Less grip, more grace

Convergence

A friend's daughter, Ellie, 6, came home from school in tears. "I saw a monster. I don't want to go tomorrow."

The "monster"? A badly disfigured older girl named Cassie.

Ellie’s mother, at a loss, phoned the school for advice. They promised to fix it. “Give us two days”, said the Early Years Head.

And they did. Two days later, Ellie bounced home: "Guess what! Cassie's in my group. She's really nice!"

The school’s secret weapon? It was a deceptively simple exercise: put kids in circles and have them find things they ALL like: favourite fruits, movies, characters. Within minutes, anxiety dissolved into laughter.

Katie O'Keeffe is a team specialist who runs convergence patterns like this with executive groups. Eight people, one circle. Two people say random words simultaneously. Next round, a different two people link those words. By round five, people are saying the same ‘random’ words.

The neuroscience of convergence is stunning: our brains literally synchronise, switching from competitive to collaborative patterns. With this simple ‘priming’, the energy of a group shifts more readily towards collective possibilities, with far less 'grandstanding' or 'point scoring'. Katie explains that our brains literally sync up during these exercises — creating neural patterns that promote cooperation over competition.

It turns out I've used convergence in strategy workshops for years, without knowing its neural basis. I never begin with contentious issues; I ask people to find shared territory first. The transformation is remarkable; executives who arrived with entrenched positions suddenly discover unexpected common ground, and the flow and velocity of agreements can be incredible.

Question: How will your next “difficult” meeting change if you started by finding what you all agree on?

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The surprising benefit of lack of power

On election night in 2010, I watched the results with my neighbour Bill, a whiskery retired political strategist, prone to a drink or three.

As the possibility of a hung parliament grew (where neither party wins an outright majority), he leaned closer towards the TV, shouting corrections to the on-air talent. When this appeared the likely outcome, he leaned towards me and, with beery breath, said, "Watch what happens next. This is when real democracy begins."

He was right. Within hours, previously hostile parties were having their own drinks, finding common ground, building bridges. 2010’s hung parliament, led by Labor’s Julia Gillard, forced collaborations that majority rule never demands. Indeed, she passed more legislation than any other government before her (over 500 bills went through).

In minority governments, parties that spent months attacking each other suddenly discover shared purpose. The Greens might oppose mining but support Indigenous employment. An independent might resist urban development but champion primary health care. The art is finding that sweet spot where different values create better outcomes.

I see this ‘hung parliament’ effect in the non-profit world too. Years ago, I helped a regional development organisation ‘arrange’ for an environmental group and a farmers' association – historical enemies – to ‘discover’ they both wanted sustainable water management. That shared goal bridged decades of mistrust.

The beautiful truth? When no-one has absolute power, everyone must listen. The best solutions often emerge from forced collaboration, not comfortable majorities.

Again, we’re off to the polls on Saturday to elect a new government. And, here’s my prediction: we won’t get one. We’ll get a hung parliament. And it won’t be a bad thing for us.

Question: If you had no direct power, what alliances would you create?

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The paradox of control

I once worked with a fearsome board chair, Margaret, who ran meetings like a military operation.

An imposing woman with a voice like a surgeon’s blade, she used her presence to ensure that every (timed) agenda item drove to her predetermined outcomes. And, she did most of the talking. Board members had started calling them "Margaret's Monologues."

But then came a crisis.

Their long-standing CEO (and Margaret’s confidant) resigned suddenly, and the board was deadlocked on succession. Margaret's usual tactics failed spectacularly. The harder she pushed, the more entrenched the resistance became.

To her credit, she saw that something radical had to be done. At the next meeting, she simply asked: "What do we all believe makes a great CEO?" No agenda, no timer, no steering. Just space.

What emerged astonished everyone. After an initial stunned silence, the "warring factions" discovered they all valued adaptive leadership over specific industry experience. This shared insight unlocked a candidate nobody would had previously considered. And, this person became their most successful CEO in decades — and who ultimately engaged me to work with her.

Margaret told me much later: "Back then, I prized control as a way of directing outcomes. But real control is creating conditions where the best outcomes can emerge."

Here's what happened neurologically: Margaret shifted the board from their Task Positive Network (TPN) – the goal-focused, analytical brain mode that drives most meetings – to their Default Mode Network (DMN), where creative connections, imagination and reflection flourish. These networks are anti-correlated: when one is active, the other is suppressed. You can't be in both modes simultaneously.

When Margaret ran her tightly controlled meetings, she kept everyone locked in TPN mode — focused on her agenda and predetermined outcomes. When she asked the open-ended question with no agenda, she allowed the board members' brains to shift into DMN mode, where they could ‘join the dots’ between seemingly unrelated ideas and find novel solutions to their CEO problem.

This is why some of our best ideas come in the shower or during walks or, for me, in the sauna. We're not actively trying to solve problems, so our DMN can work its magic. And, this is also why convergence exercises work, and why hung parliaments innovate: they force our brains to toggle from TPN control to DMN creativity. Less grip, more grace.

Question: What breakthroughs might emerge if you let your team's DMN breathe in your next critical meeting?

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If today’s 5MSM helped you find convergence between your analytical and creative brain networks, please hit that ‘heart’.

Until next week, may your meetings have more DMN moments and may your collaborations be more like a hung parliament than a majority. Oh, and if you’re Australian, I hope you get some of what you’re asking for out of the election result!

Andrew