Session Description: Evaluators and other professionals often overlook the importance of understanding and developing the one tool that they use in all facets of their work—their own brains. They seldom pay attention to how their brains work day by day; how memories are created, organized, and accessed; under what physical circumstances creative inspirations arise; how different ideas get connected to one another; how food choices, sleep, exercise, unstructured time, personal life problems, and other factors affect what they think about; and how easily or stressfully they handle various thinking chores. This course addresses these factors and explains how they can be controlled and corralled to make thinking easier, less stressful, and more productive. This is not about “gimmicks” but is based on the physiological aspects of brain functioning, research on food and the mind, and the working habits and experiences of successful people involved in intellectual activities.
George F. Grob is President of the Center for Public Program Evaluation. He is an independent consultant focusing on evaluation of public programs and related fields of policy development and performance management. He currently serves as consultant to the AEA Evaluation Policy Task Force. Other recent projects include work for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, National Aquarium at Baltimore, and several Federal agencies. Previously, he served as Deputy Inspector General for Evaluation and Inspections of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where he and his staff systematically looked for ways to enjoy and succeed in their work. He has lectured on this and other psychological aspects of evaluation and other professional work.