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Although we have talked about human nature for centuries, only recently have we been able to combine intense observational research with methods that are able to map the hardwiring of the brain and body. The implications of this research stream can be huge, as we will demonstrate in our discussion of strategy, digital transformation, restructuring, cultural change, M&A, scaled Agile, and broad social initiatives.

With our focus on prospering in a more rapidly changing and complex world, the most useful picture that emerges from this research is not the way that most people think about human nature. In particular, the vast majority of people tend to seriously underestimate the power of our built-in survival instinct and how it can inadvertently overwhelm our capacity to swiftly see opportunities, innovate, adapt, lead, and change for the better.

Humans have within them something we call the Survive Channel. It has the biological equivalent of a radar system that is constantly on the lookout for threats. At first, a very long time ago, these were probably mostly physical threats. Today, the same basic hardware is programmed by society and personal experiences to be alert to career, economic, psychological, and other perceived hazards to our well-being.

When our brain detects what is perceived to be a danger, a lightning-quick, subconscious sequence of actions occurs. First, our amygdala instantly sends a signal to our brain's “control center” (the hypothalamus). This signal activates the mechanism (our sympathetic nervous system) that is responsible for responding to potentially dangerous situations. Epinephrine (better known as adrenaline) flows through our bodies, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, accelerating breathing to increase oxygen to the blood stream, and releasing blood sugar and fats to prepare us to confront or escape the problem (“fight or flight”). When this happens, our minds tend to focus like a laser on the perceived threat. We use our spiked energy and total focus to try to move quickly to eliminate the hazard. When we are successful, the perceived problem is resolved, the chemicals stop flowing, we calm down, and the body resets to where it was before the “attack.”

We have all experienced this Survive response working well countless times in our personal and professional lives. Sometimes it happens much like it did with our ancestors. We start to step off a curb to cross the street when, through our peripheral vision, our Survive radar sees a bus racing our way. Instantaneously, chemicals are released, blood rushes to muscles, all other thought stops, and we jump back onto the sidewalk. This series of events happens in one or two seconds, often before we realize what we've done.

More frequently today, Survive is dealing with more nuanced complexity, and reflects the needs and requirements of life in the more complicated reality of the twenty-first century. A colleague alerts us that one of our biggest customers is irate because of a missing shipment. Our radar reports a threat alert, chemicals flow, our heartbeat increases, our minds forget about other issues as we immediately go to a conference call, virtual meeting, or into a conference room. Six of us gather to review what we know about the problem and plot our options for remedying the missed shipment and helping the unhappy client. Each of us accepts some area of responsibility, completes our tasks, and, after a tense 24 hours, we are told the problem has been solved. The customer seems to be impressed by our fast attention to the issue.

The Survive Channel is a very powerful part of our nature. It is certainly central to the fact that humanity has not been wiped out over the last hundred thousand years, unlike millions of other species. But when our brains evolved a long time ago, the world was very different. While this channel is still critical to our survival by allowing us to deal with real threats when they do arise, under the vastly different conditions we now face, our Survive Channel does not always serve us well.

Today, when we are not successful at eliminating some problem, typically because the threats are hugely complex and there is no practical way to avoid or stop them quickly, we can end up in a heightened survival state for a considerable period of time. Our bodies release additional chemicals (cortisol and other hormones), which keep us on high alert. But this intensity drains energy and makes us feel increasingly stressed. Even worse, if we are hit by multiple threats at once, or threats we cannot resolve, we can go into an overheated Survive state. In this condition, we become so tired and distracted that we are unable to deal well with even the problems for which the Survive Channel was designed. We might end up basically running in circles, withdrawing, or freezing. All this tends to overwhelm our capacity to see opportunities, to step back and creatively contemplate, much less to actually change our behavior to quickly capitalize on any opportunities. And how can we rally others to seize opportunity when we can barely function ourselves?

In today's rapidly changing world, with more threats and opportunities, it is not at all unusual for people to have an overheated Survive response, either because of the sheer volume of perceived threats or because we live in an environment with all sorts of barriers that stop us from eliminating even single threats.

Examples of companies in a state of overwhelmed Survive are easily found. A few years ago, a well-known consumer products business had overcapacity relative to demand. They had too much capacity in the wrong geographic and product areas, and a low-cost competitor who had successfully used new technology to reduce expenses and take market share. The executive committee of the challenged firm did what they had all seen done before: they launched a restructuring. When word got out that layoffs were coming, not just individuals but whole parts of the enterprise began moving into overheated Survive. Anxiety (and anger and stress) went up. Morale went down. Productivity slipped. Innovation was overwhelmed by all this Survive exhaustion, along with its narrowly threat-focused minds.

None of these issues stopped the executive committee from doing what it reluctantly had concluded was needed to restore competitiveness. Costs were cut, a few facilities were shut down, and people were laid off. It was not draconian, but it was unpleasant for all involved.

Two years later, the restructuring was officially “complete” and was by some standards a success. Costs had been significantly cut where demand was not needed. But productivity slips dampened the savings.

More importantly, little to no product innovation had occurred during the entire restructuring effort, despite the fact that there were programs in place to create new offerings. Three decades earlier, this pause in effective new product development would have mattered little in a slower-moving world. But this time, two younger competitors swiftly addressed market changes with successful new offerings, gained market share, and in the process created new supply-demand imbalances for the restructured firm.

The CEO took an early retirement. His replacement launched a number of new cost-cutting initiatives and tried to push hard from the top on the product development process. But none of this created the magnitude of needed results. A flawed understanding of what created the firm's problems inevitably led to flawed solutions for fixing them. It always does.

And there are solutions. But to find them you need to understand both the Survive Channel and its newer, less dominant companion, the Thrive Channel.

The Thrive Channel also has a radar system, but instead of looking for threats, it seeks opportunities. When Thrive spots possibilities, an internal mechanism is activated (the parasympathetic nervous system) that sends out a different set of chemicals than Survive (like oxytocin and vasopressin). In the Thrive response, our energy goes up but does not spike. Thrive is accompanied by emotions like passion and excitement rather than anxiety or anger. Our field of focus does not shrink; it often does the opposite, expanding as curiosity about the opportunity broadens one's field of vision. When a response is not activated to worry about our own immediate and personal survival, and with positive emotions flowing instead, we are more open to collaboration, creativity, and innovation. The mind and body search for ways to move toward the opportunity. As long as we see evidence that we are making some progress, our increased energy can be sustained for a remarkably long period of time without feeling burned out.

A basic reality today is that the way to create enough smart change at a fast enough speed is both to prevent the Survive Channel from overheating and to activate the Thrive Channel across a sufficient number of people. For many reasons, organizations struggle with this challenge.

Companies struggle most fundamentally because a variety of changes in the past few decades have in general overstimulated Survive. This problem stretches from the C-suite to the front line and it easily blocks sufficient Thrive activation. The more widespread availability and use of data, for example, has in many ways been a boon to producing reliable results, occasionally even helping to spot new opportunities. But the constant barrage of data and metrics, each potentially indicating a problem, can also easily overstimulate Survive. We will have more to say about this later in the book.

The increasingly 24/7 connected world can also add to constant Survive triggering. The 4 a.m. email can be understood by our brains as a crisis, even when it is not. The same is possible for the text message that unexpectedly disturbs our morning coffee.

Social media, with its infinite capacity to make us compare ourselves unfavorably to others, can be a Survive activator. And social media has been touching more and more of our lives, as a source of both benefits and unintended problems.

Our Survive radar has been put on high alert by the personal and professional threats caused by COVID-19. Threats that can cause prolonged uncertainty about our health, the health of those we love, the nature of work, and the global economy seem to come at us on the nightly news with increasing frequency.

The greater availability of global information also gives us much more to worry about. Terror attacks far away, along with natural disasters on other continents, may not be rational threats to us now, but the Survive Channel is not a rational mechanism.

And we have little control, if any, over so many of the “threats” our Survive Channel sees. All of these factors taken together are a perfect recipe for an overheated Survive.

Enough of us have seen the problems caused by an overactivated Survive that we sometimes think we need to move out of a Survive mode. People have often said to us, “We are moving from Survive to Thrive!” and, implicitly, “Isn't that great?” But, in fact, a well-functioning Survive greatly aides Thrive activation. Neither underactivated nor overheated, and with a repertoire of effective responses to the problems at hand, a well-functioning Survive Channel is neither a debilitating distraction nor a lethal energy drain. Then, without the need for a Herculean effort, Thrive can be activated through the visibility of inspiring opportunities and the willingness, support, and ability to pursue those opportunities.

We have learned much about how all this happens, not the least through the literature on great leaders throughout history. The best leaders keep Survive alert but not overwhelmed. They also tend to be very good at activating Thrive in themselves and in others. In the past few decades, we have also learned much about how organizations without larger-than-life leaders can still effectively lead major change—where “lead” (not just “manage”) is the key word. We will discuss these findings and report stories that demonstrate what is possible throughout this book.