Cerebra

We train psychological safety and performance for knowledge workers. Check out our pages for more detail.

CEREBRA is New Zealand’s premier brain performance consultancy, committed to helping you and your people improve your performance. We use research-based approaches to support your goals and give you confidence that what we do really works. We'll help you maximise performance through understanding your brain, mind and behaviour and then applying strategies for change. This will help you create more

productive people and teams, build teams that self-manage health and safety, and develop a culture of collaborative success. We offer a full range of services from 1:1 coaching to team workshops to group facilitation. Book a workshop with us today, or contact us to talk about what you’d like to achieve.

02/09/2026

Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption

Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption. At least, that’s the rule according to wellbeing programmes, slide decks I’ve seen, the occasional HR newsletter and, perhaps, presentations you’ve sat through yourself. Fast Company ran the 23 minute version in 2013. The Washington Post covered it in 2015. Today it resides in the blogs of time management and workplace analytics tools as seemingly accepted fact about the average person....

Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption September 2, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption. At least, that’s the rule according to wellbeing programmes, slide decks I’ve...

25/08/2026

What happens to decisions under sustained stress?

I was working with a group of Public Information Managers recently who are in the emergency response space, What a great group of people from across the Canterbury region, and across a range of organisations. Completely dedicated to their work. In brief, I was talking about how cognitive performance degrades under stress. It was a bit of a skim across the highlights but did prompt me to write some more on an aspect we couldn't really cover in any depth, so here you go....

What happens to decisions under sustained stress? August 26, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General I was working with a group of Public Information Managers recently who are in the emergency response space, What a great group of people from across the Canterbury region, and across a range of....

19/08/2026

Mental Health First Aid is not a psychosocial risk strategy

Training mental health first aiders might tick a box intended to sit in a different column, will not change workload, rosters, communication, role clarity, management styles, leadership, or other factors that we might roll into psychosocial risk. ‘Number of people who attended MHFA’, or ‘20% completed, 35% scheduled within six months’, should never, repeat never, make it into Board papers as a metric for addressing psychosocial risk....

Mental Health First Aid is not a psychosocial risk strategy August 19, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General Training mental health first aiders might tick a box intended to sit in a different column, will not change workload, rosters, communication, role clarity, management styles, leadershi...

11/08/2026

The difference between a speak-up channel and a speak-up climate

Having a speak up channel is important organisational infrastructure. It’s different from the organisational climate, which is what people feel when they consider using it. I’d posit that many organisations have a channel, but most have never measured either. Infrastructure, like a physical structure, is easy to point to. We can retrieve a policy, point to a sticker on the wall with a phone number and email address, print a pdf, highlight a contact person, register training completion, and so on....

The difference between a speak-up channel and a speak-up climate August 12, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General Having a speak up channel is important organisational infrastructure. It’s different from the organisational climate, which is what people feel when they consider using it. I’...

05/08/2026

When your policies and practice don’t match

When your policies and practice don't match, or when what you say doesn't align with what you do. I wrote the other day about Psychological Safety, following the FMA media pieces. Here’s the thing. If I ask you, as an organisation, to show your commitment to a healthy, psychologically safe culture, I might well get a list. There’s a wellbeing programme....

When your policies and practice don’t match August 5, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General When your policies and practice don’t match, or when what you say doesn’t align with what you do. I wrote the other day about Psychological Safety, following the FMA media pieces. Here’s the th...

02/08/2026

The regulator that reviewed everyone else’s culture

New Zealand's Financial Markets Authority exists to hold financial firms to account for their conduct and culture. In 2018 it co-wrote, with the Reserve Bank, the reviews that told our banks and life insurers their cultures needed work. Right now its own board is urgently assessing cultural concerns raised by the FMA's former staff, its chief executive is on leave while that happens, and the story has run from Stuff to the New Zealand Herald to Bloomberg....

The regulator that reviewed everyone else’s culture August 3, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority exists to hold financial firms to account for their conduct and culture. In 2018 it co-wrote, with the Reserve Bank, the reviews that told our bank...

29/07/2026

How to manage the problem of The Daily Grind

I love coffee. And I love research into stress. I also love wordplay. 'The daily grind' ticks all those boxes. I’ve been around the wellbeing space long enough to hear various perspectives on what’s ‘normal’. What ‘really’ constitutes stress. What should or shouldn’t affect people. There’s a comforting story that big things, a crisis, disaster, or some other genuine potentially traumatic event (PTE) are the stresses we need to worry about and the ordinary working life, however busy, is survivable....

How to manage the problem of The Daily Grind July 29, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General I love coffee. And I love research into stress. I also love wordplay. ‘The daily grind’ ticks all those boxes. I’ve been around the wellbeing space long enough to hear various perspectives on wha...

21/07/2026

Two wrong things people mean by ‘Psychological Safety’

Psychological Safety has become one of those phrases that is being used constantly but seemingly understood loosely. (I write this from Aotearoa New Zealand, but see it in social media content from across the world.) Since I started training and working with it as a concept prior to Covid I’ve watched it get folded together with wellbeing, with emotional comfort, with health and safety and more specifically psychosocial safety....

'Psychological Safety' as a term seems so overused, or badly used, we risk misunderstanding it entirely, to the detriment of our people, and our organisations.

15/07/2026

The tired brain that thinks it’s “fine”

There’s a certain kind of person you’ll recognise in organisations under pressure. It may or may not be you. They’re often there first and last to leave, they’ve stopped taking decent breaks, and they’re running on adrenaline, coffee, energy drinks and the occasional sugary snack. And if you suggest they pull back or ease off, they’ll tell you with complete conviction, that they’re fine....

The tired brain that thinks it’s “fine” July 15, 2026 Author: brendonbclark Category: General There’s a certain kind of person you’ll recognise in organisations under pressure. It may or may not be you. They’re often there first and last to leave, they’ve stopped taking decent breaks, ...

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