environment


6 Coaching Opportunities To Uplevel Your Coaching Skills Thanks To Neuroscience

In this weeks guest post Amy Brann shares some of her expertise on the subject of Neuroscience and coaching

"6 Coaching Opportunities To Uplevel Your Coaching Skills Thanks To Neuroscience" By Amy Brann

6 Coaching Opportunities To Uplevel Your Coaching Skills Thanks To Neuroscience

By Amy Brann

From the perspective of Coaches, neuroscience is the field that can inform them of important things about the brain. Things that are key to new ways that you work with clients and also things that underpin things you are already familiar with. Neuroscience can explain why and how Coaching works. It can enlighten Coaches as to things to pay particular attention to. It can warn against other practices.

We believe an understanding of neuroscience will become expected to underpin everything that sits on top of it. Neuroscience is not claiming to be better than anything a Coach currently does or to replace it. Rather we suggest it will enhance your understanding of those you work with.

What can neuroscience offer the Coaching World?

  • An understanding of what happens when a person is being Coached,
  • Ways to create the best Coaching environment for clients,
  • For Coaches who use particular models, an understanding of how they might work or an opportunity to stop using outdated concepts,
  • A foundational understanding of the brain through which to evaluate everything,
  • The opportunity to ask better quality questions and consider what interventions would best serve your client,
  • A focus on important considerations for how to get desired action occurring, e.g. mental stress leads to habit behaviour rather than goal-directed behaviour so this informs how / when.

How does neuroscience relate to other disciplines?

We can think of neuroscience as a friend to other disciplines, such as psychology. Often in academic circles there is cross over and collaboration. In my team we have neuroscientists, psychologists, behaviour analysts and several other experts. In the spirit of full disclosure I’ll share that sometimes we generate a little heat between the neuroscientists and the behaviour guys. Ultimately though we all realise that we can each learn from one another and stimulate deeper research and insights.

When can I use neuroscience with a client?

There are a huge number of opportunities within a normal Coaching engagement to use neuroscience to guide us. Here are just a few, many of which take on new depth and significance when you understand the neuroscience (remembering some words have slightly different psychological or neuroscientific meaning to in normal Coaching usage, e.g. reward):

 

Coaching OpportunityExample of Areas / studies in NeuroscienceExample of applications
Connecting with clientTrust and fairness and oxytocinActively finding ways to build trust with your client and demonstrate your fairness
Goal settingDecision making, visualisation, willpowerCiting a visualisation study to help a client see the potential value
Examining their environmentNudging and primingExplore your client’s normal environment and where they are when they need to do behaviours leading to goal attainment
Behavioural evaluationHot & Cold networkYour client’s behaviour is key to their results and is influenced by many factors.
RewardsDopamineHelping your client understand what is currently activating their reward circuitry can be empowering and important in making changes
Habits analysisHebbs Law, Basal GangliaBeing clear on how new habits are formed

 

From the perspective of the Coach it makes sense to immerse oneself in all areas of study that can help us understand better how people’s minds and brains work.

About Amy Brann

If you’ve enjoyed this article, I invite you to visit Amy’s website, and become a member of her free and insightful Neuroscience for Coaches community, so that you can further experience the impact of applying neuroscience insights on your life and career! Understanding how the brain works gives you a competitive advantage over Coaches who do not. As a welcome gift, you will receive a special complimentary resources bundles that includes the 1st chapter of ‘Neuroscience for Coaches’, your Neuroscience for Coaches checklist, and your Neuroscience for Coaches Insights ebook.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Amy_Brann

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybrann


Coaching with Logical Levels 3

In this week’s guest post Phil Manington shares how he uses a specific NLP model.

"Coaching with Logical Levels" A guest post by Phil Manington

Coaching with Logical Levels

By Phil Manington

Anyone familiar with NLP will probably have come across Robert Dilts’s Logical Levels model. It is a great tool for exploring how and why we do what we do. It works at a system level and provides a powerful way of creating sustainable change in an individual or organisation.

It looks at our thinking across six levels:

  • The Environment level involves the external conditions in which you live. Questions such as: “Where?”, “When?” and “With whom?” are typical Environment level questions.
  • The Behaviour level refers to what you do in different environments.
  • Capabilities (whether mental, physical or emotional) describe how you do what you do. What are your skills and strategies for taking action?
  • Beliefs and Values define why you do something and shape the way you perceive the world. Beliefs can be both empowering and limiting.
  • Identity consolidates whole systems of beliefs and values into a sense of self. It defines who you think you are, as an individual or an organisation.
  • Purpose involves your connection to something that goes beyond yourself. At this level, useful questions are: “For whom am I doing this?” and “What is my purpose?”.

Many change initiatives focus at the behaviour and capability levels and this can be very effective on occasions. For example, anyone wanting to lose weight will have used exercise and/or dieting to become more fit and healthy.

However, when a client comes for coaching it is usually because they have tried these approaches and they haven’t worked – they are stuck. The Logical Levels model provides a way uncovering the root cause of the situation.

Uncovering the Root Cause

Listening to the client’s language will provide useful pointers to the level that might be important. For example:

  • I usually end up in the kitchen at parties (environment/behaviour)
  • I argue a lot (behaviour)
  • I’m not very good at dancing (capability)
  • People should tell the truth (belief)
  • I want to be less stressed (value)
  • That’s just the sort of person I am (identity)

You may notice your client is focussing around certain levels – you can gather more information by asking questions that take them to other levels. For example:

  • What do you feel when that happens? (behaviour)
  • Why is that important to you? (value)
  • What assumptions are you making about this? (belief)
  • What does that say about you as a person? (identity)
  • What does that do for you? (value)

.

Making Changes

Clearly the way you help a client change depends on the specific information you uncover but guiding them round the levels can break through seemingly insoluble blocks. Here’s an example:

After my marriage broke up, I suffered a crisis of confidence and was thrown back into an old set of beliefs about not being attractive to women. My friends encouraged me to “just get out there” and I knew, rationally that this made sense. After all, one of my favourite books is ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’! And yet I kept putting it off. My coach and colleague, Steve, helped me shift from this stuck place:

We started with my assertion that “I am not attractive to women” – an identity level statement. Rather than trying to challenge this directly he moved me around the levels. He said:

“OK, let’s put that to one side for a moment – tell me what your strengths are”.

I listed a number of things and he picked up on something that I said about learning. Not only am I good at learning but I am passionate about it – I love it. So we had established a capability and a core value for me.

His next question was a great example of elegant coaching:

“So, returning to your relationship with women, who do you know who’s good at it?”

This is a loaded question, with a presupposition that relating to women is a skill issue, not an identity one. Of course, I could name several people and we discussed what they did that seemed to work. His next question:

“So, do you think you could learn to do some of those things?”

was met with cautious optimism and I finished our session with the belief that being attractive was more about skill and behaviour rather than identity – and I also had practical actions to start improving.

This sort of approach works really well for anyone who has low self-confidence or low self-esteem. It’s particularly dispiriting to hold a limiting belief at the identity level because we don’t feel we can possibly change. But often it is only a belief and by using the Logical Levels model to change the way someone sees themselves (for example, from “that’s just who I am” to “I am just not very skilled yet”), it is possible to facilitate quite profound transformations.

About the Author

Phil Manington is co-founder of Suffolk Coaching Zone. He is a professional trainer, coach and management consultant, specialising in helping businesses and individuals to make successful change and achieve their full potential.

Phil currently offers training, workshops and one-to-one coaching for personal and business clients. Specialist areas include leadership skills, building self-confidence and self-esteem, and improving relationships.

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SuffolkCoachingZone

Twitter – @SuffolkCZ

Website – http://www.suffolk-coaching.com


Does Your Coaching Business Reflect the YOU of Today?

In today’s guest post Cindy Hillsey shares her expertise and asks about your coaching business.

Does Your Coaching Business Reflect the YOU of Today?

By Cindy Hillsey

There seems to be a common thread among all my coaching clients right now, and that thread is that their business no longer reflects who they are today! I thought this would be a good topic to discuss today. My question to you is this: Does your business reflect who you are today or does it reflect who you were?

Recognizing how hard it is to keep current in a changing environment my hat is off to you if you said your business reflects who you are as of today! If you are like the majority, however, your business more than likely still reflects the you of the past. How do you know if your business still reflects the old you?

Here are some signs:

1. You have skills that are not listed on your website and your current clients don’t know about these skills.

2. You are being asked by your client to do things that are beyond your skillset and you cringe thinking about doing them.

3. You no longer like/want your current clients (or a majority of them)!

4. You have a static website rather than a dynamic one.

5. Your Welcome Packet hasn’t been updated since you opened your doors for business.

6. Your work seems like work – the thrill is gone!

7. Your clients no longer refer you.

8. You’ve entertained the idea of getting a J-O-B.

If you found yourself nodding your head yes to any or all of the above questions, it’s time for you to spend some quality time working ON your business and giving it a new lift! Put some business bounce back into your business!

Here are some things you can do:

1. Take an honest look at your skillset. See what still works and what you still enjoy doing. Purge the rest.

2. Make a list of new skills you would like to acquire. (Hint: If you find yourself putting the word ‘should’ in front of a new skill, ask yourself this question: Is it because *I* want to learn more information about this particular skill OR is it because I think I *should* know how to do this because everyone is doing/needs this?)

3. Update your Ideal Client profile! (This is also a good exercise as it helps you to determine what skills to keep, what skills to acquire, and what skills to purge.)

4. If you can’t create a new website yourself, put on your CEO hat and find someone who can capture the new you in your new website.

5. Do you still need a Welcome Packet? If so, update it and keep is short, sweet, and simple! Only collect the information you need.

6. You may want to consider hiring a business coach to refresh, refocus, and re-energize both you and your business.

7. If your client no longer refer you, see the above 6 items and begin to work on them now!

8. You really need to hire a business coach to figure out if this is really where you need to be or if you are just feeling dead-ended in your current incarnation.

It is important to continually adjust and tweak your business as the environment changes. If you don’t, you risk becoming out-of-date and obsolete. You’ll be like the food item in the pantry that has an expiration date stamped on the bottom – Best if used by xx-xx date!

About the Author/Further Resources

As a Business Coach, I work with Service-Based Entrepreneurs, and I specialize in working with Virtual Assistants and Coaches. Visit http://virtualpartnering.com for my FREE mini e-course on, The Six Basic Keys Every Business Should Have, along with other free resources.

Connect with me:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VirtualPartnering

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cindyhillsey

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cindyhillsey