Ep 37 - How To Harness The Science of Human Instincts, with Andrew O'Keeffe

 

Introducing Andrew O’Keeffe

It was only 250 years ago that most humans changed their habitat from hunting and working together in villages, to working in offices and factories. But those human instincts from the Savannah, from the bush, from our villages still exist within us.

Andrew O’Keeffe has taken the science of human instincts and looked at how to apply them within organizations. He strives to understand those instincts and how we can harness them in how we work together.

In speaking with Andrew, my overall question was ‘how might we use the science of human instincts to improve how organizations work with communities?’ and the fascinating answer is that human instincts tells us to embrace things that are sometimes looked down on in the workplace.

We tackle things like office gossip and chit-chat, and Andrew debunks the myth that humans are averse to change. He talks about how you can communicate, how you can talk, how you can listen to really embrace what we are hardwired to be thinking about and working through within the back of our brains.

We only scratched the surface, but if you do any work with communities, this will be a really valuable episode for you.

In today’s episode you’ll learn:

  • How to encourage the change you’re looking for by tapping into what we know about human instincts.

  • How to create an organisational culture based on human instincts and how to engage externally based on them

  • Examples of human instincts and how they play out in the workplace.

  • Tackling the myth that people resist change and diving into what instincts are really at play.

Resources mentioned in this episode


Sign up for the Movement Makers newsletter

Sign up to our fortnightly newsletter and get the insights, tools and powerful whakaaro from people transforming how they collaborate with their community.


Send us a question or recommend a guest

Do you have a question about how to move beyond consultation? You can leave us a voice message here for us to share and discuss with a future guest. You can also send us a guest recommendation to us at info@businesslab.co.nz.


Subscribe to the show

The Beyond Consultation Podcast will help you to do more than just tick the box of consultation. It’s the podcast for purpose-driven professionals who want to increase their collective impact.

You'll hear stories of people working together on challenges that no single person or organisation can address on its own. You'll hear about the mindsets, the methods, the failures, and the lessons learned - all with the goal of increasing the collective impact you're making in your work.

Subscribe below on your favourite platform or to receive email notifications when a new episode is uploads to the cloud: