Delia McCabe earned her PhD at Adelaide Medical School and researches the neurobiology of stress and lifestyle choices. We asked her what chronic stress does to the way we orient and decide.
The brain and the loop
Delia gives a neuroscientist’s view of the OODA loop and John Boyd. Our environment shapes the brain. Technology shapes children’s brains in particular. A false perception of the environment, or an orientation engineered by someone else, puts us in danger.
Stress and orientation
We discuss dopamine and the strategic game of interaction and isolation. Delia explains how stress affects orientation, in the body and at work. Neurons that fire together wire together. Habits around alcohol and caffeine, and constant context switching, wear people down.
What leaders can do
Delia explains how to change an organization’s default mode, why decision fatigue matters and what leaders can do about it. Making work visible helps. She also covers ego and the brain’s default mode network, and the interplay of genes, culture, environment and experience.
This episode is not medical advice.
Stress narrows orientation. Delia shows leaders how to give their people room to think again.
What drains your team’s capacity to decide well by the end of the day?
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