The Impacts of Change on the Brain and 5 Helpful Tweaks Change Agents Must Make

And what the Texas Two Step has to do with it.

If you are a change agent, congratulations on taking the steps to help move people in a better direction.

At the same time, because change can suck, I’m sorry.

Change is hard for both the change agent and the learner. For the change agent, it’s difficult to figure out how to make change stick. For the learner, it’s challenging to embrace the move to the new and accept the loss of the old.

As a change agent myself, I know this (dance) first-hand.

I launch into a change with intense passion and drive. Inevitably, I find the learner has not retained anything I said. I know I have taught the thing, sometimes multiple times. Then, I start to get blamed for not teaching something. Or I get accused of not explaining the reasoning when I already have.

And 99% of the time, I sit there perplexed, unsure how to proceed.

This situation is common in my line of work. I’ve been a change agent for the past 20+ years in 75 organizations. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to research what’s going on with the learner in these moments of amnesia. But I did, and you know what?

I discovered an intriguing NIH study from 2017 describing how emotion influences learning.

And I’ve reviewed this research article in depth. It opened my eyes as an agent of change to the effects of emotion on the learner. And I’ve condensed the learnings from this study for you here.

Like me, I know you’ll find the study insights are powerful for influencing change in a learner.

I’ll first give you an overview of the study. Then, I will cover practical tweaks you and I can make as change agents to navigate learner emotion. We will wrap up with the Texas Two Step.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

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This year, I’ve committed my focus to a concept called Lean Leverage, as described in my inaugural 2024 post. Each article I craft this year, including this one (the 14th in the series), will focus on an aspect of Lean Leverage. Enjoy and stay tuned for many ways to do more with less.

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How Change Impacts Your Brain: 4 Findings From the Study

Every change has two tensions, two emotions, two sides to the same coin.

1) You have a feeling of loss (and possibly shame) with the old ways of working.

2) You have the unsteady uncertainty of the new way.

Both together are trouble.

Fear and uncertainty creep up fast, followed by resistance.

Emotions are running high. And emotion is the culprit behind learning retention success or failure. This is the case according to the 2017 NIH study, The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory.¹

More specifically stated, emotion regulates the allocation of processing resources and determines our behavior by tuning us to the world in certain biased ways, thus steering us toward things that “feel good” while avoiding things that “feel bad.”

(Northoff et al., 2006²)

This makes a ton of sense to me. When I was cramming for a test in college, it was usually at the last possible moment. I never had enough time and was often up all night. If I was lucky on test day, I would remember half of what I reviewed, and a day later, I could recall nothing.

Now, let’s move on to the 4 helpful findings I gleaned from the study.

Finding 1: Emotions influence attention.

The study outlines how fear and anxiety can narrow the learner’s focus of attention.

”Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of attention as well as motivating action and behavior.”

(Tyng et al., 2017¹)

Sure, focus can enhance the processing of certain types of information. But when the information does not align with existing beliefs, problems creep in. Learners can develop selective attention. They retain only things aligned with their worldview.

Net, net, only information aligning with existing beliefs is fully processed and remembered.

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This makes sense to me.

How many times are beliefs challenged in the learner when injecting a new behavior? Every time.

This explains why a learner might not remember: they were too triggered to pay attention.

Finding 2: Emotions affect memory.

Per the study, emotions can influence the consolidation of memories.

”Numerous studies have reported that human cognitive processes are affected by emotions, including attention, learning and memory, reasoning, and problem-solving.”

(Tyng et al., 2017¹)

Negative emotions, such as fear, interfere with the process of storing new information. This is especially true when it challenges existing beliefs. So, fear and uncertainty could potentially make the information less memorable.

The good news: positive emotions enhance memory retention.

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Here again, negative emotions point to why my learners can’t remember.

Any fear will keep them from a memorable moment about the new behavior. This is starkly apparent to me in people who are highly resistant. I find they struggle to have any memory at all around the teaching. This is true even moments after the lesson or coaching.

I like how the study points out how positive emotions can improve the memory of learning moments. Let’s remember that for later.

Finding 3: Emotions regulate storage and retrieval efficiency.

The study showed how emotions can speed or slow down how we store and retrieve new information.

”Emotion also facilitates encoding and helps retrieval of information efficiently. However, the effects of emotion on learning and memory are not always univalent, as studies have reported that emotion either enhances or impairs learning and long-term memory (LTM) retention, depending on a range of factors.”

(Tyng et al., 2017¹)

Negative emotional states slow down storage and retrieval. This is especially true when associated with fear or resistance to changing beliefs. New or conflicting information can trigger these blocking emotions.

Fortunately, good emotions do the opposite.

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So, fear equals lethargic learning.

It’s so obvious, I wonder why I could not see it before. When my learners fear a change, their comprehension and learning slow down considerably. It’s as if the change process is in slow motion.

And again, good emotions come to the rescue, speeding up learning.

Finding 4: Stress impacts memory.

As outlined in the study, stress (which can be a component of fear) has a strong influence on learning and memory.

”Moreover, stress, a negative emotional state, has also been reported to facilitate and/or impair both learning and memory, depending on intensity and duration. More specifically, mild and acute stress facilitates learning and cognitive performance, while excess and chronic stress impairs learning and is detrimental to memory performance.”

(Tyng et al., 2017¹)

High levels of stress can impair cognitive functions. This includes memory formation and retrieval. It also affects how information gets processed and retained when contrary to beliefs.

But low stress does the opposite and can enhance memory.

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This is like my college test cram night: tons of stress and low retention.

When a change is rushed, my learners get stressed. And they can’t retain when they are stressed. It’s just like me and my last-minute rush to prepare for a college exam.

The low-stress benefit is a solid finding I will use in one of the 5 change agent tweaks.

Now, let’s apply these 4 findings to tweak the change process.

5 Helpful Tweaks Change Agents Must Make to Embrace the Emotions of Change

The most common emotion with change is fear-based resistance.

You can’t ignore it; you must embrace it and work with it.

The study mentioned the benefits of adaptive learning environments. Responding to the emotional and cognitive needs of the learner is crucial. It’s a way to provide personalized experiences, adjusted to the learner’s context. This enhances both the effectiveness and efficiency of learning.

I don’t have the perfect answer for addressing emotions amidst change resistance.

But I do have some tactics I’ve formed from the research study and from my experience. You can try them with me. The aim is to make our lives as change agents easier and to make the learning journey more enjoyable.

Here are 5 tweaks you can make as a change agent to do just that.

Tweak 1: Build awareness.

The first step is to prepare for the emotion.

You must 1) prepare yourself, and 2) prepare those you are changing.

If all involved know the emotion will arrive, each will better be able to cope with it when it does. I like to remind everyone, there is no fault or blame for past behavior; it was all in place for a good reason. Then, I encourage a beginner’s mind to accept the new behavior without judgement.

These tactics are all fine ways to kick things off, and they do help, to an extent.

But being aware is not nearly enough to prepare you for the moment when emotions come knocking. This is why you need tweak 2.

Tweak 2: Repetition, repetition, repetition.

You often have to teach something 12 times in 12 ways for it to sink in (by not inciting emotional resistance).

This repetition is for you, as a change agent, and for the learner.

Try different methods. Heck, even repeat the same message in the same way. The key point: once will not be enough.

The repetition is like a wave, hitting the beach, slowly eroding the sand. Your teaching methods and attempts are the waves, and the sand is the resistance in the learner.

But repetition is insufficient, too. You also need to adapt to context using tweak 3.

Tweak 3: Adapt the process based on the emotional state of the learner.

It’s not simply repetition; you also must iterate.

What’s the secret to getting better at anything? You need to do it many times, and improve one thing each time based on the last thing you did. And you improve by taking cues from your learners.

To achieve this, you have to keep a pulse on both their emotions and retention.

Then, you must evolve your technique based on those cues to find a method that skates around the emotion.

Insert fun and laughter into your method (games, activities, or funny metaphors). At some point, one of the methods will click without triggering resistance. The learner will relate to the change positively and gain learning traction. If they are having fun, the learning may even speed up.

You put your foot on the gas a little, and you pull your foot off the gas a little.

But to see and assess emotion clearly, sometimes you need to take a pause, which takes us to tweak 4.

Tweak 4: Take time to acknowledge and process emotions.

As an agent of change, the last thing you want to do is slow things down.

But this is precisely what you should do to give space for the emotions to even out. The learner needs a breather. Remember, they are dealing with emotions of loss of the old plus the unsure footing of the new.

Here’s what this might look like:

1. “Could you summarize the why, what, and how of the change?”
2. “What do you like about the change so far?”
3. “Is there anything you don’t understand?”
4. “Does anything seem impossible or like it just won’t ever work?”
   

Ask about retention and positive feelings, not only about learning struggles.

A pause to reflect like this will give you a full picture to continue adapting your moves.

By now, you’re thinking, “This process is going to take forever,” which takes us to tweak 5.

Tweak 5: Have plenty of patience.

Yes, change takes time.

It’s not a straight shot, not a one-and-done.

So, your friend is patience. It is also the friend of the learner. Nobody should expect change (especially significant change) to be an overnight success story.

How long will this take? Well, timelines for uncertain things cause stress. Stress causes emotion. Emotion delays learning, as we have learned from the study.

So, don’t ask how long, and don’t assume it will be fast.

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Awareness. Repetition. Adaptability. Empathy. And, ultimately, patience. That’s it.

Once you tweak your approach and embrace the emotion of the learner, your changes will start to stick.

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OK, now to the Texas Two Step (I didn’t forget).

Facilitating change is like a dance, like the Texas Two Step. Here are the basic moves of the lead (partner is opposite):

1. Fast left foot forward
2. Fast right foot forward
3. Slow left foot forward
4. Slow right foot forward
5. Repeat across the dance floor.
   

Two fast steps forward, two slow steps forward.

Even though half the steps are fast and half are slow, momentum propels you across the dance floor. All eyes are on you. Your partner has anxiety of stepping on toes, missing a move, or tripping. But you lead confidently until you both find the rhythm. You both experience the thrill when you nail the pattern and flow with grace. It’s these moments that stick, that are memorable.

This is the same dance of you, the change agent, and the learner.

You push a bit, you pull back a bit. You keep forward momentum. You lead and take note of your learner’s position and readiness. You pause and regroup if needed. And when you eventually get it right, you both glide through the change.

So, act like you are doing the Texas Two Step with your next change.

Create a memorable moment, not a forgettable one.

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Related Reads

If you liked this topic, you can go deeper in the following similar articles.

How Managers Embrace Change Like a Leader By Not Running Away From Friction

Don’t Neglect the 3 Critical Ingredients of Every Successful Change

Using Resistance as a Change Enabler

References

1. Chai M. Tyng, Hafeez U. Amin, Mohamad N. M. Saad, and Aamir S. Malik “The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory.” Frontiers in Psychology 2017; 8: 1454. Published online 2017 Aug 24https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5573739/
2. Northoff G., Heinzel A., De Greck M., Bermpohl F., Dobrowolny H., Panksepp J. (2006). “Self-referential processing in our brain—a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self.” Neuroimage 31 440–457. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.002 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16466680/