Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 4 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) on "Coaching individuals for high performance," in organizations and on their own.

To learn more about how tmc coaching can help you and your organization, read this 2-page overview on tmc coaching, learn about the Solution-Focused coaching style, or simply email Todd.


Review of episode 4: Pub Nights in Mudgee

The Boss: Mark Bouris
In the time between last week's episode and this one it seems Mark Bouris has reflected upon and/or received good counsel about his decision making in the Boardroom. I suspect this week we're starting to see more of the good judgment that's made him an Australian business success story.

This time in the Boardroom when both Heather and MaryAnn took full responsibility for aspects of their team's shortcomings - with MaryAnn even offering to forfeit Team Pinnacle's clear victory on ethical grounds - Mr Bouris praised rather than punished their displays of accountability. In addition he came down much harder on potentially misleading advertising and in so doing remedied the errors in judgement that I thought he made last week.

Another development in the Mark Bouris' style this week was what I think is a useful shift in perspective. Rather than pressing each team's Project Lead to talk about the "weakest link" in their team, Mr Bouris made several comments on the positive traits he saw in team members - which recalls the ideas offered in the analysis of episode 2 on giving feedback using the Affirm technique.

Offering someone positive feedback doesn't mean you close the door on pointing out his/her areas of development (which we've all got!). On the contrary, it's a highly effective way to help the person stay on top of his/her emotional reactions and win the Battle inside their Brain.

Neuroscience is beginning to offer hard evidence to help explain what we implicitly know from lived experience. In particular, it suggests that the "Command and Control" approach isn't an effective way to motivate, develop or lead people. When we feel threatened and get defensive our capacity to pay attention, take in new information and process it creatively essentially disappears.

In The Apprentice format, the people who get the most feedback in the Boardroom on their performance (and especially areas for development) are typically the three who are up for elimination. True, this ensures they will pay close attention to what's said, but for one of them the feedback will come too late to be effectively applied in further weeks. This week's trio on the hotseat were from Team Eventus.

This week in the Boardroom

As Team Eventus Project Lead, Heather again exhibited the sort of controlling behaviour that she did in episode 2 when she was put in charge of designing the cereal box graphics. This week did not use a consultative decision-making style and instead quickly arrived at what she thought was the "right" decision on the price for the evening. This was followed by a lot of positive talk (e.g. This is going to be great! It's going to be awesome! Why wouldn't anyone come to a night like this?! etc.) to convince herself and presumably her team that this was the right decision, but this positivity had the effect of making it hard for her team to tell her that they all thought the price was too high.

What ended up happening was the team fell victim to the psychological error of confirmation bias. They saw only the information that confirmed Heather's pre-existing decision about the price - information that ultimately proved inaccurate, since on the night people were unwilling to pay such a high price for the product on offer. Despite a last-minute inspiration to raise more money with a raffle in the bar, her team lost by over $1,000 ($2,814 vs. $3,930).

In the Boardroom Heather was credited with being "passionate and optimistic" but this loss caused her to "eat humble pie". Asked why she should stay, Heather could muster little more than, "I have so much more to give". She was advised by Mr Bouris to improve her management skills, which I'd suggest would among other things involve her learning to hear other people out rather than jumping prematurely to the one, "right" decision. This is a team member with great potential but as Mr Bouris suggested, could definitely benefit from some coaching to frankly assess her own strengths and weaknesses and clearly identify what she has to offer.

This week smooth-talking charmer Gavin missed a trick by failing to think of the table sponsorships idea - a financial blunder that cost his team the victory. Though in the Boardroom he made much of "putting his hand in" and actively participate in every project, and though he was credited with confidence and persuasiveness, he was faulted for seeming unwilling to take accountability when things fail to work out as planned.

As before, Gavin needs to do more than look good and speak well. Mr Bouris pointed out that he is "the guy the team looks toward" when they need leadership and stated, "You've been too measured...I want to see the real Gavin, I want to see the best come out of you from now on." While he is clearly strong at the intangible areas of relationship development and team building, a development area for Gavin continues to be producing tangible practical results - in this case, setting a course of action and sticking to it, not getting distracted by the dancing girls, costumes, making friends and doing deals. While clearly adept at playing to this strengths, Gavin could usefully be coached to become aware of his blindspots and formulate a course of action that addresses them.

It was hard not to feel for Blake this week, whose halting performance in the Boardroom exhibited a clear lack of confidence, even a bewilderment at what was happening around him, and a lack of energy to fight for his own survival. He was faulted by Mr Bouris for not stepping up on decisions and for flying under the radar, which Blake said he "does not do on purpose." Yet when asked why he should stay could only muster: "I don't have the background [in marketing]...I have skills but not experience. [...] I'm here to work for an organization I can build a career out of" - hardly a compelling case of value-add to Mr Bouris' organization.

Self-doubt of this sort is normal and we all experience it occasionally (otherwise we'd risk becoming thoughtless automatons or egomaniacs). The time and place to express it, however, is not the kill-or-be-killed Boardroom setting. This is a clear case of someone whose performance is slipping and could benefit from coaching. A coach could help Blake to a) identify what he wants and b) develop an practical action plan that plays to his strengths, to help him focus less on apologizing for what he can't do and get the best results from those things that he does well.


Real-World Application (RWA): Coaching for high performance

I liked the moment when Mark Bouris mused aloud, "there's some positives there, we've got to try to figure out how we get the best out of them." Above I've suggested some ways that coaching could help develop these three people. Similarly, in previous reviews I've highlighted personality and character traits that would be useful to explore and develop in a coaching conversation.

When I speak to people about coaching, however, I notice there's a lot of confusion about the subject. Since coaching came into vogue in the business world some years ago there's been an explosion in both the different kinds of coaching on offer (executive-, business-, skills-, team-, behavioural-, personal-, life-, sports-, health-, and even dating-coaching!) and the sheer number of people who now call what they do "coaching"...with widely varying degrees of expertise. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions these days about what a coach does and how the coaching process works.

Here are my views on coaching - what it is, what it isn't, and what it can do for you and your organization.

"Hey, I don't need therapy!!"
Some people shy away from coaching because they think it's going to get all soupy, emotional or just too personal...like some kind of therapy or counselling. Broadly speaking, while therapy tends to focus on feelings and experiences related to past events, coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encourages you to move forward. So you don't have to be sick to get better: while therapy aims at helping a dysfunctional person to become functional, coaching helps a functional person to achieve high performance and is action-oriented. The focus is on where your are right now, where you want to be, and how you can get yourself there.

"How's that different from having a mentor?"
Mentoring differs from coaching in both the type of expertise on offer and the nature of the relationship. A mentor typically has years of experience in the field, someone who is able to offer advice from the perspective of "been there, done that." The means the mentor is usually older and more experienced than the person being mentored and the relationship is more teacher-pupil. An important difference from coaching, then, is that a coach does not need any expertise in the client's field of work, while a mentor provides the perspective of "when I was in your shoes and facing the same situation, here's what I did...."

Coaching for high performance
A coach works in side-by-side with you to explore your current situation with the objective of identifying what you want to achieve and creating a plan of action to help you get there. In this process the coach does not have to be an expert in the client’s business - the client is the expert. The coach's expertise in this partnership is to serve as a sounding board and to occasionally reflect back certain information (like recurring themes or patterns).

Note, however, that the coach does not have the answers. The coach's role is to ask useful, thought-provoking questions - ones that encourage you to find your own answers and clarify your own thinking. The real value of a coach is to help you draw on your own wisdom and insight, arriving at your own conclusions and resolve to address the situation with practical action.

In this way a great coach is a little bit like Lao Tzu's definition of a great leader: "...he who the people barely know exists and, when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, people will say: we did it ourselves." Or as renowned psychologist Carl Rogers is credited with saying, "in order to truly help someone we must be able to enter their lives, help them resolve their issues and then exit their lives without them ever knowing we were there."

How can organizations and individuals benefit from coaching?
While it's tricky to put a precise ROI on an intangible service like coaching, here are a few stats that have been compiled over time:

• A study of Fortune 100 executives found that coaching resulted in an ROI of almost six times the program cost as well as a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, 61% improvement in job satisfaction, 48% improvement in quality. (Manchester Consulting Group)
• Productivity increased by 88 percent when coaching was combined with training, as compared to a 22 percent increase with training alone. (International Personnel Management Association)
• A study of a Fortune 500 telecommunications company found that executive coaching resulted in a 529 percent ROI. (MetrixGlobal)
• Productivity among salespeople who had participated in an intensive coaching program rose by an average of 35 percent (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company)

Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

Credits: I gained useful insight and the ROI stats, from Dutchcoach. Photo of Heather by Richard Polden.

Obama's Inauguration - The Principles of Hope

Last week's Inauguration address by President Obama once again showcased his extraordinary speaking talents. My impression is that the delivery of his speech deftly weaved together the threads of Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, of Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., and reaffirmed the role we have come to see as a cornerstone of his identity: statesman and orator.

Yet this time, there was something more. It was his moment to offer a first glimpse of the course he intends to set for the world's most powerful nation over the next four years. He's given us the agenda that will drive his behaviour as President and that will guide the staff of his administration.

NeuroPower Leadership: the Compassionate Leader

I've written previously that Obama is frequently able to embody what within the NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) is called a NeuroPower Leader.

Specifically, he is able to manifest the characteristics of what is termed the Compassionate Leader, which is the result of integrating the two NeuroPower archetypes of Chancellor and Navigator. Before we go on, I'll give you some detail on how NeuroPower suggests these archetypes are formed.

Archetypes and the 6 Intelligence Centres

Each of our individual personalities comprises two archetypes. An archetype is formed through the combination of three of the six thinking functions that NeuroPower suggests make up the majority of our brain's activity.

These six thinking functions (also called Intelligence Centres, or ICs for short) may be grouped in their three respective pairs under the following headings:

Innovation and Vision
Logic and Passion
Data and Empathy

Note that there isn't a stark divide between each pair, so it's not "Data versus Empathy," rather (following the Jungian conception of behaviour) they are the respective endpoints along a continuum of possible behaviours.

Master/Mirror Archetype and Integration

As we each tend more toward one or the other end of these three continua, we'll each come to prefer or rely on one set of three thinking functions as our "default" mode of operating. The combination of these three preferred modes of thinking results in our Master archetype. Meanwhile the other three thinking functions that represent our less-preferred ways of operating combine to form our Mirror archetype.

To take President Obama as an example, I would argue that his default mode - that is, the three ICs that he tends to favours in the first instance - are the Innovation, Passion and Empathy ICs. The archetype that results when these three are combined is the Chancellor archetype and, since these are his preferred three ICs, the Chancellor is his Master archetype profile. The corresponding three ICs (Vision, Logic and Data respectively) therefore combine to form the Navigator archetype and this is his Mirror archetype profile.

The two key concepts to grasp here are that:

• We all have access to all six of these thinking functions or Intelligence Centres. Reintegrating your Master profile (made up of your "preferred" three ICs) and your Mirror profile (made up of the other three ICs) is the central developmental challenge each of us faces in our efforts to express our fullest capacity as people - hence that's also the primary developmental focus of the NeuroPower framework.
• The Master profile tells us what we want out of life, the Mirror profile reminds us of what we need. How this plays out is that our Master archetype forms our self-identity (i.e. where we place our focus and how we communicate with others; to that degree it also determines how others view and value us as individuals) while the Mirror archetype influences our behaviour.*
  

Up to the Inauguration we've seen a good deal of Obama's Master archetype, the Chancellor, and this has determined our sense of his identity. In this speech we begin to see the integration of his Mirror archetype, the Navigator, and get a sense of how that is likely to guide his behaviour.

Here is the video of his speech and below that are two short descriptions of the Chancellor and Navigator archetypes. I invite you to use these archetypes as a lens through which to view the content and delivery of his message, to see how seamlessly he has integrated the best aspects of each and how he brings them to the service of his purposes.

You can visit the original YouTube page here.

The Chancellor**

Chancellors are charming, enthusiastic, energetic and ambitious. They like competition, negotiation, promoting ideas and people and rising to the top. Chancellors are found among some of the most senior leaders and officials in society. They live to work and rise to challenges, particularly those complex people issues that others cannot seem to sort out.

Chancellors are passionate about projects with which they are involved; they are highly adept at getting team members to achieve their respective objectives, each for their own reasons. Indeed they are the ultimate diplomats: they strive to build bridges both externally, between groups and people and internally, within the sometimes conflicted breast of an individual with whom they may be interacting. They are altruistic at heart and dedicated to authenticity and bringing out the best in others.

At their best, Chancellors are genuinely charming, excellent negotiators, diplomatic, strive for esprit de corps to foster high-performing team environments, and have a warmth and kindness about them, even a sort of venerability as they put us in touch with our own better natures.

The Navigator***

A Navigator’s mind is structured and visionary. These traits combine to produce a person with a clear vision and the discipline and structure to achieve it. They are super-dependable and like to be a respected contributor to the community and a pillar of society.

Very emotionally detached, Navigators are inflexible when discussing plans, directions, approaches and logistics. If they are given no advance warning, however, they can cope with flexibility and ambiguity and perform brilliantly ‘on the hop’.

Navigators are very focused when there is a clear vision, executing enormous mind over matter, suppressing unwanted emotions and disciplining themselves and the people around them.

At their best, Navigators are the embodiment of faith, exhibiting complete confidence in the achievement of their goals and never, ever giving up hope. They are protective, almost patriarchal figures. They excel at visionary planning, holding responsibly to the agreed course of action, reaffirming the guiding principles that underlay their plans, and encouraging role excellence in themselves and others. They love to explore and conquer new realms, leading themselves or a group into uncharted territory or experiences - and to do so with honour and respect for others.


Reaffirming the principles of hope

For me, Obama's message was an inspirational reaffirmation of American ideals, principles and the responsibility that comes with power and leadership.

Looking outward to the world and (re)building bridges, he has set his stake in the ground to say clearly and confidently:

...we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. [my emphasis]

Welcome back, America. The world has missed your leadership and your culture's deep, abiding belief in the power that ideas can have in shaping the world. As anthropologist Margaret Mead reminds us:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

TM



*adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), p 746
**adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), pp 270-271
***adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), pp 364-65, 375, 562

What are you thinking...? Choose wisely!

A friend recently quipped: "What's the definition of optimism for an investment banker?" His answer: Ironing five shirts on a Sunday night.

While the times around us are changing, as they ever will, one thing remains the same: your power of choice. You can see any situation as a crisis or as an opportunity. As an ending or a new beginning.

This may sound trite and Pollyanna-ish to you, but rest assured there is good reason for you to cultivate an awareness of what choices you make during your each waking moment. Where you place your attention will determine your level of happiness...both now and later in your life.


We become what we think about all day long.

These words, attributed to the early 19th century American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, neatly present the commonsensical insight of something that has now been confirmed by neuroscience.

In fact the book The Wisdom Paradox : How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older by neuropsychologist Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg (see here for book excerpts and here for a short book review) makes a compelling argument that wisdom is essentially the ability to know what to do in a given situation and make good decisions, fast, based on having seen and dealt with similar situations in the past.

So like anything, practice makes better. Unsurprisingly, the way to become good at something is to do it often and to learn from your efforts.

In this way wisdom is not so different from playing a sport or a musical instrument - over time you build up memories of how to do something, which can be readily accessed later on by the fast, memory-building part of your brain (based in the limbic system).

So here's the lesson: if you practice playing the piano badly through your years of life, then you're only ever going to be a bad piano player (though you'll have very ready access to the skill of playing it badly!).

Similarly, if you continually cultivate a mindset focused on crisis, negativity, the downside, and being fearful, then later in life those are exactly the memories you'll most readily access and - hey presto - you're stuck in the same rut of continually thinking everything is rubbish.

Like giving up any vice or bad habit, however, it's never too late to quit and the positive effects can begin to add up immediately. If you begin to manifest positive aspects of your character, some of the noble qualities of what you're like when you are at your absolute best, then those are the attributes to which your brain will make the strongest connections. They will become habits, taking you upwards in a positive spiral towards greater happiness and a more hopeful outlook on life.

Even if you're doubtful of the science behind the matter, I think you'd agree that manifesting a character-filled approach to life by learning to focus on the possibilities rather than the negatives has relatively few down-sides. (Of course, if you're immediately prone to pointing out what the downsides might be, that in itself could be a useful piece of insight for you...!)

I'm reminded of a story about an executive who, no matter what news was presented to him, responded by saying "That's great!" Staff members bearing really negative messages were, to say the least, disconcerted by this reaction, until they learned to see the philosophy behind it - that nothing is unequivocably positive or negative in itself - it all has to do with the meaning we choose to attach to it. Like Hamlet says, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

What are you thinking about, all day long? And is that the way you want to think your whole life long...?
TM

NeuroPower Leader: Barack Obama

Insights from New Zealand

Greetings from the latest NeuroPower training program in Queenstown, New Zealand. Each year NeuroPower practitioners gather in this inspirational and contemplative location to develop not only participants' understanding and application of the framework, but to review the year's latest research and refine and update the framework itself with the latest input, insights and business applications.

This year's particular focus is the process of Transformational Change in organizations and teams. We have also looked at the role of NeuroPower Leaders in the transformation cycle, as outlined in the NeuroPower handbook (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow).

NeuroPower Leaders

These extraordinary individuals are the leaders we admire and follow because we trust them.

We trust them because neurobiologically we can sense that they are coming from a position of nobility rather than a position of selfishness.

We trust them, yet they can be difficult for us to understand because they have most often been able to integrate the diverse aspects of their personality in a way that is compelling and inspires us to achieve more of what we are capable of being ourselves.

In their presence and through their words we believe we can be more than what we've been up to now, that we can achieve more than we've ever achieved before.

If you haven't seen or heard President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech I encourage you to do so through the embedded link below or here. Notice in his speech how he integrates all the aspects of both archetypes that he represents, the Chancellor ("bridge builder") and the Navigator ("visionary planner").

Listen for how he brings together the various noble qualities of:

Faith - "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."

Charm (in the sense of placing the focus on the other person) - "... you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you."

Negotiating and Diplomatic - "There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

Protecting - "To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you."

Responsible and Principled - "And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope. That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

Building Bridges - "A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain. Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead."

Seeking Role Excellence

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.

And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

And perhaps most characteristic of all for his campaign, the hopefulness of the slogan "Yes We Can", embodied by the qualities of Honour and Genuineness invoked by the memory of Obama's Illinoian predecessor, President Abraham Lincoln:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

An extraordinary individual for an extraordinary time - and most hopefully for us all, the things he is able to do are based on his being able to fully and freely access all six intelligence centres that are available to him - as they are to all of us.

So are we all able to access the things that will make us NeuroPower Leaders like the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama?


Yes We Can!
TM

Transformational Leadership Intensive - Cairns Jan/09

There's a great opportunity coming up in Australia that I want to let you know about.

The next Transformational Leadership Intensive training program will be held in Cairns, Queensland from 20-24 January 2009. In this intensive workshop you will explore the meaning, context and value of Transformational Leadership and gain skills in this practical application of the NeuroPower framework.

The program will be taught by the creator of the NeuroPower framework, the author and strategist Peter Burow. My role will be as co-facilitator for the program. I will also help participants to embed the knowledge gained in these workshops in their particular work settings with practical follow-on coaching sessions.

See the flyer here - for registration details contact me.

Overview

During five intensive days you will learn more about how to weave together the three key areas of Management, Leadership and Transformational Leadership (see diagram below) to ensure peak performance for your business or organization. Subsequent coaching ensures that you to retain this knowledge and are better able to apply it to your own real-life situations.

Management – learn the six needs that effective leaders must satisfy in order to build a stable, agile, focused, performance-oriented, informed and team-centred organization

Practical skills:

• identify why teams are not functioning effectively
• execute processes to increase trust, creativity, passion, connection, knowledge and hope within teams
• coach employees on their signature strength and help them to practically embed this knowledge in their daily work

Leadership – learn the concepts of character and integration as applied to Leadership and how life stages and psycho-emotional/spiritual development changes the individual’s motivation, focus on attention and worldview

Practical skills:

• create a coherent vision and sense of purpose that aligns people to that vision
• apply character as a leader to every management dilemma for increased business performance

Transformational Leadership – learn the role the brain’s limbic system plays in motivation, communication, attitude change, perception and decision making

Practical skills:

• communicate and negotiate with each of the limbic types
• transform the energy expressed as resistance to change into the motivation and commitment to carry out change processes

These skills will enable you as a Transformational Leader to:

• provide strategic advice regarding the specific actions required to contextualize the change and engage employees in rolling out your strategy for enhanced performance
• advise leaders on the actions, processes and sequence of messages to be employed to maximize positive employee engagement
• describe at all levels of the organization the key messages needed to dissolve resistance

COACHING increases retention of information by up to 400%

These workshops are an excellent way to learn how to apply the powerful and practical NeuroPower framework at a very reasonable time and cost investment. What’s more, the program includes post-workshop coaching to practically embed your new knowledge in your own setting and ensure that you gain maximum value for your investment.

You are probably familiar with the concept of the “learning curve” that refers to how fast we learn information. The same psychologist who described that concept also discovered the “forgetting curve” which states that we begin immediately to forget what we have learned unless we revisit the information and, ideally, apply it to embed the knowledge.

Memory experiments show that within hours most people will retain less than half of the overall material presented, and after 30 days only about 22% remains. With coaching, however, the information retention increases to as much as 88% - a four-fold increase. Clearly, coaching on practical application of knowledge has the potential to achieve tremendous results.

As a workshop participant, here's how coaching works for you:

• during the five days you will first learn the theories and skills
• before you leave on Day Five you set yourself a few practical tasks to do within a set period of time
• you then have a go at applying them with your own work and personal situation
• we have regularly-scheduled coaching conversations to close the loop on your learning, exploring what has worked well in your practice and what useful tweaks you will want to make for next time.

Overall the coaching follow-up process offers you the vital opportunity to:

review your efforts
reinforce your successes
revise your approach where things need improvement
rehearse new applications and practices in advance of doing them “for real”
reengage with the learning process and thereby
retain your knowledge as you strengthen the neural connections associated with that learning

Once again, if you are interested and wish to find out more, email me.

TM

Comments, connections and cheek

A loyal blog reader has gently chided me for the recent post on Framework Fatigue..."cheeky" was the word he used, in fact. I believe he was most likely referring to my high rating of the NeuroPower framework as compared to the many others listed.

Since this same reader had previously requested more details on my post about the nine core belief types, I shall now strive to substantiate my evident passion. Starting today and through the month of November, I will provide more indepth content about the NeuroPower framework.

NeuroPower basics

As I've suggested, the NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) integrates many components and is both comprehensive and holistic. Nevertheless, it can be boiled down to four basic principles, or maxims:

1. there are six intelligence centres that are the neurobiological basis for human personality and behaviour - tapping into these centres dramatically improves the quality of communication and understanding in human interactions
2. these six centres combine to produce NeuroRational Types, or archetypes, which describe your particular gifts and genius - the thing you were born to be able to do really well and that you are able to manifest when you perform at your best
3. your survival strategies, or core belief types, are deeply rooted in your "lizard brain," the brain's limbic system that governs both memory and emotional reactions; knowing the blindspots the result from your own particular fight-flight-freeze reactions is key to getting them under control (so that they don't control you) and fostering personal success
4. the developmental aspect of NeuroPower is focused on character - helping people get their emotional reactivity under control so they are able to tap into what's best in themselves, integrate the diverse talents of their Master and Mirror archetype profiles, and choose their behavioural set-point to reflect the desired outcome, context and other factors
   

Links to NeuroEducation

In a separate note, another visitor alerted me to the possible connection between the themes of the Framework Fatigue post and Jenifer Fox, a prominent figure related to the Strengths Movement in the US. I suspect that this reader is, like me, a connector and just can't resist making a good connection when there's one to be made. Thanks for that - there will certainly be a lot of overlap to discuss between Jenifer's work and the growing movement to bring brain-based parenting into the mainstream of Australian education as part of the NeuroEducation program.

Getting LinkedIn

Finally, regular readers know that I frequently link to people by using their LinkedIn profiles, which is a shorthand way of putting their own bio front-and-centre. I've also made good use lately of LinkedIn to develop contacts and explore markets in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK - which, along with Xing (formerly OpenBC) and ecademy, has produced tremendous results.

So successful has this connecting been, in fact, that there are plans underway to launch intensive NeuroPower training programs in all three of these markets in the first half of 2009, starting with London in April. Watch this space for more details!
TM