Pruning or Preserving a Synapse

How can you keep your brown from throwing out a perfectly good behavior? Positive feedback. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz write about how positive feedback can preserve important synapses, in their article, "The Neuroscience of Leadership", in "strategy+business" magazine.

Positive Feedback for Preserving a Synapse
Rock and Schwartz write:

"In a world with so many distractions, and with new mental maps potentially being created every second in the brain, one of the biggest challenges is being able to focus enough attention on any one idea. Leaders can make a big difference by gently reminding others about their useful insights, and thus eliciting attention that otherwise would not be paid. Behaviorists may recognize this type of reminder as "positive feedback," or a deliberate effort to reinforce behavior that already works, which, when conducted skillfully, is one aspect of behaviorism that has beneficial congnitive effect. In a brain that is constantly pruning connections while making new ones, positive feedback may play a key functional role as "a signal to do more of something." As neuroscientist Thomas B. Czerner notes, "The encouraging sounds of 'yes, good, that's it' help to mark a synapse for preservation rather than pruning."

Key Take Aways
I think this is similar to "you get what you measure", but in this case, you get more of what you reward.