Insights Into The Brain:  Neurological Science and Coaching

For centuries, scientists and philosophers have debated the meaning of consciousness and thought in the human experience.  The divergent views are reflected in the different types of coach training available today.  On May 8^th, Olivia Lockwood of Open Up Coaching gave us some interesting insights into understanding how the brain works and how we can use this knowledge to become more effective coaches.

As Olivia noted, “understanding more about how the brain works will assist us improve our own thinking, and assist others to improve their thinking.”  Drawing upon the research of David Rock and his book Quiet Leadership, Olivia provided attendees with six insights into the brain that can help coaches consider alternate ways to communicate and to assist others to think better, have insights, and make positive behavioral changes.  These insights included:

• The brain is a connection machine; coaching helps people make new connections and resolve impasses they have not been able to solve themselves.
• Up close, brains are all very different.
• The brain hardwires everything it can; coaching involves getting people to get behaviors out of being automatic and into more conscious view, which can require significant effort.
• Hardwiring drives automatic perception; coaching can help people step out of old patterns of behavior that are driven by deeper hardwired circuits, and form new hardwiring that drives new behaviors.
• It is practically impossible to deconstruct the brain’s hardwiring because focusing on an issue tends to deepen and reinforce hardwiring. Coaching on solutions helps avoid creating more awareness of problems.
• Creating new wiring is easy, if we pay attention. The keys to creating new wiring are frequency, duration, attention, and relevance.

Olivia also explored the SCARF model as a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward-or-threat response in social situations.  The SCARF model consists of five domains that activate either the ‘primary reward’ or ‘primary threat’ circuitry and associated networks of the brain.  The five domains are Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

 The material was quite fascinating and generated a number of excellent questions.  I am sure Olivia would be proud to say that her presentation created a number of new connections in the brains of the coaches present!

Mark Matthews is the owner of The Matthews Law Group, P.L.L.C. and Stay Motivated Leadership Advisors.

Resources

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