Training for ambidexterity: how managers can learn to “shift cognitive gears

Inside the mind of a leader Leaders must be able to build on current practices and exploit their existing knowledge.

However, they must also be able to adapt to changes in the environment by exploring new opportunities and acquiring new knowledge. We spoke to Jan Richner and Dr Zorica Zagorac-Uremović about their research on cognitive abilities related to leaders’ decision making and how they balance exploration and exploitation.

The ability to switch between different modes of thinking is an important attribute for leaders and managers when dealing with the varying challenges that can arise in complex, rapidly changing working environments (Laureiro-Martínez and Brusoni, 2018). While in some circumstances a leader may be able to identify the best option based on the exploitation of their existing knowledge, in others they may need to be more open to exploring new ideas. As part of a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Jan Richner, Zorica Zagorac-Uremović and Daniella Laureiro-Martínez from the COLAB at the Technology and Innovation Management Group at ETH Zurich, explore the concept of cognitive flexibility, aiming at developing a deeper understanding of the ability to flexibly switch between exploration and exploitation, which can then inform leadership training and education programmes. “It’s important that a 42

leader should not stick rigidly to one mode of thinking,” says Jan Richner, and adds that we know that cognitive flexibility is important when it comes to people being able to balance exploration and exploitation. “But we do not understand how people can use their cognitive flexibility to identify how and when to switch between exploration and exploitation effectively,” he outlines. A finer understanding of how people use their cognitive flexibility is needed in order to develop training programs or design working environments in ways that allow leaders to fulfil their potential.

Cognitive flexibility The concept of cognitive flexibility – or the ability to switch between different modes of thinking - is based on certain cognitive functions, which Richner calls the antecedents of cognitive flexibility. The four main antecedents of cognitive flexibility are attention, working memory, inhibition and

affect exploration-exploitation performance in leaders. For instance, task motivation correlates with exploration-exploitation performance, but this correlation disappears when we include the mediator of cognitive flexibility. This means that task motivation affects explorationexploitation performance because it increases cognitive flexibility (Richner, Zagorac-Uremović and Laureiro-Martínez, 2023). Based on their findings, the researchers conclude that it is possible “to account for both the negative and positive effects of different factors on exploration and exploitation by implementing appropriate organisational designs and job roles that allow leaders to better cope with stressors and choose work tasks that motivate them. Furthermore, by cultivating the importance of self-awareness and emotional regulation, leaders can effectively prepare themselves for the critical moments of making exploration-exploitation decisions and transcend past pressure.”

The results are based on a study with data of around 300 officers in the Swiss armed forces, an organisation in which cognitive flexibility is a highly valued attribute. Armed conflict is dynamic, and it has been argued that leaders with a high degree of cognitive flexibility will perform more effectively. “Cognitive flexibility allows you not just to be innovative, but equally to do what you know works in a particular situation,” says Richner. The researchers have tested the idea that cognitive flexibility is an important leadership attribute in the military, and Richner says the results are very positive.

“We can see very clearly that cognitively flexible

leaders do better in a military environment,” he continues. “Cognitive flexibility allows a leader to adapt better to whoever is their counterpart and also to the people under their command. For example, they would be able to grasp that a particular person needs support, and they would be able to provide it. Maybe someone has had a good idea and doesn’t want to be led in a hierarchical or autocratic way – a cognitively flexible leader would be able to spot that and adapt accordingly.”

organisations and in everyday life more generally. In a related project, the researchers are studying community leaders in fragile ecosystems in the Pacific region of Colombia, looking at how they strive to achieve multiple goals such as economic, environmental, and social objectives. “We investigate how the leaders define different goals and deal with tensions between them,” says Dr Zagorac-Uremović. These goals centre around improving economic conditions

“We know that cognitive flexibility is important for exploration and exploitation. But we do not yet understand how to train cognitive flexibility, to decide when to

switch between exploration and exploitation.”

This relevance of cognitive flexibility for leadership applies not only in an absolute sense, but also in a relative sense. This means that while cognitive flexibility shows a strong correlation with leadership on its own, it also does so when compared to the 16 assessment centre measures (e.g., reasoning ability, personality trait of conscientiousness) used to select military officer cadets. Even if all 16 assessment centre measures are included, cognitive flexibility still explains or predicts an additional proportion in leadership performance.

The ability of cognitive flexibility is not just important in the military, but also in a wide variety of other contexts across different

for their communities, giving a voice to Afro-Colombians in the public and political spheres, preserving cultural identity and protecting local ecosystems and inhabitants from the acute threat of illegal crops, that unfortunately abound in the region. “Our hypothesis is that cognitive flexibility allows community leaders to switch between these different goals, and also allows them to adapt to the different needs that may arise in a context full of extreme uncertainties,” continues Dr Zagorac-Uremović. “We recently finished the data collection stage with our research partners from the Universidad de los Andes. The next step will be to analyse

switching, “Cognitive flexibility antecedents have neural correlates and are enabled by processes in several large-scale frontoparietal and frontostriatal brain networks,” explains Dr Zorica Zagorac-Uremović. “All healthy individuals have these brain networks, but differences emerge in the degree to which we actually use them in our daily lives”, she continues. “If someone has a high degree of cognitive flexibility, that means they have the hardware to make better decisions between exploration and exploitation. How could the context then influence, in a positive or negative sense, these persons’ ability to balance exploration and exploitation?” says Richner. “We know that there are factors that can increase or decrease people’s ability to actually employ their own hardware.”

In more detail, a recently published work by the researchers found that emotional stability, stress and task motivation are interconnected with cognitive flexibility, and these variables

EU Research

www.euresearcher.com

43

Training for ambidexterity Training for ambidexterity: how managers can learn to “shift cognitive gears”

Project Objectives

The wider aim in the project is to help managers and business leaders become more ambidextrous in their thinking, helping them recognise when to exploit their existing knowledge, and when to explore new ideas. This will be built on research into the underlying reasons behind differences in cognitive flexibility, which will then inform training programmes designed to enhance it, spurring innovation in the field.

Project Funding

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation: Grant No. 185199.

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Jan Richner Doctoral Student Chair of Technology and Innovation Management ETH Zurich | Department of Management, Technology and Economics Weinbergstrasse 56/58 | WEV J 430 | CH8092 Zurich T: +0041789562211 E: jrichner@ethz.ch W: https://timgroup.ethz.ch/people/phdstudents/jan-richner.html Laureiro-Martínez, D., & Brusoni, S. (2018). Cognitive flexibility and adaptive decision-making: Evidence from a laboratory study of expert decision makers. Strategic Management Journal, 39(4), 1031–1058. doi: https:// doi.org/10.1002/smj.2774 Richner, J., Zagorac-Uremović, Z. & Laureiro-Martínez, D. (2023). Individual and context-evoked antecedents of exploration-exploitation performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1167135

Jan Richner Dr Zorica Zagorac-Uremović Dr Daniella Laureiro Martinez

Jan Richner received his MSc in Organizational Psychology from the University of Neuchâtel and is doing a PhD at the Chair of Technology and Innovation Management at ETH Zurich.

Before joining academia, he worked in management consulting, and he has also spent time in the Swiss Armed Forces.

Dr Zorica Zagorac-Uremović is a researcher at COLAB in the Technology and Innovation Management Group at ETH Zurich. She studies the cognitive antecedents of adaptive behavior and innovation. She holds a PhD in business economics and has several years of management experience.

Dr Daniella Laureiro Martinez has worked at ETH Zurich, in the Technology and Innovation Management Group since 2011. She leads the COLAB, a research area focused on cognition, learning and adaptive behavior.

this data from around 40 community leaders and to develop pedagogical tools for the next generation of community leaders.”

Training The wider aim in the project is to use the insights gained from this research to inform training programmes designed to help industrial and educational leaders improve their cognitive flexibility. The idea is to help people use their own abilities more effectively and efficiently, building from an awareness of who they are and how they think and feel. “For instance, if I become aware that I tend to act impulsively in a certain situation I can find strategies to deal with such situations that trigger my impulsivity, and to become more flexible.

In order to improve cognitive flexibility, an individual needs to first control their own thoughts better,” explains Dr ZagoracUremović. These insights are being applied to different executive courses, run by the researcher team. For example, “we regularly train international leaders at the Behavioral Science Academy held in Zurich, and we train senior leaders in an executive MBA programme at ETH, run jointly with the University of St Gallen, a unique, international programme which attracts students from business and government.

We have an average of about 30 participants a year, and we have successfully conducted cognitive flexibility training in the last two years,” continues Dr Zagorac-Uremović.

A tailored strategy can then be developed to help students improve their cognitive flexibility, for example helping them to pay attention, prioritise effectively, or inhibit certain reactions. Students also learn how to

switch to new ideas, avoiding the tendency to see similarities to previous situations, when actually a novel approach is required. “We may focus overly on the familiar aspects of a situation, which leads us to believe that prior solutions would be well-suited. We have developed what we call a mental compass, designed to help people pay attention to the current situation and shift to new solutions when needed,” says Dr Zagorac-Uremović.

The training and educational programmes have been successfully implemented on relatively small scales, but the effects have not yet been shown on a bigger scale, another area that the researchers are working on at the moment “We plan to finish another, larger experiment in the Swiss Military this year, to publish our results, and to transfer this knowledge to the Swiss armed forces and to the executive programmes and training in other organisations,” outlines Richner.

This work is being conducted alongside continued research at the TIM Group into the cognitive abilities involved in decision-making and learning. While cognitive flexibility is a central aspect of this, Dr Zagorac-Uremović is also interested in linking it to other important leadership abilities “I’m interested in comparing cognitive flexibility to other abilities, such as creativity and cognitive complexity (i.e., the ability to differentiate and integrate different aspects of a problem of bigger scope) and understanding how these interact with each other,” she says.

“Furthermore, it would be interesting to move away from training just individuals to understand what makes whole teams and organisations more flexible and better balance exploration and exploitation, and thus be better prepared for the future.”

Definition of Key Concepts Cognitive flexibility is the “ability to appropriately and efficiently adjust one’s behavior according to a changing environment” (Dajani & Uddin, 2015, p. 571) Ambidexterity is the “behavioral orientation toward combining exploration and exploitation related activities within a certain period of time” (Mom, Van den Bosch & Volberda, 2009, p. 812) “Exploration entails disengaging from the current task to enable experimentation, flexibility, discovery, and innovation. Exploitation aims at optimizing the performance of a certain task and is associated with high-level engagement, selection, refinement, choice, production, and efficiency” (Laureiro‐Martínez, Brusoni, Canessa & Zollo, 2014, p. 320) Sources Laureiro-Martínez, D., Brusoni, S., Canessa, N., & Zollo, M. (2014). Understanding the explorationexploitation dilemma: An fMRI Study of attention control and decision-making performance. Strategic Management Journal, 36 (3), 319-338.

Mom, T. J. M., van den Bosch, F. A. J., & Volberda, H. W. (2009). Understanding variation in managers’ ambidexterity: Investigating direct and interaction effects of formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms. Organization Science, 20 (4), 812-828.

Dajani, D. R., & Uddin, L. Q. (2015). Demystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical and developmental neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences, 38 (9), 571-578.

44

EU Research