In my experience with business leaders, they often feel blindsided by – what to them look like – invisible barriers to what they want to accomplish. Those barriers are sometimes cultural, and as often have to do with the natural functioning of the brain – which is far from 'rational'. Current insights from Neuroscience reveal that the brain is made for sociality, not for decision-making, innovation, or any of the other executive functions that business values so highly.

Furthermore, the human brain is not well-adapted to the conditions of modern business. We're much smarter around planes landing in freezing rivers than ongoing ambiguity or anticipating change. Optimal intelligence requires alot more rest and exercise than modern organizations allow. Concerns for status also blunt our ingenuity. It might be difficult to design an environment that is less appropriate for sparking intelligence than the modern workplace.

In the last 2 years I've focused my practice on what it takes to be Fit to Thrive in Any Economy (http://twurl.nl/lcmhpq). I'm convinced that it begs for a great deal more respect for the basics of sociality that underlie commerce, and a set of skills that work anywhere, anytime, eg the ability to say, “I don't know” – opening new possibiltiies for inquiry and cooperation.