Or, Why We Need Challengers and Not Relationship Builders

Prof. Willem Verbeke

Some years ago, we witnessed the relationship building hype in sales and marketing. Many researchers in marketing fell for this hype. In research, a hype is always a bad sign. It means that researchers, in marketing in this case, are not thinking for themselves as much as they should be. Instead, they are just following the herd so that their research on one-track paradigms will get accepted by research peers and colleagues who, of course, think just like them.

Honestly, I could not go to one more sales conference and hear another marketing specialist scream “Relationshippppppps!” I’ve never fully understood this hype. It was instantiated by Shelby Hunt in his Journal of Marketing paper, which as of this day has been cited 7505 times. What a record!

My doubts about relationships: Hunt’s theory rests on the basic idea that the relationship between, let’s say, a customer and a firm, is the key to marketing. This long-term relationship is based on the shared values of these business partners. But that idea is, to me, somewhat vague:

1) Framing interactions between customers and companies is wrong because companies do not buy, people do! And most of the time people in firms have different perspectives on business and life.

2) We live in a knowledge-based economy. What counts are the capabilities that firms develop over time that allow them to produce solutions that solve their customers’ needs. These days many firms develop radical capabilities that give them potential competitive advantage. They’ve got to hunt for new customers almost by definition.

3) People in companies buy because they see other people buying in other companies (better than their own). In other words, imitation or emulation is a big part of marketing, and it results in bandwagon or path-dependency effects.

Companies don’t buy, people do: The first rule of companies is ‘people do the work (the buying)’. Things must get done. People ‘doing’ things is perhaps the most important aspect of what a firm does. Pankaj Ghemawat of the Harvard Business School calls it the ‘commitment hypothesis’. Think of banks, or firms like Shell and Wal-Mart. They have been doing and improving what they do for nearly a hundred years. But when people work with their firm’s routines, they might not always be aware of what is happening outside their core business. They need salespeople to bring them new ideas and challenge their current practices. So, how do you get customers thinking differently?

Shaping or challenging customers: For the last 15 years I have been suggesting that salespeople shape their customers (see my book, “The Successful Shaping of Key Accounts”. That is, salespeople act as knowledge brokers who possess knowledge about their industry. They gather this knowledge when they visit and talk to their customers. Visiting many customers means that salespeople get to see a great many different cases. This allows their brains to create patterns out of all of those cases and that allows salespeople to recognize and relate to the issues specific to a customer’s firm.

Customers know that salespeople possess this knowledge and the expertise to use it and that’s why they like talking to them; they are likely to have a lively conversation. In fact, salespeople who can make and summarize insightful comments about the firm’s issues can help customers structure their ideas. That’s how you shape customers, by getting them thinking differently.

In a Harvard Business Review article, Dixon and Adamson argue that good salespeople challenge their customers and urge them to think differently: they bring unique, even provocative perspectives to customers. They have a profound understanding of their industry. I can only agree!

Knowledge brokering is the next big thing: I am so glad that people in selling are finally discovering that although relationships might be nice, possessing and applying new knowledge might be more important. So why are more salespeople not doing this? In the end, we all know that knowledge is key! But, something else might be going on. A while ago I did some research into sales-call anxiety and I learned that many salespeople are afraid to challenge their customers. Perhaps we need salespeople who don’t just have knowledge, but are not scared to be assertive with customers.

Sales conversations are the key to selling: When I talk with my sales colleagues, I often hear them say how much they like to focus on CRM information systems. These allow firms to structure processes – a CRM system provides background information on customer relations. But, and I can’t emphasize this more strongly, the key to selling is and always will be the sales conversation with the customer. You must remember that sales conversations are embodied in real life. In such situations, people look each other in the eye, and you can spot hesitations , which could signify changes in thinking. During sales conversations, people think better and remember what is said better. There are neurological reasons for this. Let me tell you more about this in my next blog post!

Interested in more of this? Please visit the Professional Capital website and order one of the books by prof. Willem Verbeke, of which one of them is: The Successful Shaping of Key Accounts by clicking here. Available in English and Dutch.

Just read this night, flying from Detroit to Amsterdam, the biography of Steve Jobs! Amazing indeed! One thing is certain: none of the marketing handbooks even captures for 1% what Steve Jobs -- and his colleagues did accomplish! I wonder, what do some of my colleagues teach to students? Honestly I do not know, but one thing is certain: most of what we teach is simply irrelevant! In my case however I try to be somewhat ;) relevant.

Apparently from the book is that most of the ideas that Jobs did develop were not developed at Apple. Rather these ideas were developed when he was young: being rejected by his father and adopted by another family he developed his personality: “a restless person feeling rejected”, working in his adopting dad’s garage: observing what it is to do “perfect” engineering; developing a fascination with Buddhism, dieting and esthetics which urged to him to be and think “pure” and being the rebellious person both at home and at high school and college which urged them to fight “status quo”. With these capabilities and imprints he went on step by step to develop computer prototypes and, yes, the Apple Empire.   

Apparently people who met Steve could sense and notice his genius; this respect allowed him to get constant feedback from others, check ideas and make conjectures. There is no such thing as thinking deep, there is only thinking by connecting, checking, emulating and learning. By doing this for many years one builds “creative capabilities”. Perhaps we can call this an obsession? In the end I think so and this obsession takes years.

Some people argue we need to codify our knowledge and copy business models. But I now see more clear than ever that what makes a company is the “person” behind the plans and ideas and that it is the network s/he develops that determines how ideas develop. This building of ideas and producing new products requires constant work, passion but more important perseverance. But what is perseverance and why do people preserve? I am almost certain that people are fascinated and passionate because they “lack something” or “love to lack something” and this lacking is what they want to compensate. There got to be a personal issue if one wants to be motivated and remain motivated.

Currently I am studying that this motivation has something to do with hormones: when people feel a lack of something they develop cortisol – a kind of stress that one the one hand invigorates them but that also needs to be reduced (balanced). How do people reduce stress or cortisol? Cortisol can be reduced by getting in a winning mood evoked by being successful – in fact it comes down to the development of testosterone!

Now what has this to do with sales?     

Salespeople too must have a constant passion in helping customers, solve customer’s problems and make deals. But why do sales people have these passions? In many cases salespeople feel irritated when they encounter firms or people who sell something to them who do not care; it is from such experiences that they recognize opportunities which they feel can be solved or should be solved. But besides this, they also got to have this eagerness to solve this problem successfully; meaning it got to end up in a deal. In other cases they might be rejected by customers that makes them a bit angry and this invigorates them to score and reduce the feelings of being rejected. In addition they also got to feel competitive.

When salespeople possess these characteristics, they can be more upfront when they see a problem with customers; in fact they become motivated to challenge a customer who in turn feels inspired. This eagerness in turn allows him to overcome his feelings of embarrassment. I felt the same about Steve Jobs; as he knew he had something to offer he became less embarrassing about telling where he stood for. Better salespeople say things but then also “do” what they say.

So what do I look for when I hire people or when I tell people to hire a salesperson? Salesperson’s performance is both a function of their skills and the way he has been educated/trained by his parents? So I always look if a sales person has discipline? Is this person an entrepreneurial person and does he or she takes initiative. Most of these abilities are in place when people were young.

When these salespeople act in the world, they in some sense feel not at ease when they do not perform well; hence they develop cortisol. The only way to get out of his “cortisol” mood is to win and make deals. Their pride (testosterone) goes up and they become or act like winners. They know they do not want to be part of a losing group but want to be leading. I ask them to read Steve Jobs! You will meet an inspiring world.

Can information about a sales professional’s DNA predict how sales professionals actually interact with customers? Why should we use genetics to study sales professionals? Let me answer these questions with some facts.

For a few years already we - Wouter van den Berg, Loek Worm, Rick Bagozzi and Wim Rietdijk - are studying the behavior of sales professionals using genetic markers. We have come to call this study “The Rotterdam Sales Leadership Study.” In this study sales professionals provide their profile and their DNA by donating saliva. This is then send to a research lab in the Netherlands. The participating sales professionals receive a personal feedback rapport that explains their DNA score on a specific set of genes. Let’s call this the intimate part of our study. Sales professionals who participate in our study like to have their DNA tested because it provides them with information about their temperament, which is innate. The participating sales professionals learn what building stones their character is made off, the building stones from which they (we) as humans build their (our) “character”. The rapport gives an insight in the character of the person as it is at one particular moment but which people (we) shape over time. 

An important distinction: some sales professionals talk and other listen?

Some years ago already, my former professor Bart Weitz (then at Wharton School now at the University of Florida), made a crucial distinction between sales professionals who just talk when they meet customers and those who engage in conversations with customers. He called it the “selling orientation” versus the “customer orientation”. When selling orientated sales professionals meet a customer, they seem to perceive the customer as someone “to be manipulated” (almost as an object) and as someone to whom one should sell something no matter whether the product fits their needs or not. The second group of sales professionals interact in a different way: these people actually passionately seek to understand the needs of the customer, they ask deep questions and try to match the needs that are revealed during the conversation with their products portfolio.

Is that an important distinction? Sales professionals who talk a lot in the end might manipulate customers who succumb to the professionals’ sales pressure. These sales professionals might generate more sales in the short term but over time customers do not like to meet these sales professionals as they feel uncomfortable with them. Sales professionals who are interested in the customer (those with the customer orientation) are liked more by their customers hence customers develop long-term relationships with the sales professional and of course the professional develops a relationship with them. Needless to say such a distinction matters (a lot).

Asking a fundamental question: a biological explanation why sales professionals have a selling versus customer orientation?   

We sought to provide different explanations for these two different sales orientations. First, we must realize that many researchers propose that sales professionals who display a customer orientation have an intrinsic motivation or like to develop long-term relationships. But such explanations are tautological; in other terms, wanting to develop a long-term relationship never can be an explanation for a long-term relationship that develops from customer orientation (which is an outcome). What if this selling versus customer orientation is a reflection of something more fundamental, namely something biological?

We studied sales professionals with a customer orientation using more fundamental biological explanations. To our amazement, these sales professionals were more likely to be passionate about the products they were selling and they were constantly on the look out for problems which customers have (or could have) and which their products could help them solve these problems – hence their products are solutions. In addition, customers felt excitement when they talked with them during sales conversation as they felt that they were being understood by the sales professional. In the end we concluded that these sales professionals are very curious people. People who are constantly looking for new nuances and constantly want to learn from what they see and hear, feel a great amount of satisfaction. In a business context this learning from customers in order to propose a solution is called “opportunity recognition”.

Why do customer orientated sales professionals get excited about finding or recognizing opportunities? There is a biological explanation to it! We know from Neuroscience that when people learn they produce dopamine within their dopamine system within the brain. More concretely, neurons in the dopamine system produce dopamine which is absorbed by another neuron via the dopamine receptors which in turn trigger a chain of reactions such as learning and excitement that comes with learning. Sorry, that is how the brain works, it is a biological fact. Now a bit more difficult, our brain consists of different types of the dopamine receptors, there are type 1 and type 2 receptors. These types of receptors (their interaction) in turn affect how the brain learns and how it is being regulated.

The receptors are produced by people’s genes but depending on one’s DNA some people produce more or less of these receptors. We did focus on two genes namely the dopamine 2 and 4 gene (known as type 2 dopamine receptors) because the first is known to have a variant that is associated with a lower flexibility during learning (almost repetitive behavior) and the second has a variant that is associated with a tendency to explore new ideas and environments. Guess what we discovered? Sales professionals with a variant of the dopamine 2 receptor tended to have a selling orientation (hence they are repetitive), whereas the sales professional who carried a variant of the dopamine 4 receptor tended to have a customer orientation (hence they are natural explorers).

What does that imply? Sales professionals who are customer oriented tend to be more curious; apparently this tendency seems to be innate. What is an implication of this finding? Remember the distinction between temperament and character: sales professionals who are customer oriented have learned by sales training and experiences to dig deeper in the customer’s needs (character), however, their temperament urges them to keep digging deeper and create more nuances. So how should managers interact with these sales professionals? Better have a sales manager who is also curious because soon or later the sales professional knows more about the market than the sales manager and the sales manager will be unable to have a good conversation with the sales professional.

What about the sales professional with a selling orientation? These are sales professionals who do not easily switch their behavior; probably they might want to switch their sales orientation but they cannot do so. So there is a deeper reason why customers do not like them: these customers unconsciously notice that they behave like an addicted sales professional! In the end they become a night mare for many customers. 

Professor Willem Verbeke

Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam

Professor Willem Verbeke

Extraordinary Professor in Sales and Account Management

Erasmus School of Economics.

Rotterdam

Companies only survive when they can develop new products and also put them in the market. Often, we think about selling a “product” but a product is not what is sold. I like to call products a “technology” which stands for  a) the product itself,  b) people like “innovators” or “late adopters” who buy the product but  c) ideas: when people starting to use new products the relationship between people change. For example: when people in a company buy a computer system then these people don’t only buy the computer (the object) but the way in which they cooperate, will also change. For instance, they will start sending e-mails, go online with news (the idea). In what way people will start to work differently cannot be predicted because it is very often so that as a result of this use people will obtain a different view on what is different or that they understand what is different once they see it in action. It is therefore that buying innovative products go hand in hand with insecurities. A lot of sales people then meet their buyers, customers who often reject developments (defensive). What best can a sales manager do in this situation to improve the selling skills of his sales people? 

Often when we talk about adopting innovative plans, we think about resistance in the market. However, very often there is resistance in the company itself. To put it paradoxically: in case sales people do not understand there is resistance among his customers than this shows that a sales man fails to imagine how a customer looks at the product. People in the company should learn to understand the customer before they continue selling. Often this leads to a different approach in communicating of the product or the adaptation of the product. Because of this it is often that new ideas rise for adaptation.

Creating an Innovative Climate: companies that sell innovations have the opportunity to do so because there is an innovative climate: they can develop new products, sell these and by selling these (while passing the resistance) they will continue to develop new products. One cannot exist without the other! How can sales managers play a role in this situation? We suggest that sales managers can play an important role in these ongoing developments and this sales process because they are both familiair with the market and the company. Good sales people, as is our experience, visit their clients. Not primarily to check how their sales people function, but to keep in touch with the market and to feel what is going on. People in the market do not only buy products, but get fresh ideas by using the products they have developed. However, and maybe not directly intuitive, other potential customers have the right or wrong idea about the product, because they have never bought or used it. Capable sales managers have a good ear for such developments. Often they go even further: they also talk with people within the company. How do you look at the market? How can we sell this new product better or what can we add to the product? If a sales managers can catch the thoughts in the market and communicate these to the people internally then we speak of a knowledge broker.

Clinton and his famous town hall meetings! We see this term popping up everywhere. We see the end of the sales man and the beginning of the knowledge broker. Knowledge brokering means that people try to understand how people in the world think and share this information with others to make them even a little bit smarter. The most well known knowledge broker in the world is Bill Clinton. He organized meetings to escape from the White House and to keep an open view: “Town Hall Meetings.” Talking with citizens to use this inspiration to brainstorm with members of the staff. Imagine a staff meeting with a president who the world is not familiair with. False decision forming is the result. This also goes for the sales manager: if a sales manager does not know his own market laws than he will become a CRM specialist: counting sales visits; he or she starts to pose questions like “How many leads are in the Pipe Line?” Sooner or later, sales people will start to act pipeline-wise: meetings will reduce to mechanical bombarding of questions dominated by fear. If a sales manager is able to sense the internal and external market then he will also be able to inspire his sales people and that, of course, is what every company dreams of. 

Knowledge brokering and innovative leadership: It is remarkable that the stimulation of an innovative climate demands a special kind of sales manager: he has to be curious (what can I learn?), he has to be resilient (seeing customers and walking around in the company), he has to have guts (listen to people that are resistant) as well as being flexible (talking to everyone on every level). Not all sales managers posses this ability. What about I write about that later. One thing is clear: Sales Managers, get away from your desk, use your CRM wisely and be a knowledge broker. It is only then when you can inspire your colleagues to selling new products. Bill is your example! 

Send reactions to: verbeke@professionalcapital.nl 

Als ik met zakenpartner Maarten Colijn in de auto of vliegtuig naar een klant ga hebben we het vaak over stoere managers en de commerciële gevolgen daarvan.

In een van mijn boeken (“Nieuwsgierig Leiderschap”) heb ik al eens een stoerheids-index geïntroduceerd. Naarmate mensen, met name in kennisintensieve ondernemingen, in de top komen en meer commerciële verantwoordelijkheid krijgen worden de commerciële gedragingen vaak des te vreemder. Een klassieke weerstand in een training van een topmanager is om bv. geen LinkedIn profiel aan te maken. "Omdat ik het niet waardevol vind en er geen tijd voor heb, want ik ben al zo druk". Voor postings, bv. over trends, is al helemaal geen tijd"

Doorvragen leert dat die drukte vaak komt door offertes met bovengemiddelde doorlooptijden en uren vretende prijsdiscussies met klanten. Daarna gevolgd door uren intern overleg om de strategie bij de potentiële klant te bepalen. Dit terwijl de betreffende manager ook zijn EGO opzij had kunnen zetten en zien dat je via de online media je reputatie danig kunt versterken, waardoor je als opinieleider veel minder prijsdiscussies hebt. Eelco Blok’s grootste vijand van goede cijfers bleek Facebook, echter hij en zijn "stoere" voorganger zijn nergens te vinden op de online media. Partners van bv. advocatenkantoren scoren gemiddeld gezien ook hoog op de stoerheidsmaatstaf, wat dus een negatieve correlatie heeft met commercieel succes. Zo zie je nog steeds partners in de rubriek van Elsevier "Mijn goede geld" waarin stoere heren breeduit spreken waar ze dertienduizend Euro netto per maand aan uitgeven. Appeltje eitje voor een ervaren inkoper van adviesdiensten of arbeidsrecht (door dit gedrag al bijna een commodity).

De empathie naar de klant ontbreekt compleet.

Stoere managers gaan ook veel alleen naar klanten, zonder de betrokken account manager leidend te laten zijn. Op ervaring en reputatie red je het immers wel. Voor het updaten van de collega's die ook bij diezelfde klant komen is uiteraard geen tijd. Gevolg: de klant heeft weer een hapje marge extra te pakken en pikt de 5% kantoorkosten op de factuur niet meer. Meest opvallend is nog dat Raden van Toezicht en Commissarissen dit nog elke dag laten bestaan. Hoe stoer is jouw manager?

De stoerheidindex test kun je aanvragen via verbeke@professionalcapital.nl

Willem Verbeke

Je kunt me ook volgen via Twitter en LinkedIn.

What is an experience but the present moment of a particular circumstance? They are as fleeting as they are arresting; as real as they are imagined; and as useful to us as they are benign. Experiences are like the sounds of the pendulum’s swing rushing through the air one moment, while telling the lessons of time about the dial in the next. They are all around us, but alone, experiences are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, worthwhile or a waste . . . at least not until they are reflected upon . . . given relevance and meaning as a result.

Thus, experience is not the best teacher; rather, it is reflected experience that is the best instructor of life. Not until something becomes relevant to a person can it ever affect a change in their behavior or thinking. And not until something is reflected upon—a past experience that is pondered, considered, and internalized in search of its meaning and lesson, can it ever become relevant.

Relevance is discerned through reflection. Change is made through relevance.

It is at the point of relevance, or realization, that our experiences become useful to us; they change us and we discover how behaviors affect outcomes, and how behaviors adjusted can modify our outcomes. Therefore, reflected experience is the only effective means to get people to change, grow, and be successful.

What Does All This Mean to the Sales Professional?

Beware of amassing a lifetime of sales experience that yields no value aside from the commission. Beware of a life that says twenty years of sales experience equates to superior sales prowess and success. It’s a virtual proverb that experienced means none other than you have a lot of time accrued in the industry.

Experience counts for nothing in many instances. Why? Because sales professionals often never take the time to reflect upon those experiences so they may learn and grow and become a better person and professional.

Reflection is Evaluation

Evaluate your activities and your sales conversations. Let others do the same. Be honest with yourself when doing so—analyze your marketing efforts and your sales techniques. Formulate a simple means (i.e. checklist) that causes you to reflect from time to time on your daily, weekly, monthly or yearly experiences.

It is not all that important how often you reflect upon your experiences as a sales professional, nor is it that important how you evaluate yourself either. What is important is that you do it. Plain and simple as it sounds, schedule time if you have to to reflect upon your business activities and results. The outcome will be growth for you personally and professionally.

A Final Note on Reflected Experience

Never expect training to change behavior or to provide a pathway to personal and professional growth. Training, particularly classroom sales training, has no real value in many organizations. Why? Because most training is very brief, impractical, and lacks a “reflection” component as well.

No one is going to change as a result of our desires.
 Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

Many Learning & Development divisions within sales organizations fail at achieving positive change for sales professionals because a follow-up component (reflection – evaluation of sales experience) is missing in their training model. Those units would be more accurately named Learning rather than Learning & Development because little to no development ever actually occurs.

Don’t be like so many other sales professionals or organizations, who never take the time to reflect upon their sales and marketing experiences in order to learn from mistakes and successes.

Willem Verbeke en Wouter van den Berg

ISAM Neuroscience, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Neuro-economics: Recentelijk hebben verschillende neuro-economen ons gewezen op het feit dat mensen niet steeds rationeel handelen, maar ook menselijke zwakheden vertonen. Als mens maken we ons graag wijs dat we ons verstand gebruiken want het onderscheidt ons van dieren. Echter uit fMRI experimenten bleek dat consumenten een hypotheek kochten die ze niet konden afbetalen bij een aantrekkelijke verkoper maar dat gedrag niet vertoonden bij een onaantrekkelijke verkoper. De verklaring hiervoor kan liggen in de manier waarop onze hersenen evolutionair zijn gebouwd: bij het zien van mooie mensen wordt ons dopaminergisch systeem geactiveerd, er is een euforisch gevoel en dat overtroeft onze rationele processen (hypotheken worden gekocht die men niet kon betalen). Dit soort bevindingen zijn best spectaculair en laten ons beseffen dat we als mens erg kwetsbaar zijn. Sommige neuro-marketeers vinden dit goed nieuws want door niet langer in te spelen op het 'cognitieve' deel, maar op het – onbewuste – affectieve of  mesolimbisch (beloning) circuit van onze hersenen, komen er eindeloos veel nieuwe manieren  beschikbaar om mensen te manipuleren tijdens het nemen van beslissingen.

Tweede generatie neuro-economen: ten grondslag aan het bovenstaande ligt de observatie van neurowetenschappers dat (economisch) gedrag en beslissingen in veel gevallen het gevolg zijn van biologische processen, en niet van bewuste cognitieve afwegingen. Dit houdt in dat uw reactie in een bepaalde situatie afhankelijk is van de 'hard-wiring' van uw hersenen op dat moment. Deze hard-wiring is door een aantal factoren tot stand gekomen: het is een samenspel van biologische opbouw (evolutionaire processen), biologische predisposities (genetische opmaak) en omgevingsfactoren (persoonlijke ervaringen).

Neuro-plasticity is een lichamelijk proces: We hebben nog iets anders gemeen met dieren: onze hersenen zijn plastisch en vormbaar als gevolg van de activiteit van de hersenen en de levenservaringen die we opdoen. Neem het voorbeeld van het werk door de bekende neuro-wetenschapper Michael Meany. Hij keek o.a. naar de invloed die de stijl van opvoeden heeft op de  leer capaciteiten van ratten. Pups van een goed verzorgende moeder leerden beter dan ratten van moeders die niet veel naar hun pups omkeken, zolang ze zich  in een omgeving met weinig stress bevonden. Echter, in een stressvolle omgeving, leerden juist de 'verwaarloosde' pups beter, wat duidt op een zekere vorm van stressbestendigheid. Het voordeel, door te werken met ratten, is dat men ook kan kijken in het brein, stress bestendige ratten hadden meer glucocorticoide receptoren in de hippocampus waardoor ze de hormonen die werden gevormd als ze in stressvolle omstandigheden kwamen onder controle konden brengen; het gevolg was dat ze stressvolle situaties als minder bedreigend ervoeren en dus rustiger werden. De stressbestendigheid was dus niet dankzij een betere 'mentale' strategie op het moment zelf, maar aan een aangepaste 'hard-wiring' van de hersenen door ervaringen in het verleden. Lees: het lichaam zorgde er voor dat de geest anders opereerde. Verwacht binnen afzienbare tijd een enorme interesse in dit soort processen want ze zijn van cruciaal belang om ons economisch gedrag te verklaren.

Jonge mensen zijn meer neuro-plastisch: zoals al sinds Lorenz bekend is, is een mens en dier vooral neuro-plastisch op jongere leeftijd; ook wel “imprinting” genoemd. Imprinting duidt er op dat mensen connecties tussen neuronen ontwikkelen die hen toelaten om op een bepaalde manier met de omgeving om te gaan. Zo zullen sommige mensen op basis van voorgaande ervaringen mensen bij moeilijke omstandigheden zich zelf proberen om te vormen en ervan te leren, terwijl anderen juist naar bijv. drugs of alcohol grijpen. In het eerste geval spreekt men ook wel over veerkracht. Veerkracht bepaald onder meer ons creatief vermogen. In het tweede geval (bij drug-gebruikers) spreekt men over het ontstaan van een ziektebeeld. Het is te verwachten dat er ook een genetisch component gemoeid is, maar als nu blijkt dat bijvoorbeeld de manier van opvoeden de kans op het ontwikkelen van de capaciteit veerkracht vergroot, dan kan men ook beleids implicaties maken; kortom neuro-economie  maakt de vertaalslag van neuro-wetenschappen naar maatschappelijke relevante richtlijnen.

Verantwoordelijke mensen maken met neuro-economie? Het moge duidelijk zijn dat de target van Neuro-economen de biologische processen zijn die de wijze waarop we als mens reageren kenmerken. Stressbestendige mensen hebben meer glucocorticoid receptors in de hippocampus. Als het waar is dat deze receptoren worden aangemaakt op jonge leeftijd is het relatief duidelijk dat we als samenleving een nieuwe maatschappij horen te bouwen: we horen mensen op te voeden met veerkracht. Mensen die veerkracht hebben zijn “andere” mensen want ze zullen anders omgaan met anderen en andere mensen opzoeken die eensgelijks veerkrachtig zijn. Als dat zo is horen we als neuro-economen ons te richten op het shapen van mensen, want mensen met andere neurale patronen denken en beslissen anders. Als volwassen mensen blijven we ook vormbaar, bijvoorbeeld door aan sport te doen. Recent onderzoek bij ratten heeft aangetoond dat jonge hersencellen (die waarschijnlijk zijn aangemaakt door lichamelijke beweging) minder gevoelig zijn voor stressvolle omstandigheden. Met andere woorden, door te sporten hadden de ratten hersenen gekregen die biologisch en moleculair rustiger waren, dan de ratten die niet hadden gesport.

De tweede generatie neuro-economie zal zich dus moeten richten op lichamelijke processen die direct en indirect effect hebben op de manier waarop onze hersenen werken en derhalve onze beslissingen beïnvloeden. Om inzicht te krijgen in de invloed van bijvoorbeeld opvoeding, is het noodzakelijk om van de huidige economische dogma's af te stappen, en de beschikbare informatie te bekijken door de bril van de neuro-wetenschappen. Deze aanpak vergt lef, creativiteit en doorzettingsvermogen, maar zal op termijn wel leiden tot nieuwe fundamentele inzichten over die ons helpen economisch gedrag beter te begrijpen.

Neuro-economen let’s work.