The people behind the instrument
About us
Whole Brain Potential™ is the work of Synaptic Potential, founded by Amy Brann. Discover why we focus on the conditions that shape performance at work.
Conditions shape performance
Why this work exists
For more than two decades, we have worked with organisations investing seriously in leadership development, engagement and culture, yet seeing familiar patterns return: capable people unable to move fast enough, decisions taking weeks longer than they should, and change that lands only to fade.
Again and again, the cause was not the people. It was the conditions they worked in: structures, processes and defaults that nobody had designed as a whole. Research into how the brain performs under different conditions helped explain why. What was missing was a rigorous way to see those conditions and change them.
Friction Architecture™ names the problem. The Friction Architecture™ Diagnostic makes it visible and measurable. The Redesign Studio is where leaders change it. Whole Brain Potential™ is what is released when they do.
Amy Brann, founder
Amy Brann founded Synaptic Potential and created Friction Architecture™. Her work draws on twenty-five years of research into how the brain performs at work, and she has worked with organisations including Twinings and EY.
She is the author of three books on applied neuroscience — Make Your Brain Work, Engaged and Neuroscience for Coaches — and has written for Harvard Business Review. Her work has reached more than 500,000 people across 210 countries.
Amy speaks regularly to leadership, founder, investor and sector audiences through the Whole Brain Potential™ Keynote.
Our principles
How we work
Conditions, not people
We never start from what is wrong with your people. We start from what the design is making likely.
An instrument, not an opinion
The expertise is built into the Diagnostic, so every organisation gets the same rigorous read – not a view that depends on who is in the room.
Honest about the evidence
We say what the evidence supports and no more. Where something is still being tested, we say so.
Experiments, not programmes
Change is designed to be small enough to start, specific enough to own and bounded enough to judge.
Make conditions visible
The Friction Architecture™ Diagnostic makes the conditions shaping performance visible and measurable.
Redesign deliberately
The Redesign Studio is where leaders change those conditions.
Research and partners: a validation partnership with the University of Edinburgh Business School and Diagnostic pilots with Waracle, SCVO and Apex Scotland
Synaptic Potential
Synaptic Potential is registered in England and Wales, company number 07200454. Whole Brain Potential™ and Friction Architecture™ are trade marks of Synaptic Potential.
Every leader is an architect. We help them design deliberately.
Ready to look at the conditions shaping how your organisation works? Let’s talk.