The Science Behind Coaching - Presented at Mile High Agile 2014. http://milehighagile2014.agiledenver.org/program/

1. The Science
Behind Coaching
-By Ram Srinivasan
Agile Coach and Trainer
@ramvasan, http://linkedin.com/in/ramvasan

2. About This Session
• Is not a “Learn about Coaching
101” session.
• Brain Science is an evolving field,
multiple models exist for complex
processes
• Though I explain a “process” by
itself, the brain “parallelizes” a lot
of processes at the same time
• Same brain regions can be active
during different processes

3. How It Works- You Choose
Or1.
2. Or Or
3. Or

4. The Basics – Triune Brain Theory

5. Brain’s Braking System and
Emotional Regulation

6. What different strategies do
you use to regulate your own
emotions (as coaches)?
Lets Talk About Emotions
What different strategies do
you use with your clients to
regulate their emotions?

7. The Thinking vs. The Feeling

8. The Thinking vs. The Feeling
(Thinking)
(Feeling)
Slow Accurate Rational(Thinking)
vs.
Fast Approximate Action(Feeling)

9. An “Quick” Example
If a bat and a ball
together cost $1.10,
and the bat costs a
dollar more than the
ball, what does the
ball cost?

10. The “Negative” Limbic Arousal are
Faster, Longer and Stronger

11. Would You Buy a Car If …
• The brakes are fragile, get
worn out easily
• Works only now and then
and is temperamental
• Capacity to apply brakes
decrease each time you
use it?
• Consumes a lot of “fuel”
when you use the brake?

12. Our Brain’s Braking System
Motor (associated with
movement) Self Control
Cognitive (“thinking”)
Self Control

13. Cognitive (Thinking Based)
Emotional Regulation
• Suppressing Emotions
• Incidental Emotional Regulation
(Labeling/ Symbolic Labeling/
Affect labeling/Naming Emotions)
• Intentional Emotional Regulation
(reappraisal, reframing,
normalizing, reinterpreting,
perspective taking)
• Mirror Neuron Intervention

14. Talking About Emotions
• Would you feel better
or worse if you talked
about your emotions?
• Labeling vs Venting
• Labeling with Symbolic
Language (metaphors,
metrics, simplification
of the experience)
• Ironic inference after
“Affect Labeling”
experiments

15. Labeling / Naming Emotions
HELLO
My emotional state is
Certain intentional activities have incidental or
unintentional effect on emotions

16. Exercise:
What questions can you ask your
coachee so that he/she can “label”
emotions?
Example:
In a word or two, how would you describe
that experience?

17. Labeling – Tips and Tricks
• Disentangling input from interpretation of input
(feelings) makes it easy to label emotions and
makes it easy to identify them when they arise
• An emotionally rich vocabulary will help someone
label emotions better
• Ability to observe our own thoughts, feelings and
behaviors will help us be more aware of our
emotions
• I.e. Merely seeing yourself promotes self-restrain
• Affect labeling also promotes decentering (ability to
perceive thoughts and feelings as both
impermanent and objective occurrences in the
mind)

18. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Would you rather have $5, no strings attached,
or instead flip and coin and win $10 or nothing?

19. Intentional Emotional Regulation
I give you $10, you can give me $5 back, or we
can flip a coin and can lose $10 or nothing

20. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Would you rather have
$5, no strings attached,
or instead flip and coin
and win $10 or nothing?
I give you $10, you can
give me $5 back, or we
can flip a coin and can
lose $10 or nothing
Our “Feeling Brain”
is more sensitive to
framing whereas
our “Thinking
Brain” is more
sensitive to facts

21. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Cognitive Reappraisal:
Our realities derives from
the stories we tell
ourselves, at least the ones
we believe
Works when we are not in
the most intense part of
our emotional reaction
• Some cognitive clarity
needed
• Depends on other people
in the room

22. Intentional Emotional Regulation
Perspective Taking:
Ability to think in terms of
what the other person
might be thinking
• Empathy kicks in before perspective taking
• Taking a third person perspective and first person
perspective activate different regions of the brain
• Shaking off and physically moving (to a different
perspective) help brain get more oxygen and also
generate new thoughts

23. Mirror Neurons
Mirror System in monkey and humans

24. Counter Mirroring - Mirror Neuron
Intervention
• Identify what you are feeling
• Entertain the idea that your
brain may be mirroring others’
feeling
• Stop negative self-talk, attacks
and complaints temporarily
• Your emotions also reflect the
sum total of other people’s
emotions
• Think about a complementary
feeling or action

25. References