Sir Winston Churchill was outspoken on the sacred right to smoke cigars and drink alcohol before, during and after meals. He was also exceptionally active mentally and lived to the ripe old age of 90. Not surprising really when we consider what we know now about how the brain can affect the body. For example, that it is possible to retain and even build mental capacity as you age. Drawing selectively from research in neuroscience, psychology and other fields of mental health, we have identified four steps you can take.

1. Experience makes the brain grow.

Traditionally, scientists assumed that people gained new skills through practise – that is, through direct experience – but you can also gain skills through observation and indirect experience. The brain’s ability to learn in this way makes a biological case for the use of simulations and case studies as tools in professional development. Of course direct experience remains the keystone of brain development and one of the most powerful tools for strengthening the executive brain is “management by walking about”.

2. Work hard at play.

Play engages the prefrontal cortex, feeding our highest cognitive functions, including those related to incentive and reward processing, goal and skill representation, mental imagery and memory. Play improves our ability to reason and to understand the world. Firms such as Google and Apple realise that an environment for play can be a powerful tool for allowing people to develop creative capacity and cognitive health.

3. Search for patterns.

The brain’s left hemisphere is responsible for pattern recognition – the ability to scan the environment, discern order and create meaning from huge amounts of data, then quickly assess a situation so that appropriate action can be taken.

For executives trying to make sense of a rapidly changing business environment, superior pattern recognition is perhaps the greatest competitive advantage that can be developed. There’s a lot that we can do to develop our left-hem-ispheric capabilities: challenge

the existing mind-set, enlarge it, and make it more complex; listen to different viewpoints; read new sources of material; and visit places with a focused set of learning objectives.

4. Seek novelty and innovation.

The right hemisphere is the part of the brain, dedicated to discovery and learning. It deteriorates faster with age than the left and, as on the left side, it benefits from exercise. The more you learn, the better you become at learning. Continuous learning also builds resistance to dementia. People who are receptive to novelty also tend to be good in a crisis, because they are open to opportunity.

Cognitive fitness can affect every part of our life. On an organisational level, it may be the ultimate lever for sustainable competitive advantage. The future belongs to companies with leaders who develop cognitive fitness for themselves and their organisations.

This article is an extract taken from Cognitive Fitness by Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts published in the Harvard Business Review

Times Online is the UK media partner for Harvard Business Review’s (HBR) new Fuel Your Performance initiative. Next week our collaboration continues and we find out what makes a great manager.

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