Independent Magazine - Issue 6, 2023

THE BRAIN SCIENCE REVOLUTION: Putting emotional intelligence centre stage

Being an evaluator is no simple task. That’s not only due to the knowledge and experience required to embrace this complex profession. Undoubtedly, methodological expertise, analytical acumen, data collection training, and solid writing skills are all part and parcel of what makes for a strong and sound evaluator. However, there is more – much more.

Evaluators are often met with a mixture of cautious concern and anxiety by the evaluands. The reasons for this are well-known, and are found in the fear of being judged which permeates most of mankind. It thus comes as no surprise that for evaluators soft skills are essential. Being able to communicate effectively, having a problem-solving attitude, knowing how to lead by example when necessary, and fostering open and inclusive engagement processes are abilities that all good evaluators should hold dear in their toolbox. Arguably, it is these attributes that help ensure that an evaluation report actually makes a difference, that its findings are looked upon with genuine interest, and that its recommendations are followed-up on with concrete actions. In other words, it is these attributes that help to bring an evaluation report to life. The importance of these soft skills notwithstanding, these abilities are unpredictably difficult to come across in the evaluation world. This being the case, an out-of-the-box approach is called for to break the impasse.

IOE has identified the application of neuroscience-based principles to evaluation as the cornerstone of this approach, and is moving along full steam to implement a series of mindset-changing initiatives. The previously discussed Innovation Talk, a soon-to-be-published neuro-science focused annex to the IFAD Evaluation Manual, and a virtual training on the same subject are but some of the efforts currently underway. But what does this all mean in practice? How can neuroscience actually help transform the attitudes and approaches of young and seasoned evaluators alike? To answer these and many other related questions, there are no two better people to ask than the main players in the ‘IOE brain science revolution’: Dr Srini Pillay (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School), and Dr Indran A. Naidoo (Director, IOE).

How can we apply neuroscience-based principles to improve evaluation processes?

Srini

As an evaluator, what you really want is change, and you want change in a positive direction. If you can understand what is going on in the brain of the evaluand, you have a greater likelihood of improving that change. Research suggests that 70 per cent of change initiatives fail. Part of the reason for this is that when there is any kind of change, it activates the conflict centre of the brain. As a result, the brain is forced to go back to old ways of behaving. Organizations that develop initiatives that change mindsets, like IOE is doing right now, are two times more likely to be effective. In addition to that, if aspirations are aligned, you are 4.4 times more likely to be effective.

How is IOE testing application of neuroscience principles to improve IFAD’s effectiveness?

Indran

I always say that the evaluation process is more important than the report. This is because the learning takes place in the process, not at the end. If we have evaluators that are more sophisticated in brining about the dialogue, then we can bring about ‘evaluative conversations’. We are dealing with very complex issues, and nobody from Management is doing less than the best. Allowing voice to come in is more important than what is simply written on the last page of a report. An evaluation is much more than a score card. To help shift this mindset, we are also communicating in a more sophisticated way, with a view to make evaluation more appealing and move away from evaluation phobia.

How we can communicate evaluation findings based on neuroscience to trigger uptake of recommendations?

Srini

Traditionally, very strict evaluators come to a meeting thinking “I am going to give it to these people. They have not delivered and are not doing what they should be doing”. They feel that by being strict they can get people to do something. The problem is, we all have mirror neurons in our brain. This means that if you have the intention, albeit not overtly, to attack somebody, or you have an emotion of anger that you are not showing, this will automatically mirror in the other person’s brain. This means that the other person will go into defensive mode, and will not be able to hear you. The notion of coming to a meeting with a positive intention is very important, because you want that to mirror in the other person’s brain.

Secondly, the moment you create stress, this turns on the habit circuits in the brain and people go back to doing what they are used to, as opposed to being open to change. Third, some evaluators feel that they should tell the evaluand exactly what they think. On the surface that sounds fine. However, studies show that receiving a negative appraisal diminishes people’s trust, it puts them on defence, and they start to focus on the past rather than thinking about the future. Fourth, some evaluators think that delivering feedback based on strict goals is an effective approach. We assume that if people clearly understand a goal that they are given, then they will achieve it. However, we need to recognize that people have a multitude of goals, which are context specific. Studies show that goal-directed coaching activates the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism, and the brain goes into panic mode. Therefore, we should be aiming towards compassion-oriented coaching. Furthermore, we know that if you frame goals as “do not do this”, under stress the brain will do the exact opposite. Therefore, how you frame the goals makes a big difference.

How do you reconcile the independence construct & desire to build engagement with the evaluand?

Indran

When I first joined the UN, coming from outside the international system, I noticed that there was a trend to defend the organization at all costs, rejecting all and any critique, and shooting the messenger. Changing this mindset is important. The starting point is to understand that we share the common goal of serving the millions of poor beneficiaries in the field. I managed to walk this tightrope effectively in UNDP, where we were independent and we were constructive. There were products that we worked collaboratively on, including the National Evaluation Capacity conference, which was the world’s largest event by government participation in the evaluation context. At IFAD, the latest edition of the Evaluation Manual was done in collaboration with Management. These are small steps in moving the culture, trying to get people to become more self-critical rather than defensive. We have a very constructive dialogue with the Executive Board and Management, who take evaluation seriously. This is shown by the very large demand for evaluation products that we receive – which reflects the credibility of what we do.

What enables people to positively affect change?

Srini

There are three factors that allow people to feel motivated to change. The first is autonomy, which deals with how free people are to do what they need to do in the system. The second is competence, which deals with the skills that are needed to affect change. The third is social relations. Often, in evaluation people only focus on competence. Instead, we also need to understand if people are free enough and are being supported enough to achieve their objectives.

What hinders people from positively affecting change?

Srini

There is a concept called ontological insecurity, that postulates that when there are a large number of changes occurring at a rapid pace, this makes people feel insecure. When you are insecure, you will likely become more fixed and rigid in your own opinion.

How can an evaluator foster positive change?

Srini

Psychological safety matters. In the brain, the trust circuits and the fear circuits have the opposite impact. When there is fear, there is heightened activation in the amygdala region of the brain. Trust, on the other hand, decreases activation. People are likely to share with you what they perceive as being obstacles to their safety to the extent that they perceive that you are aligned with them. A practical consequence of this is that evaluators should, first, examine their intentions. Moreover, studies have shown that the person that is chosen as a leader in a group is the person that first synchronizes his or her brain with others. In other words, the leader comes into a group with the intention to be on the same page as the people who form said group. For evaluators, this means that it is important to have the same intention as the evaluand, which is to affect change, and to want to help the evaluand to overcome some of the obstructions that are impeding that change.

To what extent are the principles of engagement applied across the UN system in the evaluation context?

Indran

The reality is that there is a cookie cutter approach. Reports are wanted in a certain format, so many days are allocated, and rigid deliverables are requested. In this current process, which are highly bureaucratic in the UN, it is difficult to find the spaces for deeper discussion and engagement. There are very few offices that have that latitude. In collaboration with Srini, at IOE we are coming up with a training module that will reflect on how best to integrate neuroscience practices with evaluation. However, we are the exception to the rule.

How can we overcome habit pathways that inhibit positive change?

Srini

From a neuroscience perspective, we must start by looking at how we can make the process more collaborative and enjoyable, even if it’s serious, and make it such that we recognize that all human beings have some kind of vulnerability. In addition, we must recognize that fundamental to change is agility. The world is changing at an alarming pace. Moreover, any plan or strategy is destined to change and evolve. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves how we can create a culture that flourishes in agility. First, we must recognize that decreasing stress will decrease habits. Second, we must appreciate that it’s important to have a culture of agility. Third, we must understand that agility is linked to responding faster to failure, which happens when people have growth mindsets. Studies show that if you believe that you can course-correct after you have made a mistake, this can help you respond to errors more quickly.

How important is the human element in evaluation?

Indran

Evaluation is a human business. It’s not a technological application, where you type in a function and you get a result. More important than the result is the conversation that brings about the change. Evidence has shown that over 170 countries in the world have some kind of evaluation function, and have embraced the notion of evaluation. With that said, most evaluations look at one or more issues related to good governance. Clearly, we do not have good governance around the world. We see high levels of unemployment, corruption, human rights abuses, etc. This means that having information does not translate to being able to change the situation.

In light of this, evaluators need to be modest, given that they play an important but small role in the overall ecosystem that brings about change. They need to be humble in terms of what they can and cannot do. They need to recognize that just having good research and good methodology on its own will not bring about change. They need to recognize the importance of chemistry, which is the ability to negotiate in the real context and facilitate the change that needs to happen. They need to understand that evaluation is a professional function that operates in a political context.

How can we handle conflicting interests between management and evaluation by applying brain science principles?

Indran

We agree to disagree, agreeably. We need to recognize that you are not going to get full consensus. There are different individuals, there are different perspectives. That’s fine. In a democracy it’s fine. I don’t subscribe to the notion that there needs to be full consensus. I think that there will always be different interpretations to issues, provided the interpretations are not so broad that there is total disagreement. If you look at the evaluations that flow out of IFAD, over 70 per cent of the recommendations are agreed upon. The other 30 per cent may have partial agreement or disagreement. That’s in-line with international organizations; it’s not a problem. What is important is to recognize that once we have the result, we need to find a way to co-create a future to act on the results.

As a professional outfit, our job is to examine performance. We put this on the table because someone else will implement our findings and take them to the next stage. For this to happen effectively, Management needs to appreciate that evaluation is no about them, and to get away from the notion that a policy written in Rome or New York is going to translate into brilliant results across the world. It does not work that way. Everything that a multilateral development organization does is mediated by multiple factors and, eventually, a result, whether good or bad, has very little to do with the person that put it on the table. The challenge is given by the element of ego: “this is the policy we are putting in place, it must work, and therefore any result that shows that it doesn’t must be flawed by wrong measurements”. There needs to be a re-think in the international system to recognize that, whilst multilateral institutions have high profile, there are multiple players on the ground, including civil society, NGOs and governments, all of whom contribute to the final result. Therefore, we must get away from the policy of the UN that brings about the change – this is not how things work in reality.

How can we decrease stress and anxiety in the context of an evaluation?

Srini

There are principles, based on brain science, that can help us decrease anxiety. Once structure that I use is called C.I.R.C.A. (there is also a free download of the CIRCA app online). The first ‘C’ stands for ‘chunking’. When you open your e-mail box, and you see a long list of unread messages, you should chunk it up into what you want to do immediately, what you must do, what you may do, and what you will do later. The ‘I’ stands for ‘ignore mental chatter’, which is a mindfulness practice. Stress in the workplace can create change in our genes that eventually lead to chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and neurodegenerative disease.

Mindfulness can protect the genes. Mindfulness is sitting back in the chair, paying attention to your breath and focusing on the here and now. The ‘R’ is ‘reality check’, which relates to the notion that ‘this too shall pass’. Sometimes you get bad news, there is no good way of looking at it, and you just need to remind yourself that something better will come tomorrow. The second ‘C’ is ‘control check’, which relates to the need to distinguish between ‘what you can control, what you cannot control, and how do you know the difference’. If you can discern these two, you will not be occupying your brain’s attentional centres with irrelevant information. The last ‘A’ is ‘attentional shift’, which is ‘how do you shift your attention from the problem to the solution’.

What constitutes objectivity? Indran

Indran

We often think that, as evaluators, we are empirical, factual, and what we present is the reality. However, evidence is proving that qualitative information is just as important as quantitative facts and numbers. In fact, the range of what constitutes evidence is much more complex than what we may typically look at. There is no one methodology or one-size-fits all approach that may be universally valid. We hope that this conversation on neuroscience-based principles is going to make people around the world more reflective, more thoughtful, so that before they go into the process of conducting or presenting an evaluation they are more reflective and understand how information is received on the other side. We believe that the marriage between evaluation and brain science can work, and we are going to advance it as best we can at IOE.