 Hello everyone, I am excited to meet with you virtually today to talk about the human technology that's the key driver for all of the projects within this open source ecosystem. And we will be talking about how to harness the neurodiversity within your project teams so that you can achieve all of the ambitious goals that you have set. Now to set the context, has anyone experienced anything like the last 100 days? I think it's fair to say that every single one of us participating in this event is a little shell-shocked from the past couple of months. With practically no notice, every one of us all over the globe has had to make radical changes due to COVID-19. Fair industries are failing quickly. There's a record of employment. The Black Lives Matter movement has swept the globe in a matter of days. It's becoming really clear that we need to expect the unexpected. And we know that more big shifts are coming and we know they're going to happen fast. We just have no idea what they will be and we can't really control them. And we also know that the pace of change and complexity in our world are increasing exponentially. So IBM released a statistic recently that 90% of the world's data has been generated in just the past two years. But our big limitation is our ability to handle all of that. Our mental operating hardware and software, the human brain, has evolved at a glacial pace comparatively. So we're running on ancient systems that were never designed for this level of change or level of complexity. So our ability to solve the world's biggest technical challenges hinges on our ability to master the human element. And that's why our ability to handle the world's biggest technical challenges is not enough. And there's so much focus on diversity and inclusion right now, and rightfully so, because countless studies show that more diverse inclusive teams deliver better results than homogeneous ones. But it's not just what you look like on the outside. It's also about diversity of thinking style. So the question is, how do we mine our collective diversity of thought to get to the best solutions? How do we collaborate and drive progress toward a shared vision that we all feel ownership for? How do we deal with competing interests, unclear power structures, personalities that are really different than our own so that we can get the important work done and done really well? So that's what I'm here to talk about today. My name is Kristi Kossler. I'm the CEO of Sustainable Leadership Advisors, and we're an executive coaching and leadership development firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. And so I'm going to talk today about the human brain and our similarities and differences in how we think, why that matters, and how to use neurodiversity well so that we can achieve better outcomes. The design of the human brain has enabled us to survive and dominate as a species. In the prefrontal cortex, that human part of our brain really distinguishes us from all other animals. It helps us solve problems, it helps us focus, it helps us make decisions. It loves to explore possibilities and change. But our brain's number one job is to keep us alive and safe. And that's what the amygdala and the limbic system helps us to do. It's that ancient part of our brain or the critter brain. And that triggers our fight, flight, or freeze response. And this part of our brain hates change because at a very basic level, it doesn't know if change is survivable. So when we're operating at our best, we're in this logical prefrontal cortex part of our brain. And in this nonreactive state, we can reason well, we can make logical decisions, we can solve complex problems. But not all of our behaviors are driven by our thinking brain or our prefrontal cortex. Because when our brains perceive something unusual or different, it's perceived as a threat, just like now with so many changes going on due to COVID-19. And it's happening more and faster than ever before. So our amygdala, that part of our brain's limbic system, kicks in to protect us. And then our prefrontal cortex temporarily shuts down. There's actually an inverse relationship between the two. So the more that we get triggered, the more that ancient part of our brain kicks in and we go off of habit and off of instinct. And in fact, we react before we think 80 to 100 times faster. And that's helpful if you're running from a saber-toothed tiger or from a burning building, but in our day-to-day work life, we're usually a lot more effective when our prefrontal cortex is calling the shots, not our amygdala. So given all of this, the question is, is there a brain-based way to connect more effectively with others? And the answer is yes, there is. And that's by understanding the things that we humans have, both in common, in terms of our brain structure, but also by understanding how people think and behave differently due to their personality. We can view those behavioral differences just as differences in preferences, not as threats to our survival. And by accommodating those preferences, then we're more likely to see people operating at their best. And likewise, by understanding how you think and behave, you can make small adjustments in your workday, whether it's noise level or the amount of social interactions that you have, how much time you take to prepare, all those things to encourage peak performance. So this takes a lot of awareness and focus. And we are not typically trained to do this growing up. In fact, the truth is that the majority of our brain's activity is unconscious. Just like most of an iceberg isn't visible, it's below the surface. It's the same thing with your brain's activity. So above the surface, you can see the knowledge we develop, the strategies we create, those things require conscious efforts. But only 5% of your brain's activity is conscious. That means that 95% is unconscious. So those habitual automatic activities like breathing, our heartbeat, our bodily functions. Also, that is influenced and programmed by the culture that we live in, the family structure that we grow up in. All of those things are below the surface, but they're an important part of how our unconscious works. And they inform our beliefs and assumptions about the way the world works, our place in it, what behavior is good, what behavior is bad, how much power we have in situations, etc. All of those things are important parts of our brain's programming. And they can have really big consequences when we're working with people that we don't know, especially under stressful conditions. I'm gonna give you an example of this. One of the recent bankruptcies during the whole COVID-19 crisis is an airline based in Columbia called Avianca. And unfortunately, they are famous for a crash that happened outside New York City in 1990, and what happened was Flight 52 was coming from Medellin to New York. And it was a smooth flight. They left with more than enough fuel for the journey. There was nothing unusual. But when it came time to land, air traffic was really busy. And the flight was placed into three different holding patterns. And eventually, the plane became critically low on fuel. Now, the Colombian flight crew had a really experienced pilot, and then they had a first and second officer. And there was a very clear power structure in place and a cultural norm of not raising your voice and not challenging someone who is senior to you. So it was a very indirect style of communication, very hierarchical. So the flight crew never used the words emergency or raised their voice when communicating how low on fuel they were. Because that would have been disrespectful. They were following their cultural norms and the more stressful it got, more critical it got, the more they repeated this program behavior of being calm, cool and collected and not wanting to challenge the captain. So the New Yorkers in air traffic control never realized that something was really wrong because those New Yorkers were used to very direct communication, very flat hierarchy. If something was wrong, you said it, you probably yelled it. And it turned out that the plane crashed because it ran out of fuel. 73 people died, including the three officers in the cockpit. But really, it was differences in power structures, in team norms, and communication styles that led to that crash. That's obviously a dramatic example. But unfortunately, I see this in my work all the time when I'm working with companies and leaders. Things fail not due to the underlying technical issues, but they're due to failures in human communication and teaming. And I'm sure you've probably experienced this as well. So it's that 95% of the iceberg that's below the surface, that's the 95% of our brain that's acting unconsciously. It's on autopilot. And that really drives what we visibly notice. Especially in times of stress and change, that drives our observable behavior and this team dynamics. So I'm going to ask you a question, and I'd like you to pop it in the Q&A chat. Who knows the number one reason why projects fail? Let me see your guesses. Just pop that into the Q&A. Let's see what guesses you have. People communication. Lack of clear requirements. Okay, good guesses. It's actually due to a breakdown in teaming and communication. All right. Now, who knows the most important ingredients in any high-performing team? Let's have some guesses there. Pop it into the chat. What's the most important ingredient in any high-performing team? High-performing team. No matter what the task. All right, let's see. Okay, yeah. Okay, all good guesses. It's actually trust in psychological safety. So it's back to that amygdala, right? Whose job it is to keep us safe. So it's not the intelligence, the collective intelligence of the group members. It's not academic qualifications. It's not the number of years of collective experience. It's safety and trust, right? Back to that amygdala. Do I feel that I can bring things up and it's a safe environment in which to discuss ideas, to challenge others. Will I be made to look foolish if I bring up ideas that others don't like? Or is it a safe environment where I can share my thoughts openly and know that they'll be considered? So when we can understand that differences in human behavior are usually just style differences, and again, not threats to our safety, then we can learn how to work together better. So a person who studies this, and she's the foremost expert on brain-based differences in human personality, her name is Dr. Helen Fisher. And she's a biological anthropologist in a human behavior researcher. She is also a senior researcher at the Kinsey Institute. So she has studied all of the biological literature related to personality, whether it's twins studies, genetics, et cetera. And what she found is that out of the myriad activities and systems in the brain, personality traits are connected to just four brain systems. And those four brain systems are the serotonin system shown here in blue, the dopamine system shown in yellow, testosterone here shown in red, and estrogen and oxytocin shown in green. So the thing is every person has all four of these systems at play that are influencing our personality. But we have them in different degrees. So it's like the amount of ingredients in a recipe. We all have a unique recipe. So people with high serotonin, as you can see here, compared to the others, they tend to be very concrete and structured and cautious and measured. Those are the two dimensions that really stand out in terms of people with high serotonin. People with high dopamine, relative to the others, display behaviors being inventive and future-oriented, curious and energetic. Testosterone, people with high and testosterone relative to the others, are tough-minded and direct. And they also display a lot of systems thinking. So wanting to know how all the different parts and pieces connect tend to really enjoy math. And then finally, those high in estrogen relative to the others are very contemplative and contextual. So they'll think a lot about a topic and tend to ruminate on it long after an event has happened. And they also tend to display behaviors that are very empathetic and inclusive. So again, every one of us has a unique combination of all of these brain systems that shape their personality like ingredients in a recipe. So we know that more diverse, inclusive teams outperform homogeneous ones. They make better decisions, they show greater rates of innovation, they display better financial performance, higher engagement, but the question is, why is that? So let's try and experiment if you would. What I'd like you to do is pick up a pen and I want you to just write your name, not the city, it'll take too long, but write your name with your non-dominant hands. So the wrong hand in other words. Once you write your name with your non-dominant hand and when you're done, just pop in the chat, what did that feel like? Okay, let's see, what does that feel like writing with your non-dominant hand? It's weird, awkward, embarrassingly slow. Yeah, now what I'd like you to do is put your pen in your dominant hand, the one that you normally write with, and sign your name. And I want you to pop in the chat, what is that like? What did that feel like? Compare it to writing with your non-dominant hand. Okay, yeah, it's faster, automatic, you can do it without thinking. So the reason why diverse teams perform better is precisely because it's harder to work in them, at least initially. It's like being forced to write with your non-dominant hand. You have to be more conscious about it. It doesn't flow automatically, right? And so we don't all think alike, that means that we're forced to consider different perspectives. We have to work through disagreements. But this leads to more well-rounded decisions and less groupthink, so better diversity of thought and ideas. Since we can now measure someone's personality signature, so the degree to which we express those four brain systems, this is actually my personality signature and it's using a tool developed by Dr. Fisher called NeuroColor. You can see what brain system someone is high and low in and therefore how they tend to think. So you'll see with my personality signature, for example, I'm highest in yellow and especially the inventive and future-oriented. And then my next highest is green, specifically the empathetic and inclusive. And my lowest is in the blue, which is cautious and measured. So when I'm on teams, someone who is high in that blue really helps to round out my style, helps to slow things down quite frankly and make sure that we're considering all of the important options and really thinking three things through in a very well-structured way. So it's valuable to be able to understand and see the thinking style of the different members of a team, because then you can see if you had good diversity of thought and style or are you too heavily weighted in some areas? Because we know that when humans are left to our own devices, we tend to choose people who are similar to us. But the problem is then we lose out on the other dimensions of thinking that that brings to us and we'll fall into that groupthink. So you can see here with this team, there's a lot of yellow and there's a lot of blue, right? And lower on the red and lower on the green. So what that means is we may come up with a lot of ideas, we wanna explore them. With the blue, we'd wanna analyze those. But because there's not much strong red in this group, we might not push forward to action, right? Or deal with the conflict that we need to. We might not include people's thinking from the green with the empathetic and inclusive. So given all of this, what should we do to get better outcomes? First and foremost, you wanna make sure that you design the diversity of thought and style into your team structures up front. You don't all wanna be the same or you won't get the best thinking. And you can use a tool like Neural Color, you can use something like Myers-Briggs, you can even just discuss it. Secondly, you want to invest time at the beginning as your team is forming to make sure that you get to know one another on a personal level. Because that helps build trust in psychological safety. And again, that is the number one, most important ingredient for a high-performing team. Again, no matter how intelligent or qualified your team members are, if they don't trust each other and feel safe to share ideas, they won't perform well. Third, make sure that you explicitly discuss each other's communication preferences and styles. And make sure that you honor those differences so you don't see them as threats, but so that you can adapt to other's style and connect with them better. And you do have to make time to focus just on this. And then fourth, expect that it will feel uncomfortable initially, but that's actually a good thing. Because it means that your team is working hard to think in a well-rounded way and that will lead to better results. So I always tell my clients to take the MRI, which in this case stands for the most respectful interpretations. Understand that differences are truly differences in your brain and how you're wired, and that's a good thing. It's not that those differences are bad if you can appreciate them. All right, so if you would like more specific ideas on how to improve your team results, I created a one-pager, a neuroscience checklist on how to do that. So you can go to christyconsler.com forward slash linux-o-s-s. And also if you wanna see what your personality signature is, neural color is making a mini tool available but only through the end of this conference. So you'll see where you can click the box for that as well. All right, so today we covered what neurodiversity is, the ways that our human brains are similar and different. We talked about why diversity and thought and style leads to better outcomes and how to do it. And again, there are more tips on the checklist that I developed for you, christyconsler.com forward slash linux-o-s-s. Let me know if you have any questions. I know that's a lot to cover in 20 minutes. Not seeing any questions here at the moment. Ooh, feels like a mirror image, okay, faster, yeah. Okay, you're welcome. All right, feel free to pop any last questions in there. Let's see, here we go. If your team lacks diversity of style, what should you do, change the people? You should know what you're lacking and then you should try to add to that or consciously as a team, focus on that aspect that you're missing. And there are some ways that you can do that. It's hard to answer really quickly. But yes, you should look to add that to your style. How does someone who's not in diversity and inclusion bring up this topic? This is a human topic. It's not an HR topic, it's just how do we get better results as a team? How to discuss it openly with coworkers. You gotta bring it up and talk about we wanna be high performing and this is what we need to do in order to get it. And I see that we are at time. Thank you, everybody. Take care.