Talk on the Inspireside - Episode 1

Talk on the Inspireside – Colin Falconer, Director of InspireChilli, takes an asset-based lens in search of inspiring people and insights. 

Episode 1.  'When asset-based thinking meets brain science' - an interview with Bea Herbert, founder of ‘States of Mind’.

I decided to start my 'Talk on the Inspireside' series with Bea Herbert, winner of this year’s Bootstrap Enterprise Bootcamp.  Bea and I share a common passion for pushing beyond the norms of problem-focused responses to youth disadvantage and mental health.   While my background draws from asset-based technology, Bea’s is in brain science.  Perhaps there is a synergy between the two, we began to wonder, as we met over tea and chocolate biscuits at my Hackney HQ.

After a meeting of minds, we start our conversation by sketching out some of the barriers that can lock people into risk-based deficit patterns.  While society wants to do good, I contend, many current forms of funding and supporting good seem to entrench us further into controls that restrict or reverse intended impact.  Thus, while the underlying principle of things like Universal Credit 'might' be progressive, their operational design can be deeply flawed. It’s as though we are so busy treating people as problems to cope with, that we never find the common sense ways to help them flourish. How can we get closer to Aristotle’s vision of a ‘good life’?

‘Trust can be liberating,’ Bea offers in reply.  I imagine what the more trusting world of Universal Income might look like, as though it could be the human equivalent to core funding charities.  But how often do we really trust people to be positive agents of change? When do we properly invest in human capability? 

We remind ourselves of the scenario.  Our society is spiralling into a space where we are increasingly disconnected from each other. Worse, the more we are reminded of problems around us, the more we retreat into this negative space.  It’s a self-defeating defence mechanism that reinforces the problems we are retreating from.   Stressed into a survival model – constantly waiting for resources to deal with more problems  – we create responses that are attuned to stress and survival: that is, short-term, risk focused, self-preserving.

'If we look at the mindset of many organisations,’ Bea suggests, ‘they are often training people to focus on risk and meticulously manage threat.'

We might intellectually engage with the idea of stepping outside the negative space. Reality, however, keeps pulling us back.  The same old same old.

For Bea, some of the answers to this lie in understanding stress and empathy.  She describes to me how the brain automatically works as a super computer for recognising threats.  It constantly scans the environment for negatives to react to. The more we feel we are unable to cope, the stronger this radar becomes. That is a useful trait for prehistoric landscapes, warzones, and life on the streets; but in other settings proves counter-productive. Ultimately, living in a space of stress and predicting an unknowable future makes for a highly anxious life.

‘Consider stress as a state of mind and observe its presence in the world,’ Bea explains. ‘You can see the destabilising effect it has on institutions, the individuals within them and society as a whole. Observe the mind under stress, and we are given an insight into the capabilities that are lost when operating in this state.  Our decision making abilities are impaired.  Our ability to understand another person's point of view becomes harder.  Our brain cannot focus on the moment as we are pushed into a state that is on guard for problems but less able to solve them.  The cycle can be broken but is perpetuated by our holding of the experience.  Trapped in rumination and analysis of 'imaginary' situations, we get stuck in the 'trap' of distress.’

The ‘trap of distress’ is a powerful image.  I wonder if it is somehow connected with society’s endless ‘dissing’ of people into the disadvantaged labelling and false fixing of ‘problems’.  Is this why we are never able to act on root causes and potential that would be obvious to us if our decision making abilities were refocused?  The good news, Bea shares, is that the default position can be adjusted.  Mastering other parts of the brain and being more aware of the different states of mind we can experience will help us harness ways out of stress. 

‘An interesting thing about the stress response is that along with the stress chemicals adrenaline and cortisol, our brains also release oxytocin, the one that makes us feel full and calm and reassured. In times of despair our body still offers us a choice. This chemical is released in an attempt to provide a sense of connection. The more that is released, through conversation, eye contact and a shift of attention towards the people around us, the more the damaging effects of stress are neutralised and repaired.’

Bea goes on to explore how people end up working in environments that downplay the importance of honest, genuine human connection. The consequence, for her, is reflected in increased anxiety levels and a sense of 'stuckness' within systems over focused on controlling what could go wrong, instead of creating what could go right.

I note the irony that the best way to unstick the ‘trap of distress’ is by feeling empathy through human interaction – the one thing that being stressed often divides us from. Indeed, the very idea of threat can make us even more isolated from the communications that might free us.  As Bea puts it, ‘' We are living in a world where it is not difficult to feel that a sense of threat and instability is around us constantly.  But when life is seen as a struggle to get by, a stressed state of mind steals from us the ability to access higher, creative, compassionate qualities.  These are the qualities we must focus on growing.’ 

Techniques and approaches to master all this form part of Bea’s enterprise ‘States of Mind’.  Her new Community Interest Company offers exciting training programmes designed to equip young people with the knowledge to talk about and listen to the mental states of themselves and others in empowering ways. The vision for ‘States of Mind’ is easy to embrace: ‘We like to see ourselves as fixed and constant characters. The truth is that such an existence is the opposite of human experience. By not acknowledging the limiting, or liberating, effects of different mental states, we lose an opportunity to better navigate through the varying versions of ourselves. 'States of Mind' offers a way towards greater awareness and a more honest conversation to evolve our lives’.

As we talk, I am struck by the comparisons between Bea’s descriptions of people and the behaviour of organisations.  There is no shortage of organisations committed to creating asset-based solutions. Yet, under compliance, competition, funding and other pressures, the same organisations sometimes end up repeating deficit practices and relationships. Can brain science help us respond to the systemic stresses faced in trying to make an asset-based approach work? 

Bea and I agree that a shift in the organisational state-of-mind is critical. It forms a natural part of the balancing act an asset-based approach brings to meeting needs while nurturing strengths.  Bea’s simple techniques, such as conscious systems of listening and support, open up the opportunity for a more positive investment in human productivity and fulfilment.  We reach for a conclusion over a final chocolate biscuit: to take action on assets means using our heads.  Together.  Empathetically.  A lot, lot more...

Find out more information about the work of States of Mind at www.statesofmind.org

Fancy a talk on the inspireside?  Get in touch at hello@inspirechilli.com