Leading and learning with immersion
Dr Paul J. Zak - Author of Immersion
In the noise of a hyper-connected world, humans are bombarded with messages and endless information across a variety of platforms in every part of their existence. Capturing their attention is a challenge, and especially so for us as trainers and facilitators at DISCO Academy, when we are trying to change a complex human system from the inside out over the multidimensions of time, space, experience and genetics that has already invisibly built the human condition for the leaders we are working with.
Much of the work we do is creating the optimal environment for the transmission of learning to occur on a deep cognitive and emotional level. As part of our collective curiousity to build these experiences for leaders, teams and culture at DISCO, we have been very engaged with the work of Dr Paul J. Zak lately, and how his seminal experiments into measuring human attention peaks can be translated to the leadership training environment.
If you haven’t heard, Paul J. Zak is a neuroscientist known for his pioneering work on the neurobiology of trust and the role of oxytocin in social bonding - through this research he introduced the concept of immersion as a critical factor in human decision-making. Dr Zak’s research suggests that immersive experiences—those that engage us emotionally and cognitively—are the most effective in influencing behaviour.
Because they are tapping into the mechanisms of our systems that help us to survive, when those systems fire up we tend to take notice, and lodge the experience in a memorable and recallable way. Dr Zak’s work has of course been used extensively for marketing and sales, it’s the secret sauce everyone wants to know of how to transmute a feeling into a frictionless purchase behaviour.
From our perspective, when we want adults to change their behaviour and lead authentically in the true sense of the concept, rather than sales, we need them to make decisions about moving from where they are to where they want to be. Its reverse marketing on an internal level: translating the yearning for their true nature of self to emerge from the layers of armour, trauma and protective mechanisms they have behaviourally bought over a lifetime.
Immersion, as Dr Zak defines it, refers to the psychological and physiological state of being fully engaged in an experience, where time seems to pass unnoticed, and a person is completely absorbed by what they are doing or observing. This state is often linked to positive emotions and can lead to strong memory formation and increased motivation to take action.
In a neurobiological or polyvagal way, this is when the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is in ventral vagal, is safe and secure and is triggering all of the pro social learning capacity that is available when the human brain and nervous system is congruent and optimised, with the attendant emotions and connections.
According to Paul’s research, immersion occurs when two key neurological factors are at play:
Emotional Resonance: The experience must evoke a strong emotional response. This can be positive (excitement, joy, empathy) or even negative (fear, urgency).
Sustained Attention: The experience must capture and maintain a person’s attention over time.
So here we have the right side of the brain where the limbic and safety responses are held, messaging a response with the urgency of survival and releasing the chemicals and hormones to support that at the same time as the executive function and language part of the brain is coding in the experience for future reference and response repetition.
If you get the stimulation and emotion right, it’s a powerful mix of a mobilised ANS with a positive hit of oxytocin for full heady pleasure that is very memorable for the human system - in a good way.
Paul’s team has developed technology, such as Immersion Neuroscience, that measures these factors in real-time by analyzing brain activity and heart rate variability using available wearable devices. This allows people to assess how immersive say their content, advertisements, or product experiences are, and make adjustments to enhance engagement. Simple, accessible and building big data insights for us all to benefit from.
Immersion matters fundamentally for learning because it drives behaviour. When humans are immersed, they are more likely to:
Remember the message: Immersive experiences create lasting memories, which in turn increase recall and recognition, perfect for a learning environment where so much information is lost to distraction.
Take action: When people are fully engaged, they are more likely to follow through with commitment to begin and continue a practice, which is necessary to bring about awareness and change, especially in high stress roles like leadership and culture change.
Build trust and loyalty: Immersive experiences foster emotional connections, which are key to building long-term relationships and connected cultures. Emotionally engaged people with the right amount of safety and regulation in their ANS are more likely to be able to recognise their behaviour as linked to past feelings and experiences rather than what is happening in front of them. Then they can get curious, use discernment in decision making, and lead from a place of non-judgement with good boundaries, not survival and reaction - which is what we want from all our leaders.
In essence, immersion transforms passivity of behaviour (it is happening to me and around me with no control), into the self-efficacy of action (I have agency over my response and accountability, I own my part and I know who I am and what I and others need). When this awareness occurs, is repeated and rewarded in the brain, then real behavioural change can happen, meaning can be made, and leaders emerge to collectively shift culture.
So you can see how being able to measure when people are immersed in training, how to titrate the intensity to deliver powerful emotions and then back off for processing so participants stay out of overwhelm is a game changer for us to understand and build into the cadence and rhythms of our leadership training work.
These are some of the ways we already approach learning from the immersive perspective:
Storytelling: Stories are one of the most effective tools for creating immersion because they naturally engage the emotional centers of the brain in a non-linear way that captures the arc of a person’s emotional life experience and brings it into the present moment of learning. Zak’s research has shown that stories that feature tension, conflict, and resolution activate brain regions associated with empathy, trust, and decision-making. We use the classic heroes journey with a leadership self-efficacy motif.
Hold Attention when it matters: Capturing and maintaining attention is a key component of immersion. The journey of participants, from initial connection to learning, sharing, connecting, reflecting and actioning must be be carefully designed to keep our participants engaged at every stage at and avoid the ANS being tripped into shutdown, overwhelm or inadvertent trauma processing without the right supports to stay connected and objective.
Stay embodied: Somatic therapies have long been the gold standard of therapeutic reprocessing because they work on the primitive architecture of the ANS that holds safety and survival responses - which if activated make learning very difficult. By being able to regulate people and keep them in their bodies and in their executive function, we have a better chance of what we are training and facilitating actually sticking. Having sensory elements at key moments: smell, sound, light, movement, touch, visuals, breathing and immersive technology supports such as AR, VR and immersive video help to keep people filing away knowledge into the wisdom in their bones.
Neuroscience and technology has helped us so much to understand the fundamental drivers of what we need as humans, and how to measure and harness what we know into optimal situations such as immersion, peak rest, and with our SHAPE partners whole human flourishing.
But no matter how advanced we become, our mammalian legacies still run the show, and no amount of knowledge without the capacity to regulate our nervous systems with awareness will lead to ongoing positive behavioural change.
This is why DISCO is so committed to animating great data insight into transformative change, but also to codifying the dynamic methods of transmitting change into learning and sharing that with all our clients and collaborators. We are so grateful to the work of neuroscience pracademics like Dr Paul J. Zak in helping us measure the neuroleadership work we do, and confirm the optimal pathways for people and organisations to flourish.
If you’re interested in how DISCO can transform your organisation at all levels, or in experiencing our training for your teams, executive or board, get in touch with the team and lets immerse.
Dr Polly McGee is a Neuroleadership Designer, Facilitator, Author, Podcaster and Co-CEO of DISCO. Polly spends their time in organisations building trauma-responsive leadership capacity and psychologically safe, productive cultures; designing and leading workshops; and working with high performance clients in their private therapy practice. From leading fast growth start-ups and excelling in innovation to guiding digital strategies Polly brings a unique perspective to the table with an intersectional lens that collides neurobiology with scaling technology and person-centred leadership capacity across organisations.