Manjari Raman: Inside the leader's mind

OUT OF THE BOX/Once we know what goes on there, it will be easier to push the right buttons

Like all of us, there's nothing more Rick Gilkey would love to know than what goes on inside a leader's mind. That's why he's bang in the middle of a research project designed to do just that.

It involves using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to develop pictures of the brains of executives who are involved in strategic thinking, moral reasoning, and creative problem solving.

That's such a hot idea that it could set the future of managing human resources "" and business "" sizzling. "We're looking at the brain and business. We know very, very little about what happens inside the brain when people are leading organisations," says Gilkey. He's perfect to anchor such a project because he holds a joint appointment at Emory University.

Not only does Gilkey serve on the faculty of the Goizueta Business School as associate professor in the organisation and management area, but he is also an associate professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine.

In the study's pilot phase, Gilkey put together a team of 15 respondents, all males in their 30s, with at least seven years of business experience, and all at director level in companies.

The way the project works is simple. Each respondent enters the MRI tunnel, and is made to read business dilemmas that are projected on a screen. As he does so, the executive's brain is scanned by the MRI machine.

Moreover, the executive can also signal his reactions by indicating its importance on a handheld device on a scale of 1 to 4. Explains Gilkey: "The device helps us see what's registering on the executive's brain, and also to attribute a certain importance to it."

In addition, the research team also sits down with each executive and gets a detailed explanation about how he reacted to each dilemma.

Gilkey and his colleagues designed the business cases to raise thorny issues on ethics and strategy. For example, in one scenario, a manager must make a presentation to a client, and his boss exerts pressure on him to fudge the data to make it look better. The ethical dilemma: should the manager stay true to the data or should he give in to the boss's subtle directives. Other strategy dilemmas are equally tricky.

For instance, a company's products have peaked in terms of their life cycle. The manager understands that changes will have to be made, but the big question is whether the company should cash out, or stay in the market due to competitive pressures.

"The business scenarios are designed to make the executives respond at several levels. For example, one question that they have to answer is: identify the ethical issue. We want to see if people even see things as ethical dilemmas or not, explains Gilkey.

This is only the first phase of an ongoing research study, and Gilkey repeatedly stresses that the findings are preliminary ones, but there's no doubt that the project is throwing up exciting ideas.

There seems to be an answer emerging to a thorny question that has bothered organisation behaviour scientists for years: is moral reasoning based on intuition, or reason and logic?

"One of the things we are learning is that it has a lot more to do with intuition. Moral reasoning seems to be an instantaneous process that occurs usually outside of awareness, to which later we apply the laws of logic," points out Gilkey.

Broadly, three key findings have emerged from the project based on the areas of the brain that were activated in the executives the team studied.

One, the autobiographical memory kicked in, which would seem to imply that the early experiences in a person's life influence how they deal with business dilemmas.

Two, that part of the brain which is responsible for the sense of self, "the medial prefrontal cortex, as it is called" was activated.

Finally, the third area of the brain that was activated had to do with perspective or empathy. "That makes sense because we know sociopaths can harm other people without any awareness that they are doing it. It's like Enron's top people, who were basically stealing. But they didn't have the ability to identify who the victims of the crimes would be," says Gilkey.

Gilkey expects the findings to help B-schools and companies develop teaching and training materials in such a way that managers are better able to deal with ethical and strategic dilemmas.

"The idea is to help people be more effective in sensing issues. What we are trying to do is provide tools for people, so that they have more comfort and confidence in addressing issues that they are already aware of," he concludes.

As for business leaders who shudder at the very thought of touchy-feely management jargon like emotional intelligence, Gilkey feels the research might throw up ways of dealing with soft issues in a more structured and rational manner.

After all, once leaders know how managers' brains are wired "" and vice-versa "" we should all be better able to push the right buttons.