Neuroscience for Coaches

How to Use the Latest Insights for the Benefit of Your Clients

Amy Brann

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780749480714
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Mentoría y coaching

Many coaching tools and techniques are now fairly well established, but how do they actually work? Neuroscience for Coaches equips coaches with information that will help them answer this question and therefore deliver greater value to clients. Based on over twelve years of research, this book provides a clear explanation of the aspects of neuroscience that are relevant to coaching so you can describe to clients from a neuroscientific perspective why particular techniques and methods work and the benefits to them.

This fully updated 2nd edition of Neuroscience for Coaches includes new interviews with Marshall Goldsmith, Susan Grandfield, Christian van Nieuwerburgh and Kim Morgan, along with new material on oxytocin, goals and mindfulness. It covers the latest neuroscientific research and, crucially, the ways in which coaches can use this information effectively and practically in their everyday work. Neuroscience for Coaches is a vital resource for keeping up to date with recent scientific developments, tools and techniques in coaching.

PART ONE

Brain areas

‘What part of the brain does that?’ This common question is natural, but often unanswerable. With all the advancements in our ability to see into the brain while it is doing things, particularly through MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans and EEG (electroencephalography), people frequently have the expectation that we can explain everything by linking it back to a specific area of the brain ‘lighting up’. Fortunately, the brain is a little more complex than this. Despite possessing a fixed anatomy our brains exhibit diverse functionality. The question of how our brain does that is explored further in Part Four on dynamic functional connectivity. However, we first need to start with the foundations and then build up from there.

One of the most wonderful realizations felt by many of the participants of our Neuroscience for Coaches programme during the first module is that things are more layered than they previously realized. There is more going on in their client’s brains than they thought. Initially some coaches hope that they would be able to identify, with certainty, an area of the brain that is responsible for a certain problem their client is dealing with – and then fix it. They quickly realize, however, that this will not be the case.

So what is the point of learning about the different brain areas? There are several answers to this question. The first is that our knowledge shapes our filters and our questions. As coaches these are two of the most valuable things we have. Consider your filters and questions before you had any coach training... and afterwards. One hopes that they are quite different. It is the same once you learn about the different areas of the brain (and everything else you cover in this book and then during your further studies).

The second point of importance for learning about the different brain areas is to give you a solid foundation. The concepts we look at in this book have clear and direct applications to coaching, so when we start talking about mindfulness and the effect it has on the prefrontal cortex then it makes sense to know what the prefrontal cortex is, what it looks like when it isn’t working well, what it needs to work well – and lots more.

The third benefit is that at times you may want to discuss the areas of the brain with your clients, offering them an additional perspective to their situation. We cannot know for sure whether a particular brain area is involved with a problem or situation they are working on, but most of the time we don’t need to. There are thousands of examples of how this would work in real coaching situations, in Chapter 2 on the basal ganglia we will look at just one. For a client who is working on changing their habits, being able to explain how and why the brain works with habits can be really useful to them.

It is important to bear in mind as we go through Part One that each time we get to the section ‘What can I do with a client now having understood this?’ what is being offered are only suggestions. What will work and be appropriate in one situation is not the same for another. You as the coach are best placed to blend the science with your art at this point and balance everything you know in order to make an informed decision about what would best serve the person you are working with.

Warning

We start with the basics for good reason. Students who work with us often find the first module, where we teach the anatomy and biochemistry, the hardest. They go on to tell us that the firm foundation was very rewarding as they progressed into the more practical insights from neuroscience. We’ve even had lecturers, trainers and L&D professionals say that they have restructured their programmes as a result of understanding more deeply how we learn.

There are now many other books and even programmes out there which cherry-pick the neuroscience they want to focus on. This approach is often what credible scientists and other professionals object to. Overall it has tainted people’s feelings towards using insights from neuroscience. The surface-level approach means big chunks of important information are missed. By choosing quick and easy you often sacrifice correct and useful.

Before we dive into the different anatomical areas of the brain it is worth taking an overview perspective and touching on something you may have already heard of: the triune brain.

What is the triune brain?

The triune brain is a model that was developed by physician and neuroscientist Paul D MacLean in the 1960s (MacLean, 1990). It describes the evolution of the brain.

The hypothesis is that there are three parts to the brain: the reptilian, the paleomammalian (better known as the limbic) and the neomammalian. The first, the reptilian, comprised the basal ganglia and it was suggested that this complex was responsible for the instinctual behaviours. So drivers like aggression and dominance were said to come from this reptilian brain. It is the oldest in evolutionary terms.

The next in evolutionary terms is the paleomammalian complex. It contains the brain areas including the amygdalae, hypothalamus, hippocampal complex and cingulate cortex. The ‘limbic system’ was used to refer to this group of structures that are so interconnected. MacLean suggested that this limbic system was responsible for things like motivation and emotion involved in feeding, reproductive behaviour and parental behaviour.

The newest part of the brain, according to MacLean, is the neomammalian complex. This is basically the cerebral neocortex. It is responsible for our higher cognitive functions such as planning, perceiving and language. While the model is still in favour in some circles there are some challenges. Some of the arguments against this model are that:

• Some recent behavioural studies call into question MacLean’s thoughts around the reptilian brain.
• Anatomically, the basal ganglia were also found in amphibians and fish (not just reptiles).
• Birds have been documented to have sophisticated cognitive abilities and language-like abilities.
• Not only paleomammals care for their children/offspring – even some fish do it.
• Crucially, it is now suggested that the neocortex was present in the earliest mammals.

Linked to this topic is the concept of the limbic system itself. There is a lot of controversy around this term. While some still use it freely, others say there is too much wrong with it. For example, the hippocampus is a key part of the limbic system. The idea is that the limbic system is the emotional centre of the brain while the neocortex is the cognitive zone. When damage is done to the hippocampus we see that people suffer from memory problems. Neuroscientists keep changing the boundaries of the limbic system. Joseph LeDoux suggests we should abandon it altogether.

Why is the triune brain model important to me as a coach?

This model is fairly widely espoused in non-scientific circles. Having an understanding of it and what the science community are saying about it puts you in a more informed position.

Yet while this model is very attractive in its simplicity, it doesn’t have the backing of neuroscientists across the board. So the suggestion here is to use with caution.

01

Prefrontal cortex

Affectionately thought of as the CEO or conductor of the brain responsible for a lot of higher-level cognitive functions, including attention and processing.

What is this brain area?

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is an area of the brain found at the front of the head, behind your forehead in your frontal lobes. Evolutionarily it is one of the newest brain areas and is responsible for a lot of cognitive functions. The dorsal prefrontal cortex (dPFC) is interconnected with brain areas that are involved with attention, cognition and action. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is known for being involved with short-term memory and is implicated in self-control. The ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) is interconnected with brain areas involved in emotion. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) performs risk-benefit analyses after receiving inputs from the amygdala and other parts of the frontal lobes.

There is a famous story in the neuroscience world that involves a man called Phineas Gage. In 1848 Gage was a 25-year-old construction worker. He had been a respected friend to the men he worked with and was good at his job. One day there was an explosion while Gage was tamping powder with a fuse in a hole (before sand had been poured in). The rod weighed almost a stone, was 3 feet 7 inches in length and 1.25 inches in diameter. As it flew into the air it pierced Gage’s left cheek, going through the base of the skull, traversing the front of his brain and exiting at high speed out of the top of his head. The rod mostly destroyed his frontal lobe, including his prefrontal cortex.

The first thing that amazed bystanders was that Gage was able to walk, talk and be ‘normal’ (remember that part of his brain was now lying some distance away on the end of a rod). The second thing is that he survived the predictable infections that in 1848 were treated without antibiotics. Yet although he was physically intact, his previous likeable personality was not. He became ‘fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity which was not previously his custom, manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinacious obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned... A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man.’ The damage to his brain – as we can see (thanks to the skull being dug up, examined, and scanned) – was in the prefrontal cortices. His personality was changed forever and he was unable to make good choices.

Some more recent studies on people with prefrontal cortex injuries have developed our understanding of this region of the brain. When individuals were asked what an appropriate social response would be under given circumstances they would give an appropriate answer. However, when they were actually making choices in real time they woul...