felt compelled to revisit the model and explain the underlying science. Because when it comes to addressing systemic racism, you can’t do it just by making it a priority.

Here’s the elevator pitch on PHS: Priorities are necessary to change culture, but they…

By Dr. David Rock and Khalil Smith

If you’re feeling anxious about current events, you’re paying attention.

People everywhere have rarely experienced this level of collective emotions. Months of intense uncertainty have been compounded for many by feeling isolated at home. In the US, add to this a deep, seething anger over 100,000+ deaths, tragically skewed towards people of color, at least some of which could have been prevented with stronger leadership. This is mixed with extraordinary levels of unemployment, also skewed to people of color. …

This article originally appeared on Forbes on May 22, 2020.

As the world limps toward recovery, many news headlines seem to suggest we should accept this reality as our “new normal,” as if the story is all bad and out of our control. The truth is, while the pandemic and resulting economic impact are certainly outside our grasp, how we respond to crisis isn’t — especially at the level of each organization, and what we decide to do next.

At NLI, we believe this isn’t a time to build a new normal, but instead, a better normal. Why a better…

By David Rock and Khalil Smith

With coronavirus all but ensuring now that teams who can work remotely are doing so, you’ve probably been wondering how that migration will actually happen — and if it’s going to be good or bad for your teams and organization.

Here’s the short answer: yes, working remotely can be a good thing. As long as you do it right.

Let’s start with the research: A 2015 Stanford study of 500 employees over two years showed that working remotely increased total-factor productivity by between 20–30%, due in part to increased performance and lower overhead costs…

All of us have been there at some point. It’s 3pm on a Wednesday. You’ve now been on six hours of phone calls with co-workers. And your brain appears to have stopped working. All you can hear is noise coming down the telephone, and you can’t seem to focus anymore.

Virtual work is the mainstay of today’s organization. Mostly it is infuriating, exhausting, and sadly, ineffective. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. …

Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning broadcast journalist and producer known for her work with CNN and HBO, including a series of documentaries about racial experience and inequality in America. She joined us recently for an interview on NLI’s podcast, Your Brain At Work, where we discussed the power of storytelling to create connections and foster inclusion.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

NLI: How did you become interested in storytelling as a medium for communicating ideas?

Soledad O’Brien: When I started working in documentaries, I realized pretty quickly that you can’t just lecture people with data…

Breakthrough technologies like AI, the internet of things, and robotics are completely changing how we design and deliver solutions to human needs. This movement is also spurring a deep revolution in how organizations are being run, perhaps the biggest since the invention of electricity. One study found that 96% of companies plan to redesign how they work.

While it is true that investments in digital will matter, there are still plenty of humans running the show, and the way they think, their approach to collaboration, and how they innovate will be a big factor in the success of any digital…