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Aug212013
Neuropsychology for Coaches: Understanding the Basics: Professor Paul Brown & Virginia Brown
The authors aim to set out a framework within which executive coaches can start to use the power of the knowledge that is coming out of neuroscience labs worldwide. The objective is to bridge the gap between executive coaches (who the authors describe as fascinated by the human condition but having little knowledge of the brain) and neuroscientists (who have a great fascination with the brain but who are not very interested professionally in the human condition).
Here’s the bit that drew me in:
“This is, we believe, the first book to attempt to define the practice of coaching from what we know about the brain rather than use what we know about the brain to justify bits of coaching; …”
The idea underpinning what the authors are calling Neurobehavioural Modelling (NBM) is to:
“… understand, catch, use and regulate your client’s emotional energy, whatever it is, in pursuit of the coaching goals.”
Useful gems
- When a particular part of the brain needs more energy, it doesn’t simply create more energy – it moves available supply from somewhere else to where it is needed. If the right-hand side of the brain is particularly concerned with things that are new, and with perception and emotion then the left-hand side is more concerned with facts, experience and what is known. In a situation where a coaching client is stressed, the brain moves energy to deal with that stress and the perceived threat to survival (right-hand side). It then does not have as much energy for the area of the brain that has the capacity to use past experience to solve problems
- There is a very short and accessible, one page summary of attachment theory on page 69
- Page 79 introduces David Rock’s model of the person within the organisation, focussing on Status; Certainty; Autonomy; Relatedness and Fairness. There is some real food for thought in this for the executive coach, even if the model does not deal with attachment emotions
- Organisational politics “is triggered by brains trying to make sense of other brains when the data is sparse, the trust is low, and the outcomes have high personal value. Any one of these conditions may exacerbate the political environment within a company. More than one increases the toxicity.”
Key themes and ideas
- Emotions are the source of motivational energy in the human system. The authors suggest that we think of them as e-motions – energy creating movement
- The book explores eight basic emotions: five survival emotions; one potentiator (surprise/startle) which can then tip into any of the other seven emotions; and two attachment emotions (excitement/joy and love/trust). These last two have no survival value but enormous social and cultural value. It is the attachment emotions that most people seek for most of their lives. It is the presence of the attachment emotions that distinguishes a great organisation from a mediocre one
- The authors set out six propositions to serve as an outline frame of reference about the brain:
- The brain is an integrated system with many specialised, highly-differentiated areas
- The brain manages the inputs and outputs from the five senses
- The brain both regulates and is regulated by its emotional system
- The brain is the organ for making sense, for managing relationships, and is a remarkable neurochemical factory
- The brain has no original templates, only possibilities
- The brain hates change.
- As the notion of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has gathered acceptance, EI seems to be being associated with the idea that it can, and should, be measured. Interestingly, not all formal studies agree that the various questionnaires that are now available are capable of doing this well. For example, a leader might get one set of results using an EI or EQ questionnaire but his/her staff might describe that leader very differently. Chapter 9 then goes on to talk instead about “intelligent emotions” and the exercise of intelligence underpinned by a working knowledge of the emotions
- The way to make sense of the internal world of the client is not by assessing EI or by making guesses on a generalised basis as to which emotion is driving him/her in a particular instance, but to develop an understanding of the emotional biography of the client
- Action is always purposeful, even if to observers a person’s action appears wrong-headed, misguided or self-destructive. What the brain knows is a result of its unique experience modified by all its experiences that have gone before and shaped by its own genetic potential. In my language - people do things for their own reasons – even if those reasons are incomprehensible to the rest of us
- Behaviour is a result of perception.
Why I rate this book
- It gives the executive coach a basic understanding of the workings of the brain
- It keeps coming back to what is practical to use as a coach
- It focusses on how to sell to a senior executive the importance of understanding emotion by looking at “intelligent emotions” rather than at Emotional Intelligence
- It casts doubt on the robustness of some of the psychometrics used to measure EI
- It helps me to add some scientific weight to what I have always perceived to be truths:
- Perception is all
- People do things for their own reasons and those reasons make sense to them
- It introduces a fascinating and rich world for those of us coaches who do not have a background in neuroscience.
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