Rewire Your Brain - Practices to Use Brain Plasticity to Become a Better Coach

Editor's Notes

• #2: Our purpose is to explore how we can rewire our brains so that we can become coaches who bring their best self to the team to coach our teams to become their best selves.
• #4: The Law of Two Feet means you take responsibility for what you care about -- standing up for that and using your own two feet to move to whatever place you can best contribute and/or learn.
• #7: Now we are ready to start on our journey together. But this is not a journey you will make alone, this is a journey you will make with a new friend.
• #10: Synaptic Pruning is how the brain rewires itself
• #11: Stress causes brain networks to shrink and receive less oxygen, reducing the ability to learn and create
• #12: We know when we are hungry or thirsty that we need to eat but we don’t usually listen to our bodies
• #13: To rewire your brain you first have to become conscious of your current state. We will talk more about this later, but you can’t blaze a new trail until you know where you are. You have to pause, assess your current “location on the map.”
• #14: Our brain pathways are like a path through the grass. At first the going is very slow and difficult, but as we go through that pathway over and over again the way becomes clearer. As we practice, it eventually becomes harder to do it the old way than it was to do it the new way.
• #15: Dr. Becky Bailey’s Brain State Model
• #16: Am I safe? Survival state implies a life or death perception with a physical response. In survival state people resort to silence or violence. You think “This world is a dog-eat-dog world.” create scandals, steal from the company, or even threaten violence. No one creates a situation to attack someone else unless they themselves do not feel safe
• #17: What does a survival workplace look like? Relationship Building Amongst Peers is Fading Meetings Are Frequently Cancelled or Rescheduled People Don’t Trust One Another Turnover is High and Employer Loyalty is Low Self-Promotion is Out of Control passively antagonistic, sarcastic, and resistant to new management initiatives
• #20: How to create safety - Notice Assertiveness and focusing on what we want Routines Composure My job is to keep you safe
• #21: Am I cared for? The answer to this question determines if we will use our energy for processing information in the higher centers of the brain or for self-protection in the lower centers of the brain. An emotional state relies on the judgment of good and bad, and implies a victim/villain perception toward life and attempts to make others responsible for our upset.
• #22: We become triggered into the emotional state when we feel the world is not going our way. This state relies on the CD-ROM that was created based on our past. These are mental models that were passed down to us from our early caregivers. Often the contain inaccurate stories from our childhood. When we are in our emotional state, we generally perceive others as the cause of our upset and seek to blame them for our distress. If someone who grew up in a household with stress and crisis, that environment will be comfortable to them. They will try to create an environment like that.
• #23: What does a workplace look like when workers are in the Emotional part of their brain? People are not worried about losing their jobs, but they’re not happy either
• #24: No one is really sure what is going on – chaos reigns
• #25: People are afraid of conflict and instead talk behind each other’s backs or speak in a passive-aggressive manner
• #26: Team members don’t feel like anyone really cares about them and they are knowledge hoarders who want to outwork and outthink their competitors on an individual basis.
• #27: They are lone warriors who not only want to win, but need to be the best and brightest.
• #29: How to train your brain out of the Emotional zone
• #30: Provide valuable opportunities to connect Implementing caring rituals cultivates compassion Compassion motivates altruistic behavior
• #31: Accepting people for who they are Based on noticing or connecting Teaches what helpful looks like, sounds like, and feels like
• #32: Being of service activates the higher centers of the brain With every job for every person, each person contributes to the success of the tribe
• #33: What Can I Learn & Create? When you experience flow, you are experiencing the power of the executive state. It is a state of relaxed alertness during which you have the capacity to notice your thoughts and emotions, be conscious of your actions and possess the ability to pause and plan a wise response. Instead of physically reacting, or verbally overreacting from an old CD-ROM , the Executive state allows us to pause and plan a wise response. The voice we use to discipline children (if we are caregivers) or to coach employees is THE SAME VOICE as the one we use with ourselves. The voice we choose directs our behavior. Instead of asking “What will make this person do X” we ask a new question – “What will help this person be more likely to be successful at X?”
• #34: When we feel safe and cared for, then we are ready to move into the CEO area of the brain and start solving problems. We can Direct our attention in order to set and achieve goals despite distractions Regulate our emotions and inhibit impulsive behavior Hold information in our heads, self-monitor, and reflect Develop empathy and problem solve We change our intention from controlling our environment to having an intention to teach.
• #35: The survival state sees conflict as threatening and bad – it must be punished. Emotional state sees conflict as irritating and upsetting. It must be stopped. The executive state sees conflict as a call for help and a teaching opportunity. It must be solved with new skills. Our job is to remain calm enough to see the best and help others learn new skills. We do that by assuming positive intent – we are all doing the best we can at any given point in time. All behavior is a communication. Think back to a time you lashed out at people you cared about – were you trying to make things worse or where you trying to get personal relief from your own emotional distress? When I’m feeling unsure, undeserving or not good enough, I am short-tempered and critical towards others and myself. At these times I need compassion, not lectures that provoke more guilt. Our coworkers are the same.
• #36: You experience flow when you are doing your thing (whatever it is), get immersed in it, and feel satisfied by doing it. You lose track of time. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost. Some examples might include: - yoga - dancing - coloring - painting - playing a game Find a partner and share with each other a time that you experienced flow. It’s okay if it hasn’t happened in a long time!
• #37: Talk about the Hulk – who controls the Hulk? Everyone else, until the Hulk learns how to calm himself.
• #40: To rewire your brain you first have to become conscious of your current state. We will talk more about this later, but you can’t blaze a new trail until you know where you are. You have to pause, assess your current “location on the map.”
• #41: Behavior is the part of the iceberg that you see. The part beneath the water is our internal state.
• #42: Every behavior is a communication. We forget this and instead of trying to discern the communication behind the behavior, we try to stop it. We are better served by welcoming the behavior so we can coach through it as a teachable moment. Doing so requires empathy – empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. If I see your behavior as a communication, then I seek to understand and share your feelings so that I can help. "To attack those who have need of teaching is to fail to learn from them." ~ A Course in Miracles
• #43: Empathy teaches emotional regulation and integrates the brain so we can take personal responsibility for their actions Judgement blocks awareness of what we are feeling Emotional cardio: Picture the person who you thought of at the start of this session. What behavior do they have that annoys you? Now list 3 – 4 needs that person might be trying to satisfy. Pretend you are that person. How does that feel?
• #44: Empathy teaches emotional regulation and integrates the brain so we can take personal responsibility for their actions Judgement blocks awareness of what we are feeling Emotional cardio: Picture the person who you thought of at the start of this session. What behavior do they have that annoys you? Now list 3 – 4 needs that person might be trying to satisfy. Pretend you are that person. How does that feel?
• #46: Fill the pool of shared meaning
• #47: Focus on what you really want What do I really want for myself? What do I really want for others? What do I really want for the relationship?
• #48: Refuse the fool’s choice, focus on the AND Clarify what you really want Clarify what you really don’t want Present your brain with a more complex problem
• #51: This is your boss. What is he thinking? Let’s discuss possible perceptions and assuming positive intent. Let’s say something is NOT what we want and perception doesn’t change that? Then what? Fight reality or accept! (next slide)
• #52: Let’s determine intent for each of these teams, assuming negative intent and then assuming positive intent We can coach others to assume positive intent by modeling it ourselves. Once we have a team that is assuming positive intent and feels like they are tribe, then we are safe to experience conflict. If there is no conflict, that is a warning sign that people don’t feel safe and are not ready to deal with the tough issues. Now we have the opportunity to coach through conflict, and when conflict occurs we know how to handle it.