The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Five Brain Leadership: How Neuroscience Can Help You Master Your Instincts and Build Better Teams by Carlos Davidovich MD, Jennifer Elizabeth Brunton PhD

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Five Brain Leadership: How Neuroscience Can Help You Master Your Instincts and Build Better Teams by Carlos Davidovich MD, Jennifer Elizabeth Brunton PhD Amazon.com Carlosdavidovich.com Lead smarter. A handbook for your brain at work. High pressure. High conflict. High stress. Today, too many leaders believe that these states are not just natural, but inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Using his skills as a medical doctor and his knowledge from many years in executive positions in the biotech pharmaceutical industry, in Five Brain Leadership, executive coach Carlos Davidovich walks you through the latest breakthroughs in the burgeoning fields of neuroscience, epigenetics, and cognitive behavior to help you better understand your multilayered, magical mind, and how to work with it instead of against it in leading your team and building relationships. Neuromanagement is at the intersection of neuroscience and daily life in the business world. It is leadership that is based on a full understanding of all five of our interlocking brains—our reptilian, emotional, rational, and, yes, even our heart and gut “brains.” Through practical tools and exercises, you’ll learn how to build your capacity in each of these control centers, and to recognize all the ways they are at play in how humans operate, interrelate, and react to change. Five-Brain Leadership is your pathway toward turning good leadership into great leadership, and reaching new levels of success in all of life’s domains. About the author Carlos Davidovich, MD, is a performance and executive coach with over twenty years of experience. Originally educated as a medical doctor and drawing on his management experience in business executive roles for multinational pharmaceutical companies, Davidovich combines his understanding of the brain and of business to deliver lectures, workshops, and coaching modalities that help his clients apply the principles of neuromanagement within their organizations to create sustainable change. Davidovich teaches in several MBA programs in Canada and Europe, and is a thought leader with the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital.

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an endorsement or review of any kind. We have an amazing young man with us today. We have Carlos Davodovich on the show. He's also a doctorate and Jennifer Elizabeth Brunton, who is his co-author of the book that came out January 23rd, 2023. It is entitled Five Brain Leadership. How neuroscience can help you master your instincts and build better teams. Welcome to the show Carlos, how are you? Great and thanks a lot for your invitation. This is a fantastic opportunity. I'm delighted to be here. We're happy to have you. So you're a performance and executive coach with over 20 years of experience,

originally educated as a medical doctor and drawing on your management experience in business executive roles for multinational pharmaceutical companies. You combine understanding of the brain and business to deliver lectures, workshops, coaching modalities that help your clients apply the principles of neuro management within their organizations to create sustainable change. Well,

welcome to the show. Once again, Carlos, give us your.com. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? The way to find me is very simple. One is my website www Carlos davidovich.com and the other one is LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn is my social media, let's say the one I use the most and then just Carlos Davidovic and neuroscience or you will find me there for sure. Five brain leadership as well.

So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book. Excuse me. Give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside your new book. The book is, is I will start saying there is a metaphor to understand the different narratives that all of us we have insight. If what I'm trying to say is I define as a five brains, of course, but the truth is that the body, the body and the brains that work all together, they're all intertwined, but through evolutions, they

were certain characteristics that we can identify each of them. But the key point of the story is not to talk about science at all, is to, to be aware and to be mindful of those narratives that are inside of us that will provoke different outcomes depends which one is in control. And then metaphorically talking, I like to talk, I like to say, let's be aware of our internal team. And those are the first that we need to learn how to lead before you go to the outside world. Because this works like a regular team, you know, people with different personalities, different interests, different goals and different way to interact with each other.

And we as a human being happens, something very similar happens inside of us. If we can identify that, we can really understand our behavior, others behavior, and how to communicate, interact, and influence each other. Ah, so what are the five brains? How does that work? How does that work? Okay, the five brains are three. It's a way to, I will say, understand the big brain, no? The one that we have under a skull. I mean, in the evolution, we were not replacing brain. We, okay, so you say the nature, nature was adding brains. So there is a very old one, that is a reptilian brain. Everybody heard about that one.

That is about survival period, you know, fly, flies and freeze. And this is the one that kept us alive for millions of years and that 500 million of years of existence. The second one is the emotional brain that let's be clear. Emotions are all over our body, but the headquarter of emotions is in the brain. The second brain. And the newbie one is the new in the block is the rational brain that don't get me wrong is the one that allows us,

allowed us so much to do everything that we are doing today. For instance, to be talking like this right now, thanks to the rational brain, but is the brain we trust the less, still the brain we trust the most is the primitive brain, the reptilian and that has positive and negative consequences in our behavior. The brain number four is the heart. So one guy found out that we have neurons, brain cells in our heart. So it seems like the heart is not just a pump. It has a lot of more complex capacity and besides the romantic approach, it has an intimate relationship with our emotions.

And the last one is our God brain, the one that lately is quite trendy. Everybody talks about the brain in our gods, but that also has a very specific way of communicate and express. Those are the five and those implies, instinct implies emotions, positive or negative, rational thinking and intuition. That is a completely interesting things to understand. Make sense? That does make sense.

That does make sense. And so utilizing or focusing on this with your talk in your book is utilizing this neuroscience that can help master your instincts and therefore build better teams. Do I have that correct? Absolutely correct. And that's why I say to manage or to learn how to manage external teams, the first step is to understand your internal team and how you manage yourself.

Ah, in that sense. So once you understand those dynamics that always happened inside of us, then you can, you can go to the outside world and to understand others behaviors. Ah, and, and so building better teams, understanding your people better, understanding your instincts are, are as well. And in, in, you know, we live in this world that's kind of crazy. understanding your people better, understanding your instincts are as well. And, and, and, you know, we live in this world that's kind of crazy. It's high pressure, high conflict, high stress. As you talk about in your book, is this a way to try and relieve some of that?

Or what, what do you really feel that your book helps people achieve? Mainly is the first step that is to increase the awareness about yourself. So I will not, I will not say a cliche of know yourself first, but this cliche has a support behind. If you don't understand why you behave in certain way, it's hard to deal with yourself, first of all. And what we need to understand is that there is, there is a real self that can be in charge of those different characteristics. So the question is who is in charge when I'm talking to my partner, when I'm talking to my team, when I'm trying to get A, B or Z, whatever. So who is in charge? Because that will establish the final goal and the outcome.

I need to understand that to be able to increase, let's say a positive communication. Tell us about your story, your journey through life. How'd you gain the experience you did and what kind of led you down the roads that got you to where you are today? Oh my God. Do we have time? Gotta make sure though.

In a nutshell, born and raised in Argentina and medical doctor MD and I worked as a medical doctor many years, but also I was an executive in pharmaceutical business in biotech, quite niche. Then I decided to move to Europe and I had to reinvent myself 180 degree. I ended doing what I'm doing today. So I give a lot of talks and workshops on neuro management. In another word, combining neuroscience with business and organization.

And I am an executive coach. And I was lucky enough to be invited in one moment of my life that I was not a young man like you. I was, I was invited to live and work in Canada. So I spent seven years of my life in Toronto and the pandemic brought me back to Europe. So in the, in the meantime, I mean, mean, I was like, again, to write books. There is a TED talk that people can see in YouTube.

But in the end, to become more and more, I don't want to use the word expert. I will say to know more and more how human behavior acts and express itself, and mainly in organization. I want to help people in organizations to be more productive. And I would say to have a better life. Let's put it that way, you know? And to get the results that they want,

know that others want. That's always important to take in half because you want to do as best you can with what you're doing there. Talk to us about some of the things you offer on your website, some of the coaching and consulting that you do. Excellent. So everything, I mean, in everything I do, coaching, I introduce, I will say the components

of my lens are, let's say, filtered by how the brain works. So in that way, I can listen in a different way. I can understand what people say in a different way. I can read between the lines. That allows me to help them better. I give a lot of talks and workshops on topics that are common topics in organization and what I do is to twist it and bring neuroscience behind. For instance, to give example, I talk about feedback, feedback, everybody talks about feedback, but nobody, nobody never went deeper on why universal feeling people hate feedback. Nobody wants to give it, nobody wants to receive it. So, because, because expose yourself to a situation

that nobody likes, you know? Oh yeah, no one likes, it's hard to, you know, it's kind of risky to be judged, right? Exactly, exactly, to feeling judged. There is a way, knowing how the brain works, there is a way to avoid this situation. And then that is one thing I transmit to the participant. To give an example, one of the topics I now is people that ask me a lot to present is

about the new Q. So we know about the IQ, the minimum level of intelligence you need to get a job. Then the the EQ that is about communication, how to connect with each other, empathy, very, very trendy for many, many years. Everybody talks about EQ and emotional quotient. But now there is a new one and the new one is called AQ or adaptability quotient. Adaptability quotient. I like that. It's not resilient. Resilient is one of the components of adaptability quotient. Adaptability quotient goes beyond. And I like because people that were working on this and creating this concept, they say the IQ, okay, we'll take you to get a job. You know, I mean, you need to have some kind of, of, of, of intelligent, the EQ will allow you to interact with people, but only the IQ will take

you farther to the future. Our capacity to adapt ourselves and come on what's going on more and more in our daily life is as the only condition to be able, I don't want to use the word survive. I will say it's the only condition to excel in this life. How adaptable, how open, and just one thing I want to share and not to go deeper on the content, but one, the main characteristic that shows how good you are in AQ or could be is your ability to unlearn. And this is a concept that people are so resistant. What do you mean to unlearn?

How often can you give up things that you don't need anymore? But this is something that is very, very provocative. So those are the topics I talk about growth mindset. I talk about the process of changing the brain. Again, the brain has a system to avoid changes because it has changed. And this has another system to overcome those barriers. Yes, everything is in the brain. But the point, but the trick we need to understand is how to deal with this. How to identify where am I and then what to do.

Those are the things I like to transmit in my lecture. I mean, lecture or a workshop, I like to call it better, master classes. So what I mean is, the process of change, you need to follow some steps. I present seven steps, that this is the only way that the brain will be able to digest a change and accept it. All this information comes from knowing basic characteristic of brain functioning.

So those practical ones that will help us to move forward in our life. Makes sense? I can expand or just enough, I think. Please expand so that we can get some more data on that. What else I can tell you about this? Yeah. For instance, when I start with my workshop and some company, they say, okay, let's do a program.

No, no, just one presentation. And then I follow a team for a time with different topics. I always start with the same one that is from overwhelm to flourish. So what I'm trying to say is you cannot move forward if you don't know how to, how to take care of yourself first. No, the famous cliche in the airplane, you know, put the oxygen mask to you first. We talk a lot about it and nobody understood, never understood why to put the oxygen mask first on you. If I move with my son, with my daughter, whatever. No, no, no, no.

If you are not in good shape, you cannot help anyone. And this is, and this is life. So then what I do is to introduce different tips, very practical tips. I try to be very practical. I don't like too much theory, too much content that will not help people to, the next day at work or in their life. And so what I do is give tips on how to identify if you have anxiety, to deal with your anxiety in a healthy way and to deal with the different cycles that we have in the body.

In another word, and I will tell you another concept, in organization and business, we always were talking about time management. And if I, when I always ask, when I go, I mean, to the audience, I say, how many of you went through a time management training, everyone? And people more than once. And then I go with a sorry to tell you those training was aiming the wrong target. Because there is no way to manage time. Time is a fixed factor of equation. What we do, what the body does 100% of the time is energy management.

And this is not a touchy-feely concept. This is a fact. Even though it has a medical name, called allostasis, that the body is all the time managing our daily movement and the way we run in life, balancing the energy that we have. We have more energy, we do more. We have less energy, we need to recharge battery, we do less.

Then the goal is not to talk about how can I manage the time. The goal is how can I increase my energy? How can I protect myself not to drain energy on the wrong moment? Make sense what I'm saying? So that is really the right objective. And in that way, you can take advantage of the time in a different way.

So the time management is a, is a side effect of this. How can leaders identify which of their five brains is like dominating their decision-making? Yeah. That's a great question. One concept also I will have to introduce now. Human brain is not prepared to make a hundred percent rational decision. And I know it's very provocative because we consider ourselves very rational beings. The truth is that our rational brain will help us to do the analysis, will help us to arrive to conclusions. But at the moment that we need to action, we will mobilize emotions all the time. In another word, from the five brains, and that's what

I share with people, only one is rational, what we call rational. The other four are in one way or the other connected with intuition, sorry, with instinct and emotions and intuition as well. So what I'm trying to say is 80% of the inputs that we are receiving all day are mainly connected with emotions and instinct. And that is more than, it's a huge reason to work in our life on how to understand those emotions and those instincts. What are the impact in our daily life? This is not to become a psychologist. Okay? Don't get me wrong. This is just to understand basic things in the way I behave, in the way I make decisions, because the decision making process

realize we like it or not in our emotional brain, not in our rational brain. That's, that's gotta be pretty freaking interesting. So, yeah, most definitely. What are some signs you talk in your book about what's called the misaligned brain dynamic? What are some signs that a team is operating from that point of view? Still in the same way, if I can really, let's call it manage myself or control myself or lead myself, then in that moment, I'm able to, I would say to connect with others. And I will bring concrete examples.

In our daily life and here in Western world at least, there are different personalities that could be great. I was not, could get a lot of results through not exactly healthy personalities with all respect. What I'm trying to talk a little bit is about something that's quite known, that is those bullies, people that are quite aggressive, are quite direct, to say the least, and they get results, but not the results that will really end helping the whole situation. What I'm trying to say is a brain that is not well aligned is the brain that is relying on something that at the end will harm the team and will harm productivity. Productivity is important

right? Oh gosh in general it's very important, you know, why the company exists, right? Well, yeah, the company exists because it has a purpose, but needs to be productive, period. And when this kind of personality, I mean, that we normally call the bullies, these people are extremely intelligent, normally in top positions, and they misunderstand the alignment of the brain. They think they are fully rational. One the truth is that their brain is running in reptilian mode all the time.

And when I coach people with this kind of personality, very direct, let me use the word aggressive, what I always tell them is, how do you feel when you are just using only half of the brain of your people? And they, of course, they react. What are you talking about Carlos? Very simple. When you have this kind of personality, that's quite pushy, let's say, or quite aggressive or quite that, that only is my way or the highway as always quite con know on this Chris.

So in that moment, all your team members are running in survival mode. Survival. Exactly. They are just trying to protect themselves and to survive. So they don't want to be fired. So what I'm trying to say is they are not giving the best of them. is they are not giving the best of them. The only way to do that is when we feel safe in our working environment. That's why another of the works of I share and I gave a lot is how to create this psychological safe in my safety environment. That is a work to do. At the moment I feel safe, then I will bring new ideas. I will become creative.

I will walk the extra mile. If I don't feel safe, forget it. Feeling safe is probably important because people don't want to be criticized or, you know, told the wrong or, you know, other different issues that they can possibly have. And so it's, it's really good to have all that as well, I think, right? It's absolutely a must.

A must is how to create this environment that people will feel free to talk, not, and not feeling that whatever they say can be, they can be punished because of that. Or they can be criticized. It can be, I will say embarrassed about that. And not only by the ball, sometimes there is an issue in the team, you know? So it says among people in the team. So what I'm trying to say is a good leader. One of the, I like to define what are the five tasks the leader cannot delegate. So we talk a lot about delegation, but there are five tasks the leaders cannot delegate.

They need, they are responsible of, and they need to have it in mind. If you want, I can share it with you. Of course, they are very common sense. The number one is just setting direction, you know, to tell where we're going. That's very clear. But the number two that has to come from the leader, from the boss, the number two is the right distribution of tasks, the right delegation, because this is not about just doing what I say, it's who could be in charge of. And the third task that leaders

cannot delegate, I like to call it climate keeper. So how to create that climate that people will feel okay is creating a safe environment is bringing the resources that team needs to have is doing recognition that in our Western world recognition is not so frequent in business. People say, okay, if you are doing well, something is your work. That's it. No, no, no, no, no. Brain needs to receive recognition many, many times is possible. So then the number four of the task that leaders can no delegate is the checking and follow up of the tasks that they are in charge. Why I'm saying this?

Because one of the things I found the most is leaders giving the task and they never do the follow up because always there's a new task. What happened in the brain of the team members? If my boss is not doing the follow-up, this task is not important and then I also leave it. Hmm. Now, speaking of living it, can you share a moment in your career when you realized you were leading from the wrong brain and how you adjusted it personally? That's a good example that we can kind of work from. Yeah.

I remember working as an executive in pharma business in Latin America. I was leading all the biotech area. And of course, there was a lot of pressure from the headquarter of the company. A lot of pressure regarding results, regarding numbers, regarding all these kind of things that a normal organization. And I was, I will say, inexperienced enough or young enough, put it together if you want, that I received the pressure without filtering the pressure. So what I was doing, I was transmitting the pressure to

my team, and creating and provoking a very unhealthy environment. And in that moment, in one moment, I remember to be called out by one of the team members saying, Carlos, this is not going to work because we don't feel safe, we don't feel good, and we see you nervous, and we don't feel safe, we don't feel good, and we see you nervous, and we see you that you cannot deal with what the organization is asking you to do. So what I'm trying to say is leaders need to be in a place to understand how to put filters to that information.

In that moment, I just was running in reptilian brain or survival mode because I was not able to manage the pressure of the organization. Yeah. And so people can read your book. How do they reach out to you? How are they on board? What sort of people do you work with? Do they need to have a minimum net worth or I imagine you work with corporations and teams

to the, is there a certain size of company that you only work with, et cetera, et cetera. I work with, normally I work with people, leading people, to be honest. And, and I know that we always like to say, I only work with C level. No, I work with C level and the next level as well, because the next level and the next level will become C level. And for that, they need to be coached because if not they will they will go south. So I work with leaders at any level in the organizations that are responsible for people. People responsible for people. Regarding the size of the organization

is not something that I look for that because in the end you will work with a team. What I like the most and I have many several companies to work with the company. What I mean is I at least three four companies right now I'm the coach of the company. What that means? Then I know what's going on internally. I know what the CEO is thinking. I know how the VP are receiving that. So in few words, I'm completely in control of the dynamic of the organization. I can do that with a small teams with the big teams depends. Of course. I mean, there is a limit regarding number of people I can deal with, but this is just a human limitation.

Yeah. The, and so people, how do they, I'm poor with you. Is there a calls available or scheduling available and all that? Normally, I normally they reach me through my email or through my website. Um, now I'm working a lot with the word of mouth because things go, there's a lot of people telling people I'm recommending, this with the word of mouth because thanks God, there's a lot of people telling people and recommending this is great. But people that don't have that possibility, I think that the best way again is LinkedIn and the website. So www.carlosdavidovis.com or in LinkedIn is very easy to find me.

And I receive mails through that. And then of course, I always respond to every single email. And then we, we, we see how, how we can collaborate and if the feed is there, we feed to each other. It's been wonderful to have you give people a final pitch out to onboard with you, order up your book, wherever fine books are sold and all that good stuff. The books is in every single big store, you know, Amazon, of course, and, and depends

on the country is the big bookstore. It's a book that you can order online mainly. Yeah. It's the kind of book that will be printed for you. And, and again, I mean, I, I love to interact with people with all these situations because I fascinated with the human behavior, how people are able to learn and to grow at the moment they understand what's going on. And I will tell people don't don't stop pretending that you

need to know everything, please. Ah, that's kind of why you have a team is so you can spread out that knowledge base so that everyone contributes and you know, one person doesn't have to know everything. Is that a good assessment? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It says think about the word vulnerability in a new way. So normally the word vulnerability had a very negative marketing. Nobody wants to talk about vulnerability because it was connected with weakness. That is not

the real concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability, the definition today is risk, emotional exposure and uncertainty. At the moment, at the moment you define vulnerability in that way, everyone, all of us, we are vulnerable all the time. So let's be comprehensive, let's be empathetic, let's say, and understand each other, and help each other, and support each other to reach our goals. It's been wonderful to have you on the show and super insightful, Carlos. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks a lot for the invitation, really, really.

And congratulations for your show. Thank you. And congratulations on your new book. Order up the book, folks. Wherever fine books are sold, it is entitled, Five Brain Leadership, How Neuroscience Can Help You Master Your Instincts and Build better teams by dr. Carlos? Devon devon of itch Carlos, so thank you very much for coming the show

Thanks for on it for tuning in go to good reads.com fortress crisp us linkedin.com fortress crisp us crisp us one the tick-tockity and Facebook.com forces crisp us. Thanks for being here. You go to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. There we go Thanks