WHAT, WHY AND HOW...

WHAT IS COACHING?

What is Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching? How does it di�er from other forms of development and coaching programs? What makes it so bene�cial? And why might you choose brain-based development and coaching over other coaching and leadership development options? WettWorks Academy operates from two foundational principles:

In this article, we'll take a closer look at brain-based leadership development and coaching to give you some insight into the what, why and how of this paradigm shift and to set expectations of what a brain-based leadership development and coaching program might look like and to encourage you to think about your opportunities and how you and your organisation could bene�t from it.

To begin let’s de�ne coaching and neurocoaching (brain-based development)

Our organisation achieves this through the application of neuroscience and the many scienti�c disciplines which informs us as to the “what, why, and how” we do the things we do in everyday life, in short we introduce you to you in an immersive and brain friendly process. We use a brain-based approach to leadership development and coaching.

We do this because of 4 global reasons :

Helping people gain awareness of how the brain works and how to apply that knowledge

to do something they are not currently doing - improvementto do something better – achieve masteryto change problematic behaviour(s) – change self and organisationallyto think better – develop personal and organisational awarenessfor excellence

Coaching is de�ned as a process that aims to improve performance through self-discovery. While there are many di�erent models of coaching, the coaching community has adopted a fundamental core belief that the individual has the answers to their own problems, we as coaches lead them to their own answers through the process of self-directed neuroplasticity by asking powerful questions which primes the brain for innovation and discovery.

Neuroscience is Changing the Face of Leadership Development, Leadership Training and Coaching!

WHAT IS NEUROCOACHING?Neurocoaching is an evidence-based scienti�c process by which a coach has a working knowledge of the brain, hormones/neurotransmitters, major brain structures and their relevance to leadership development, employee development, coaching and mentoring. This also includes organisational and personal development. In short, if you are working with people, we all need to know - how the brain learns.

The neurocoach can apply and integrate these new skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours into an existing framework of coaching. This is what we at WettWorks refer to as “brain-based” coaching and development.

New insights from the neuroscience disciplines are providing new tools, approaches and techniques for leaders and coaches to become more e�ective in helping the people they work with.Neurocoaching may be used in the same �elds as other traditional coaching modalities/methods, such as:

1. The theoretical underpinnings of speci�c neuroscience learning programs, with speci�c applications to coaching and human development 2. The successful completion of 5 coaching simulations integrating neuroscience into a coaching and development encounter 3. Create a research paper or case study using brain-based tools (2000 words)4. Successful completion of a 1 to 1 neurocoaching session5. Successful completion of a group neurocoaching session6. Successful completion of an observed neurocoaching session7. Successful completion of peer neurocoaching sessions8. Development of a neurocoaching framework

The practical application of brain-based coaching is to facilitate change through thinking, behavioral, and emotional awareness.

A neurocoach therefore, is one who has studied and demonstrated pro�ciency, evidenced by evaluations in:

The neurocoaching framework itself has its underpinning in the following �elds of:

Developing an Entrepreneur

Mindset

Stress and Wellbeing

Leadership Development

Business Relational Awareness

Life Coaching

Innovation Critical Thinking

Change Management

Social PsychologyA�ective PsychologyNeuroeconomicsNeuroplasticityHealth & WellnessTheory of MindSelf Determination Theory

MindfulnessEmotional RegulationNeurobiologyConversational IntelligenceCommunications IntelligenceSocial Anthropology

HOW AND WHY DOES BRAIN-BASED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING WORK?

WHAT MAKES BRAIN-BASED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING SO DIFFERENT?

• Develop understanding of behaviours, motivations and an individual's beliefs• Manage emotions, feelings and behaviours• Replace limiting beliefs with enabling ones• Be more responsive, more adaptable, more resilient, and more innovative• Create holistic strategies and build a team committed to achieve them• Motivate each team member to reach their potential

• Understand neuroscience and its applications in coaching• Structure your communications to positively impact someone’s thinking by increasing the release of oxytocin• Create powerful strategies that transform your coaching• Know how to use the language of di�erent behavioural preferences• Understand the ways behavioural preference is often expressed at home and at work

Latest neuroscienti�c research has uncovered a number of discoveries that expose many of the otherwise standard practices for self-improvement as largely ine�ective. New insights from the �eld of neuroscience informs us that the key to developing and coaching others to achieve and succeed, is to help them understand how the brain:

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching works by bringing to bear all the resources and evidence-based �ndings in neuroscience and the many other scienti�c disciplines in a focused and motivated e�ort to progress your goals. It does this by creating an environment conducive to new insight, creating the space to think deeply about the topics that matter to you and/or your organisation and in the way most appropriate for you and your brain.

A Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching program uses the power of neuroscience to enhance leadership performance in the following ways:

Building on the existing foundation of coaching and leadership development, adding neuroscience as an evidence-base, it is possible to develop others with an understanding how the brain works in social settings. An understanding of neuroscience research can help coaches and leaders ful�l their potential as change agents in the lives of others and their organisations.

Learns Remembers

Organises Information

Operates Under Stressful Conditions Such As Fear

Changes

Leadership Development

Coaching

7 PRINCIPLES OF BRAIN-BASED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING

1. The Brain is a Connection Machine2. No Two Brains are Alike3. The Brain Hardwires Everything it Can4. Hardwiring Drives Automatic Perception5. It’s Practically Impossible to Deconstruct Our Wiring6. It’s Easy to Create New Wiring - The Brain Creates New Connections all the Time7. Emotions Determine what we Remember and how we Remember

The �rst 6 are credited to Dr. David Rock in his outstanding book “Quiet Leadership”

Brain-based leadership development and coaching is founded on these principles. Here are 7 fascinating insights about the brain that have helped shape brain-based leadership development and coaching as a new approach to thinking, learning, development and lasting change:

The underlying function of the human brain is to �nd links, associations, connections and relationships between whole concepts, often stored in many di�erent regions of the brain. It does this non-stop, at the rate of a million new connections every second.

These processes continually reshape our brains' circuitry. Every thought, memory, skill and attribute we have is not a single static entity stored in a single region of the brain; but a vast, complex and ever-changing map of connections between higher-level cognitive centres, deeper-level hardwired skill centres and many other regions of the brain.

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching context …Brain-based leadership development and coaching supports coachee's in their thinking, helping them to break themselves out of their own impasses and make new connections – for themselves.

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching facilitates a new level of thinking; one that produces ever-more expansive connections. These large scale connections are energising to the brain. The coach/leader will support the coachee to harness this energy and motivation to get into action on these insights.

1. THE BRAIN IS A CONNECTION MACHINE

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The brain is hugely complex. For example our brain has 300 trillion constantly changing connections.

These 300 trillion connections are continually re-shaped by every thought, feeling and experience we've ever had throughout our entire lives. The result: near-unlimited ways the brain can encode experience, learning and information.

At a distance our brains may look similar, but up close: no two brains are wired the same.

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching context …Not only is it a waste of our energy to do the thinking for others; it’s also a signi�cant obstacle to that person’s own thinking.

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching respects the substantial di�erences between people’s brains, focusing on helping coachees think things through for themselves and make their own new connections.

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching facilitates the thinking, watches for and highlights a coachee's insights – and then helps the coachee run with that energy. And all largely invisible to the coachee.

Any idea or experience gets broadly the same treatment from our brains: lightning-quick comparison with our existing mental maps to see where the connections are.

This process of perceiving the world through our hardwiring is there out of necessity, it enables us to cope with the sheer volume of information we face throughout the day.

But it can also come with consequences, for whilst known, familiar and expected inputs are neatly processed, when the data doesn’t quite �t, we can sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to make a connection. Such thinking can have signi�cant drawbacks.

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching context …Brain-based Leadership and Coaching makes positive challenge of our "faulty" thinking, ensuring that:

Perceiving the world through our own hardwired �lters means we can signi�cantly improve performance simply by shifting ours and others’ thinking. Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching o�ers this bene�t by helping people break free of their autopilot.

A coachee's internal realities do not lag behind external reality;

A coachee's maps are based only on up-to-date and relevant experience;

A coachee's internal representations do not omit crucial information.

2. NO TWO BRAINS ARE ALIKE 3. THE BRAIN SEES THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ITS OWN WIRING

The brain hardwires everything it can.

With so much information to process, and with such a limited working memory, the brain must take any repetitive or otherwise important thought or activity and “hard code” it into our more capacious subcortex (the part that holds long-term memories and processes).

Unsurprisingly then, lasting change takes e�ort and a whole new approach. Brain-based coaching provides that new approach.

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching Context …Brain-based Leadership and Coaching leverages the brain’s preference for hardwiring by deepening connections around insights, embedding learning and establishing new habits.

This is all of great bene�t to you, the coachee- your brain's hardwiring is far more dependable and more able to deliver results than the conscious brain.

4. THE BRAIN HARDWIRES EVERYTHING IT CAN

It’s practically impossible to deconstruct our hardwiring, those connections are just too deeply embedded to be "unwired". In addition, any attempt to understand the source of a habit just serves to deepen the very circuitry we’re trying to undo!

So, Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching transforms performance and results by maintaining a focus on solutions and creating whole new habits, backed-up by attention through the process of neuroplasticity - rewiring the brain.

5. IT’S PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DECONSTRUCT OUR HARDWIRING

Everything we think and do in�uences the connections and layout of our brain, continually �ne-tuning its pathways. The upside of this is our extraordinary capacity for new connections.

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching Context …The brain is an attention economy. Brain-based coaching helps hardwire new behaviours by giving them enough attention – and of the sort that gives the new maps increased depth and density.

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching focuses on moving coachee's from impasse, to insight, to new and ingrained behaviour. And quicker than other forms of self-improvement.

6. IT’S REALLY EASY TO CREATE NEW WIRING

In the Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching context … emotions and arousal have tremendous impact on memory, more speci�cally working memory. For those in leadership it is important to note that if they are in a stressful state, that part of their working memory may be taken up with awareness of fears and worries, leaving less capacity available for processing incoming information. This state would make it di�cult to lead or develop others. Imagine if a direct report was providing content for a presentation, you in your aroused state, your working memory taxed to the limit, your capacity to remember is now in jeopardy.

7. EMOTIONS DETERMINE WHAT WE REMEMBER AND HOW WE REMEMBER

WHAT DISTINGUISHES BRAIN-BASED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING?From these insights, brain-based coaching is then characterised, in its practise, by a few distinguishing features.

1. SELF-DIRECTED LEARNINGBrain-based Leadership Development and Coaching helps people make their own connections. We all learn better when we �nd our own answers. So the leader or coach's role is to support others in their learning journey, rather than directing, advising or driving.

When we make new connections for ourselves, our insights are accompanied by a tangible release of energy in the brain that is motivating and compels us to take action. Brain-based Leadership and Coaching watches for and harnesses this energy.

2. FOCUSED ON SOLUTIONSBrain-based Leadership Development and Coaching is about solutions connecting with the vision of where we want to be and systematically working toward that end. Coaching and Leadership Development is not about searching for problems and delving into their causes that simply deepens those circuits and �nds more problems. Far more useful to be solutions focused.

Focusing on solutions puts us in the future and immediately creates energy in our minds. We get more creative, �nd new inspiration, open up to new possibilities and create new choices.

3. CHALLENGE AND STRETCHOur brains responds to a challenge and can be in�uenced to create powerful solutions to our problems.

Brain-based Leadership Development and Coaching challenges a person to develop their thinking along new lines and to move out of their comfort zone to achieve sustainable results. Stretching is about maximizing a person’s resourcefulness to the full.

4. POSITIVE FEEDBACKBrain-based Leadership Development and Coaching is about creating sustainable change, through positive reinforcement if we create a safe space where change is possible and becomes second nature.

New learning requires substantial brain activity before it is "hardwired" to challenge distorted thinking patterns and harsh inner critics, the brain-based coach methodology uses intentionality, encouragement, and acknowledgment to help keep the mind calm, clear and wholly focused on what they are trying to achieve, a new neuro-map of the desired change.

5. PROCESS AND STRUCTUREBrain-based Leadership Development and Coaching is a structured approach to improving thinking and producing lasting change.

To think along new lines and do things di�erently takes energy and uses limited resources in the brain. The familiar and brain-friendly structure of the coaching framework minimises distraction and concern, and

WHAT BRINGS PEOPLE TO A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING PROGRAM?

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BRAIN-BASED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING PROGRAM?

People still aren't sure about Leadership Development and Coaching programs. Although, the world's most successful people from athletes to businesses and organizations have adopted a Leadership Development and/or Coaching program to accelerate their success. How will a Leadership Development and Coaching Program work for you?

Brain-Based Leadership Development and Coaching utilizes what we know about how the brain learns, in turn, skilled leaders and coaches are better able to help facilitate the desired changes people want to make in order to achieve their goals!

Neuroscience is changing the leadership and coaching industry. No longer is any single behaviour or style good enough to optimise business results and develop others. Multiple styles, situationally adapted, are required to take full advantage of the real power of the human brain's resources. This highly diverse, highly potential, vital asset is often already in place .

Some common coaching goals might be to accelerate a career, to be more e�ective at work, to have less stress in life, to have more con�dence in certain situations, or to have more in�uence and impact when working with others.

Bene�ts you'll experience from a brain-based leadership and coaching program will include:

All of which culminates in the achievement of goals, the embedding of new and positive behaviours, and a greater sense of purpose, satisfaction and ful�lment.

It's no exaggeration to say that a brain-based leadership development and coaching program can literally change people’s brains!

allows coachees to focus on their thinking. A proven brain-based framework, customised for each learner.

6. DEVELOPING THE COACHING AGENDABrain-based Leadership Development and Coaching focuses solely on the coachee's agenda for themselves, their future, their goals and their aspirations. Professional coaches and leaders are trained to work from your agenda and not theirs. Professional coaches are trained and mentored to support you to provide the solutions to your concerns.

Coaching and Leadership are also about letting the coachee's agenda develop naturally, not driving it which takes the responsibility away from the coachee. Neuroscience is informing coaches, it is far more productive utilizing a brain-based perspective, to focus on facilitating insights in the coachee and generating commitment to an action of their design.

Greater clarity for an improved sense of direction and focus.

Increased self-awareness and responsibility.

Improved Ability to replace unwanted habit patterns.

Increased con�dence, motivation and conviction.

Improved personal productivity and e�ectiveness.

Increased resourcefulness and resilience.