Our Brains Don’t Help In Finance
For those of you who follow me on Linkedin you will have seen I spent this week “across the ditch” in New Zealand. In a lovely city called Hamilton, about 100km south of Auckland.
It was a great trip of client delivery and catchups. But there was also an incident that reinforced two things to me:
1 – My reptilian brain still works.
2 – Acting on it before checking the facts can get you into trouble – in life and in finance.
I was walking across Hamilton Bridge after catching up with one of my clients.
If you have seen this bridge you know it’s a pretty big one perched high above the mighty Waikato River below.
I was chatting to my wife on the phone, when I saw two girls up ahead.
One was standing safely on the bridge. The other was sitting on the rail, feet dangling over the Waikato below
Instantly, the reptilian part of my brain – the bit that’s been keeping humans alive for a few hundred thousand years – screamed “Danger! Someone’s about to jump!”
Without thinking, I told my wife, “Gotta go,” and started moving toward the girl to pull her down.
Then, my more modern brain caught up.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the police car 20 metres away holding up traffic. Seconds later, another police car came from the opposite side at speed, skidded to a stop, 2 policemen jumped out, pulled the girl off the rail, cuffed her, and drove away.
It wasn’t a rescue situation.
It was an arrest situation.
And my role in it would have been… somewhat unhelpful.
Three brains in one
Our brains have three main layers:
👉 Reptilian brain – survival instincts, fight/flight/freeze.
👉 Limbic system – emotions and social reactions.
👉 Neocortex – logic, reasoning, facts.
In my case:
👉 Reptilian brain: Save her!
👉 Limbic system: This is scary.
👉 Neocortex (finally): Wait… police are here. Maybe don’t tackle a suspect mid-arrest.
Why this matters in Finance Business Partnering?
The order with which our brains works is important. For whatever reason in finance we try to hijack it and work backwards – but it never works.
When you present numbers in a meeting, you might think you’re talking to the neocortex of your audience – the rational, logical part of the brain.
But if the numbers threaten someone’s budget, their job, or their reputation, you’ll trigger their limbic or reptilian brain first.
Because that’s the order of how our brains work. Reptilian, Limbic then neo cortex.
And once those parts take over, logic has to wait its turn. Sometimes it doesn’t even get a turn
The trick to fix this and get to the neo cortex quicker?
1 Calm the reptilian brain – remove perceived threats by how you show up and start.
2 Connect with the limbic brain – show empathy, acknowledge emotions maybe do a “don’t/do” conversation (see next fortnight newsletter)
3 Then engage the neocortex – bring the data and reasoning.
Don’t dump the data first and hope the neo cortex of your audience kicks in. It won’t, it will run a mile or walk onto a bridge.
In Hamilton, I avoided an awkward situation by letting my thinking brain catch up.
In finance, you avoid awkward situations by letting their thinking brain catch up. Don’t start with facts end with them only once they feel safe and are emotionally in a place to consider them.