Practice Management
7th Annual Gulf-Atlantic Veterinary Conference
Randy Hall
Aspire
Humans have completely different sets of chemicals in our brains between the state of resistance and the state of change. We have completely different levels of neurotransmitters and a completely different ability to build new neural pathways and form new mental maps for how we might do something if we wanted to. Let’s look at resistance as it happens in the brain. Resistance starts when there’s a discrepancy between what we expected to happen and what is actually happening. When the practice manager announces the practice is going to change computer systems but we weren’t expecting it, we’re caught off guard and immediately put in a “resistant state.” It’s the same as if we’re driving on the highway and someone slams on their brakes in front of us. The orbitofrontal cortex fires up because it’s designed to identify things that might be dangerous or different than what we anticipated. It warns our bodies of danger and prepares us to either fight or run away. The orbitofrontal cortex has a direct line to our amygdala which then diverts the energy in our brain into our fear response. If all our mental energy is being used because we’re stressed out and worried about a new change, we don’t have brain power left for anything else. We aren’t thinking about how we can adapt to this change or how it might be a good change long-term — we’re just stuck in our fear response.