Coaching for Change

Changes in our lives and work are often unexpected and sometimes planned. In either case, success depends on the ability to generate behavioral shifts that will maximize the positive benefits from the change. Easier said than done!

You may have heard about the importance of “why” and suggestions to actively communicate the benefits of change. If people understand the purpose and benefits of a particular change, then we could logically assume that they’d align with it, right?

Yet, look around you. Even aware of the benefits, how many people actually follow a healthy lifestyle? How many of you have noticed people knowingly make choices that aren’t good for them or ignore potential benefits when making a choice?

With 15 years of research and practice as a change expert, I’ve learned that the “what”  (knowing what to change and what to change to), the “how” (knowing how to get there) and the “why” are all equally important. Yet they’re not enough. Enabling lasting behavior shifts is not easy and simply selling the benefits or knowing the why  does not drive change in behavior.

Why are we often unable to create new behaviors and habits despite a genuine need and desire to change?

The root of spontaneous behavior and habits can be found in our mental frameworks and neural networks. Think of a neural network as a well-worn, familiar pathway in the complex maze of our mind. Depending on the trigger or starting point, our response pattern will typically follow the most worn path. By doing that, we further strengthen that path or neural network, making it even more difficult to change.

In other words, our response pattern is determined by neural pathways that are stimulated and repeatedly reinforced. Changing or replacing these neural pathways is essential to creating lasting behavior shifts—otherwise we risk falling back into the same reinforced patterns.

Knowledge alone cannot create change. Knowledge that leads to insight, which in turn provokes action, creates the conditions that are necessary for developing new mental pathways.

It was quite by accident that I stumbled upon the power of coaching as a tool for change success. I attended my first coach training in 2006 while employed as change management expert in a Fortune 50 organization. At that training, I discovered how effective coaching offers the ideal tools to enable the identification and shifting of beliefs and mental frameworks.

Coaching enables sense-making (Karl Weick) – the process of “structuring the unknown” (Waterman, 1990) by “placing stimuli into some kind of framework” that enables us “to comprehend, understand, explain, attribute, extrapolate, and predict” (Starbuck & Milliken, 1988). These elements are essential for the brain to accept new experiences and take new actions.

The application of coaching concepts and competencies has had a considerable impact on the success rates and sustainability of my transformation and change management projects. The ICF Core Competencies encourage curiosity, exploration, connection as an observer, reflective questions, a future focus and more. This form of coaching enables generative exploration that is critical to succeeding with change.

Coaching done well is one of the few interventions that can deeply impact all parts of the behavior transformation process—from generating insight, impacting mindset and beliefs, reframing resistance to provoking action and sustaining new behaviors.

Fig. 1 Coaching Approach to Enable Sustainable Behavior Shifts

Expand Awareness – As coaches and leaders, embracing the power of reflective and future-focused inquiry is a potent tool. We expand ideation and thinking beyond existing mental processes when we replace impatient solutioning with exploration and consideration of alternate perspectives.

Generate Insight – Behavior is deeply ingrained, and we have layers of reasoning and beliefs that keep our patterns in place. Cultivating moments of insight through coaching is more conducive to behavior shifts than when insights are offered as an answer or conclusion by another.

Impact Mindset and Beliefs – Mindset and beliefs shift through self-experience. A coach or leader can significantly enable the process by encouraging self-observation, focused reflection and sense-making through coaching.

Reframe Resistance – Creating a safe space where we can discover the perceived disruptions and fears associated with the change allows us to discover our very natural and often subconscious resistance factors. Reframing these through the coaching process is critical to sustaining change.

Provoke Action – A useful differentiator of coaching is the focus on the future and on outcomes. Provoking and encouraging action ensures insights move beyond mere moments of wisdom.

Sustain Change – The ICF Core  Competencies highlight how cultivating learning and growth is an important element of effective coaching. As stated in a proficient coach “works with the client to integrate new awareness, insight or learning into their worldview and behaviors.” This integration forms the foundation for sustainability of shifts in thinking and behavior.

Below are some of the stages we help our clients work through as they navigate their way to new behaviors, new thinking and new ways of being. Coaching is fundamental to helping them achieve the desired shifts.

Fig2. Coaching for Change

©Shweta HandaGupta2020. Original author must be visibly credited in any duplication in whole or in part.