Neural Skills for Human Performance

Join us to learn next-generation neural practices that develop the most important mental and emotional skills for leadership and work.

Organizations are facing unprecedented levels of dissatisfaction, disengagement, and burnout. At the same time, AI is reshaping roles and stripping away functional, technical, and analytical tasks that can be automated.

What remains—and what now determines our career viability and value in the workplace—are human capabilities: focus, emotional regulation, cognitive readiness, resilience, and the ability to lead through uncertainty.

These skills aren’t taught in schools, they aren’t included in traditional leadership programs—and they can’t be developed through conventional teaching methods. They must be trained directly in the brain.

Neural Skills for Human Performance is a new course built for this moment. It translates contemporary neuroscience into a structured training process that blends explicit knowledge with procedural neural practices to strengthen the mental and emotional capabilities demanded by the modern workplace.

New Solutions From Science

Neuroscience and psychology now offer a practical roadmap to the internal capabilities behind effective leadership and elite performance at work.

Research has confirmed that the brain changes, that we can change the brain through mental activity, and that mental and emotional traits are self-trainable neural skills.

Through intentional neuroplasticity, we can develop neural networks that reduce stress and burnout, while increasing mental clarity, attention control, emotional intelligence, adaptability, resilience, and more. These outcomes lead to greater motivation, engagement, personal productivity, and more effective leadership and relationship capabilities.

Information alone cannot make us more self-aware or more compassionate. But neural training can.

This course teaches the specific neural practices that reliably, repeatably, and measurably create these shifts.

The NSHP Course

The Neural Skills for Human Performance course teaches us how the brain handles stress, distraction, change, conflict, bias, and emotions under pressure—and how to retrain those patterns to support better thinking, communication, and collaboration.

The program builds progressively, from foundational neuroscience to our framework of neural practices, and then applies them to develop critical mental and emotional skills and resolve core organizational challenges.

NSHP is designed for real work. We practice skills directly, apply them between classes, and can use them immediately to accelerate our personal and leadership development.

Who Should Attend

• Executive and Operating Leaders
• Managers, Team Leads, and Supervisors
• HR, OD, and Talent Development Professionals
• Wellbeing and Mental Health Practitioners
• Executive, Leadership, and Life Coaches
• Educators and Facilitators
• High-Performing and High-Potential Contributors

Program Summary

The course teaches mental and emotional capabilities essential to today’s career and workplace demands. These include:

• Regulating stress and nervous-system activation
• Sharpening focus and attention control
• Sustaining concentration for deep work
• Improving mental clarity and judgment
• Improving critical thinking and decision-making
• Developing self-awareness
• Strengthening emotional regulation
• Experiencing greater empathy and compassion
• Presenting authenticity, vulnerability, and integrity
• Creating interpersonal trust and psychological safety
• Adapting and correcting amid change and uncertainty
• Influencing and mobilizing others
• Building mental strength and resilience

These capabilities can’t be developed through explicit methods— listening, reading, watching, memorizing, and retrieving information. Mental and emotional skills can only be activated through procedural learning—the direct embodied experience that trains and strengthens neural networks.

Tools and Resources

The NSHP Learning Portal includes:

• Pre-course orientation
• Pre-course assessment
• Class recordings
• Class slide decks
• Guided neural practices
• Self-paced lesson modules
• Curated research
• Curated video insights
• Class-wide collaboration
• Full access to the IOSM Global Network

NSHP Program Options

Public programs offer certifications for NSHP Practitioners, Coaches, and Teachers. Students can register at any level or start with the Practitioner course and, optionally, upgrade anytime.

The program is also available as a dedicated training for teams of ten or more, tailored to your objectives, and calendared at your convenience. It can be scheduled in 90-minute classes over eight weeks or as four half-day or two full-day workshops. To learn more about dedicated training, please contact us or schedule a call.

Neural Skills Practitioner

The NSHP Practitioner certificate is a foundational 8-week course designed for high-performing individuals, leaders, and teams, with no prerequisites. It teaches neuroscience and neural practices to reduce stress and burnout, improve attention control, navigate change and uncertainty, cultivate emotional intelligence, build effective teamwork, and build mental strength and resilience.

The course provides a comprehensive foundation in science and practical applications for leadership and work. Its goal is to develop essential mental and emotional skills for individual and organizational well-being, cognitive performance, and emotional intelligence. and performance. Graduates are qualified to continue through the Certified Neural Skills Coach, Teacher, and Teaching Partner programs.

Certified Neural Skills Coach

Our Neural Skills Coach certification is a 4-week extension for graduates of the NSHP Practitioner course who wish to share important features of all-science mindfulness to help their coaching clients, work teams, and organizations become more effective.

Certified Neural Skills Teacher

Our Neural Skills Teacher certification is a 4-week extension for graduates of the NSHP and Neural Skills Coach courses who wish to create formal coaching, consulting, or educational programs.

IOSM Teaching Partner

Teaching Partners are licensed to independently sell and deliver the Neural Skills for Human Performance course and additional proprietary curriculum developed at IOSM.

To learn more or explore your objectives, please contact us or schedule a call at any time.

Our Instructor

Åsa Fanelli is an experienced executive, consultant, and facilitator specializing in leadership development, with a strong focus on neuroscience and mindfulness-based emotional intelligence. She serves as Chief Education Officer at IOSM, where she designs innovative curricula and leads corporate and public programs to cultivate mental and emotional skills in the workplace.

With over 25 years of experience as a senior executive in global corporate and nonprofit sectors, Åsa has led high-performing, multicultural teams in 35 countries across 5 continents—often in complex, high-stakes environments. She brings a deep understanding of organizational dynamics, human behavior, and transformational change to her teaching and consulting work.

Why IOSM?

The Institute for Organizational Science and Mind (IOSM) is a global non-profit association of human capital and operating leaders, educators, and coaches. We share a common mission to apply neuroscience and neural training to create more effective leaders, a happier, healthier, and higher-performing workforce, and a safer, more inclusive, and more productive workplace