In September 2015, journalist Caitlin Moran published a provocative article in The Saturday Times Magazine about ‘What men need to know about women’. She maintained that there were two fundamental things that defined women in the 21^st century that men really needed to understand. And if they did understand these two things, they would change the way they behaved – overnight.

It was not about the tiny things – why it takes so long for us to get dressed, or why we can so easily lose our confidence – it’s much more fundamental than that.

Signs that someone you work with is struggling

1. Something is different: If you notice changes in a person’s mood or demeanor that is a sure sign that person is struggling. He or she might become irritable, easy to anger, and quick to rise to perceived bait. There will be a failure of humor. You will notice changes in body language – a slumped posture rather than sitting tall, a look of grim determination, a lack of spring in their step, a dull look in the eyes, facial expressions that communicate sadness. The person will be at odds with their colleagues. He or she will be defensive and throw up blocks to suggestions and offers of help. The person will avoid talking to colleagues and managers.

BRAIN GAIN: During almost three years of its existence, Brain Gain has been variously propounding the view that twentieth century psychology failed completely to establish a real science of human behavior. Having developed as a descriptive rather than an explanatory science psychology had, by the end of the twentieth century, and from a practical use and added value point of view, effectively stalled.
The emerging modern neurosciences in the early twenty-first century offered a different way of thinking about human behaviour in general and organizational behaviour in particular.
It began to be apparent from an increasing understanding of how the brain works that both psychology and management theory in general had missed the (now) remarkably obvious point that humans beings are energy systems.  In consequence any organization’s profit statements are measures not only of accounting skill but are also describing the accumulated output of the ways that human energy has been applied within any corporate system.

In our book ‘The Fear Free Organization’ we tackle fear at work, using neuroscience to explain why fear is so destructive, and what can be done to get rid of it. Fear at work damages people and businesses, and directly impacts the bottom-line. Fear-free organisations and the people in them flourish and succeed.

But fear is part of so many aspects of our lives today: bullies thrive on triggering fear in others, and fearful citizens prefer not to get too involved in a society that scares them.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
—Upton Sinclair (1935)

On October 21^st 2015 The New York Times reported the recall of the potentially defective Tamarac airbag.   This report described the recall of over 19 million cars made by 12 automakers in the United States alone to fix the potentially dangerous airbags; millions more have been recalled in other countries. It was initially stated by Toyota that there had been no related injuries involving its vehicles but The New York Times reported in September that at least 139 injuries had occurred across all automakers.   In June Honda confirmed the eighth death linked to the faulty airbags. The New York Times further reported that these faults were known about since as long ago as 2004.