PeopleFirst! with Morag Barrett | Work Smart: Brain, Behavior, Creativity, & the Future of Work with Dr. Jennie Byrne

Dr. Jennie Byrne author of Work Smart - Brain/Behavior/Creativity and the Future of Work shares insights we can all apply to have a great impact at work and in life.

Show Notes

Dr. Jennie Byrne lives to connect the dots between people and ideas in new and unexpected ways. She is a clinical translator between segments of our complex health system - clinicians, finance, operations, data, technology, research. Clients have called her a triple threat because:

1) Clinical Experience - nearly two decades of clinical experience as an MD/PhD
2) Entrepreneur - I’ve founded and grown a clinical organization through the entire life cycle of inception to exit
3) C-level Leadership - led teams to create and innovate clinical programs as a C-level leader

She is the author of Work Smart: Use Your Brain and Behavior to Master the Future of Work 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRR6QPM1

What is PeopleFirst! with Morag Barrett?

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

[Music]

welcome to SkyeTeams people first with

Morag Barrett welcome to this week's

episode of people first and my guest

this week is Dr Jennie Byrne who is the

founder and CEO of constellation LLC and

the chief patient officer at belong

Health she has been called a triple

threat because of her work as a

physician leader a Healthcare Executive

and as an entrepreneur she is a brain

and behavior specialist with extensive

training and experience in Psychiatry

Psychotherapy and Neuroscience and I'm

excited to welcome her to people first

this week because she has a new book

coming out called work smart use your

brain and behavior to master the future

of work so I'm looking forward to diving

into that and learning more but firstly

Dr Jenny welcome to people first thank

you thank you so much for having me

well I was reading through the

background obviously we're new

connections this is you know an early

date in our relationship but I

discovered an interesting little fact

lit that you and I have something in

common and this is often the case when

we are curious about others we find

nuggets and our nugget is that we both

play the bassoon so tell me it's an

uncommon instrument it's an uncommon

instrument for women because you have to

be a certain size to be able to get so

how did you get introduced to the

bassoon

so it's a funny story and I don't know

if your story is similar but I played

the violin for many years first

yeah uh starting when I was probably

about seven I started violin and then

when I was in Middle School

um I was intrigued by playing a woodwind

and I saw the bassoon and I was like

that's really interesting

um maybe I could play that and I told

somebody my director of one of my or my

Symphonies and he said oh no you could

never play that

accepted then of course I had to play it

and so I started and then I learned that

nobody plays but soon except you

apparently more but uh nobody else plays

it so you can be a pretty mediocre

bassoon player and still be the best in

the state is what I learned and so it

was wonderful way for me to um I kept

playing violin and I played bassoon but

bassoon opened doors for me that I

actually would never have had if I had

so I had a similar story my mom and my

dad both violinist but it made my all

make and again had lessons at about five

or six but I took up the flute at the

age of 11 and by 15 and finished all the

exams in England and it was like well

what are you gonna do I know I don't

want to be a professional musician

because I'd actually have to practice

versus sight read and so my teacher put

me onto the bassoon and it was the same

teacher as my flute teacher and so for

the next three years I did all the

bassoon exams but I did every lesson

standing up and at the end of three

years here's the irony he said to me

um so I'm curious why did you stand and

I was thinking well because you're my

flute teacher and we always stood for

flute lessons I assumed that's what you

wanted me to do so there I am holding an

instrument that weighs eight to ten

pounds hanging off my neck but uh you

like you I switched and rarely got

invited flutes of 10 a penny but

bassoonists are as rare as hen's teeth

and so ended up playing with a local

Symphony Orchestra but all good fun all

good fun all right so back to people

first in a moment we're going to dive

into your book work smart use your brain

and behavior to master the future of

work but I start each episode with an

origin story so if we flash back to

elementary school you've put the violin

down not yet reached for the bassoon but

when your teachers asked you as a young

girl what do you want to be when you

grow up what was your answer

so it's a great question and I never

knew I never knew what I wanted to be

when I grew up I knew what I didn't want

to be oh I knew I didn't want to be

um a teacher I knew I didn't want to be

an astronaut I didn't want to be a an

athlete

um but I actually didn't know what I

wanted I was a voracious reader so I

probably would have said something

around books

um I don't think I would have said a

librarian but you know I actually never

knew I never knew I wanted to be a

doctor a scientist I mean all the things

that I've kind of become in my life I

never knew I just kind of follow my nose

and have ended up doing a bunch of

extraordinary things but if you would

have asked me as a kid I would have been

like well I don't want to be the mom who

stays at home and makes cookies I know

I'm not going to be that Mom

I don't I don't know what I want to be

so you taught that about medicine

Psychiatry Psychotherapy Neuroscience

brain science so what was the pivot

point then that did bring you into

Healthcare

I uh maybe not surprising based on what

we just said but I started college as a

music performance major because that's

what I did all day long I played music

all day long so I was like well I'll be

a music performance major

um and then you know like you I was like

you know I don't think that's going to

happen and then I was like I know I'll

be a French major I want to live abroad

and so I lived abroad and I became a

French major and then I was like I don't

think I want to be a French professor

and when I came back I landed in a class

in brain and behavior at University of

Pennsylvania and I just fell in love and

I would say everything I've done since

then has been some way related to brain

and behavior

um and what what makes people tick from

all sorts of different angles so I'm

intensely curious

and um that's kind of led me to say yes

to things I guess is the best way to

characterize it

so your book work smart use your brain

and behavior to master the future of

work I was able to get a sneak peek

because I actually hit the shelves early

in 23 but what was the inspiration and

why write this book now

I got inspired to read the book because

like you like so many other people

um you know I was forced to really

re-examine a lot of things during the

pandemic and a lot of my colleague you

know I'm a little older you know a lot

of my colleagues Gen X or older

um were thinking about what to do next

and they're like well we'll just go back

to work like normal and I was like why

you you hated work you complained about

it all the time and by the way you're

kind of the boss so why would you go

back and do something you hated for

another 10 or 15 years it doesn't make

sense to me and a lot of the clients I

was working with in healthcare were

saying the same thing you know like our

teams don't want to go back or we're

trying to work virtually or can we do

Telehealth or

um so there was this moment in time

where people were kind of open to

thinking differently but yet at the same

time feeling this pull to just go back

to normal

normal which I believe wasn't really

working for most people I think the

national office was working for some

people but for most people I actually

think it didn't work that great and The

more I've researched I've learned that

it was based on a Industrial Revolution

you know turn of the century 150-year

old way of doing things and we just got

so used to it we forgot to challenge our

own assumptions so as I was hearing all

this I started to do my own research I

was like what's out there and I was

dissatisfied with what I I found so I

took a different

research tact and I dug into brain and

behavior because that's what I I know

and and I love and I felt that what I

learned through that is that if we look

at this problem through a different lens

the answers are actually not as hard as

we think they are and there's actually

things we can do now that aren't as hard

as we think they are but we have to

turn around our thinking and see it from

a human brain and behavior point of view

so it's interesting because we're

certainly creatures of habit and that

research when I wrote the future-proof

workplace

um that Industrial Revolution mindset

was really designed around command and

control for an illiterate Workforce and

here we are in the 21st century with a

highly educated sophisticated and

complex environment and work really and

careers can happen Anytime Anyplace

anywhere but it requires High trust and

it requires challenging some of the

assumptions and behaviors that you just

talked about there that have kept us

really trapped in this we go to work we

sit in the cube we leave and then we

have life so I know the book is broken

down so for those who pre-order first of

all what's in it for them so what's

what's exciting about get on the

bandwagon early because this book is

going to make a difference so what are

we going to discover if we join the

pre-launch

so so there's a couple phases of

publishing which has been you know

fascinating to learn about publishing

um I have done a campaign a pre-sale

Campaign which closed so I have a

community people that signed up super

super early now there's an opportunity

to kind of get on my list to be part of

my pre-launch and without like giving it

all away probably what we'll do for the

for the launch we'll have a launch event

we'll have some virtual learning

experiences probably some time with me

um and then people will have the

opportunity to get things like book

bundles for their team like if you're

like oh my gosh this resonates with me I

want to share this with my team I'd love

for you to give me a bundle of books and

do a book club for me or I'd love for

you come and do an event for me you're

kind of the early opportunity to get in

on some of that so you kind of get into

the application piece faster than just

reading it and then trying to do it

later

um and then I'm really I'm very curious

and open and I'm I'm looking for

suggestions is how to make an

educational experience as engaging as

possible because that's part of the

future of work is how do you make um

these experiences engaging so not only

do you get the book but you kind of get

access to all of these other you know

materials whether they be online or

customized

um and the earlier you get in the more

availability I'll have frankly as we go

along I you know I think it'll get

harder and harder

so what I liked about work smart use

your brain and behavior to master the

future of work it is for me the

underpinning theme is around

intentionality and choice and I was

talking with Charlene Willis and her

book uh you are enough and she talks

about one of her three leadership

mantras being choice not chance and I

think for many of us we're so caught in

the endless Zoom meetings we're not

making any choices really but we're also

not being present in the moment and you

start the book about talking about time

confetti so tell me more about this

concept of time confetti and how is that

helping or hindering our success in

business and life

I love the term time confetti

um it comes from I think it was coined

by Bridget Schulte when she wrote about

being overwhelmed years ago

yeah that our time when you leave it to

chance like you said is eaten up by a

million little things and those little

things could be this our device but it's

not just that right like your little

time could be the time that you um

thought about oh my gosh I have to make

a to-do list to do this thing or oh my

gosh

um I'm stressed out at work my boss just

sent me this email or I got a ping over

here oh my gosh I gotta do that thing

and so

whether we're at work or at home our

life is consumed by these little tiny

not even a second long tidbits of time

that is eaten away and so we we rarely

intentionally carve large amounts of

time kind of like Cal Newport talks

about in his deep work we rarely carve

like chunks of time to just focus and do

one thing and our brains are adapting to

that right and um it's pretty common

phenomenon when people sit down to read

they actually have trouble now

we actually have trouble attempt

attending and focusing and

um it's it's actually impacting the way

your brain works but the good news is

our brain is very plastic meaning that

we can change it so we can retrain it to

have better attention and focus by

eliminating this time confetti and

there's a lot of ways to do it

um chunking is one of my favorite

strategies I talk about in the book

where you chunk together like tasks so

if you're doing a cognitive task like

you do all your email and then you turn

it off

yeah if you're doing Zoom meetings you

do your Zoom meetings and then you turn

it off you're reading you read and then

you turn it off so you chunk together

similar tasks

because the time and energy that

requires your brain to switch tasks is

tremendously inefficient so the more

that you switch tasks there's research

that shows your ability to execute drops

off dramatically the more things that

you're toggling back and forth between

yes kind of again what do we know about

our brain and how our cognition works

and creating strategies to manage our

time intentionally and then you're kind

of shocked to be honest like when you do

this and you're really rigorous about it

you could be kind of uncomfortable

because you'll be like does feel weird

doesn't it start with or cut off when

you turn off the phone or turn off the

notifications I'm pointing at the corner

of my screen where they would normally

appear when I'm doing these I try to

switch them off but it's interesting for

me because I've been reading those

articles that say the Youth of today you

know attention span of a Nat or whatever

implying that it's getting shorter and

yet that the Youth of today has the

ability to watch a two and a half hour

movie without any issue or to sit and

play

um online games for hours on end so help

me to understand that selective maybe

when they're listening to their mum

maybe they've got selective attention

but when they're doing something they're

passionate about they can get deeply

immersed in it so help me understand

that yeah so I think what you're

referring to is kind of the idea of flow

a flow state or a play state so when I

was researching for the book I was

reading a lot about time spent in play

and time spent in flow and what that

does for your brain so for a young

person on a video game that might be a

flow state for them for an adult maybe

you don't like video games maybe your

flow state is walking maybe your flow

state is

um dancing or playing the bassoon or you

know it's different for everybody but

until you create the time to get into

play or flow States you'll never go it's

never just gonna happen right it's rare

that it just happens so I would

characterize that as like when you're in

the flow you feel it you feel like

you're in the flow time passes

differently right people have a hard

time interrupting with what you're doing

um and and the idea of play as being

critical for our brains to function

optimally as adults not just as kids

we look at kids and we say oh yeah kids

have to play to learn and grow and so

forth but we forget that adults do too

and yeah culture we could you know you

can call it the hustle culture culture

of busyness there are a couple terms I

like but you know the idea of play has

really been lost and we're missing

something our brains are really missing

out by not giving ourselves the time and

space to play

well I like that idea because in in the

beginning of the book you talk about

personal rhythms and certainly for the

leaders and Executives I'm coaching

their schedules tend to be a little bit

more shotgun you know one-on-one here a

strategic meeting there and in the weeds

meeting next and it's all over the place

and just even coaching them to Take Back

Control and saying well can you chunk

your time and do all your one-on-ones on

a Monday and do your team meeting on a

Thursday and just taking making it a

deliberate Choice once a year to tidy up

your calendar to the extent that you can

creates Ripple effects and those

chunking opportunities for others too

so from that personal Rhythm you move

into the communication and the digital

world that we're living in the endless

Zoom meetings Etc and how we can better

use these tools to Foster engagement and

a sense of place and time

talk a little bit more about the

insights from your research for that

part of the book

so the way I think about communication

is maybe a little different than the way

you might be or others might be I think

about it as falling into a couple