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| July 2009
Note from the Editor
Exciting Changes Coaching For Results, Inc. also known as Coaching School Results, is excited to announce that we are changing our look! Beginning this month, you will see a difference in the way our newsletters come to you and in the very near future you will see big changes on our website. We are making these changes to better serve you! Our Monthly Newsletter Our electronic newsletters are provided as a gift to individuals who sign up to receive this service and we never share your information with other parties. In our newly updated website, a bonus soon to be provided to our newsletter recipients will be access to our archived newsletters, which will be organized by topic and International Coach Federation (ICF) Competencies. A little added gift for those connected to CSR.
Why Brains Need Coaching Part II Our school leaders are "fire fighters" to the hundreds of demands that come at them every day. From the weekly or bi-weekly coaching conversations, the coach maintains the leader's steady attention and focus to the most important demands having the greatest impact on student achievement. By minimizing unimportant issues, even those that are urgent, the leader accomplishes more through efficiency, delegation, or elimination. Additionally, the coach helps the leader focus on solutions rather than problems. When issues or dilemmas emerge, coaches drill down to find the connections of how to solve; we connect to past successes, strengths and talents and what is needed to have the best outcome and results. As the brain makes connections, energy is created for possibilities. While easier, coaches do not focus on the past, we focus on the future where new connections are built. It is hard work. When the focus is on past failures, disappointments, or problems, images of anxiety emerge quickly with strong emotions. Negative emotions and thinking focus the brain on all the negative issues which only strengthen the negative hard wiring. Positive emotions stir possibility and hope and energy. Because the brain is easily distracted, the coach holds, like a gift, the attention for the possible. When a leader says, "I want to think about this," the typical response would be to end the conversation and leave the leader to his or her thoughts. School Results Coaches™ hold the attention longer to focus the attention of the brain long enough to move it to action. They may ask questions like, "What 10 benefits will you achieve as a result of your thinking and reflection?" As a person thinks about the benefit of his thinking, he has begun the process of deepening and embedding a new map in the brain. A few minutes of attention into a new insight produces hours of attention density. Attention is the active ingredient of coaching! Attention plus insight becomes the miracle drug of coaching! Next month - the anatomy of insight! References: The Neuroscience of Leadership by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz; Quiet Leadership by David Rock; Coaching and the Brain Teleclasses led by David Rock 2008, 2009. Talent Management, October 2007; The Mind and the Brain by Jeffery Schwartz; Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves by Sharon Begley Kathy Kee is a professional coach and consultant, "rehired" after 38 years in education. As an Assistant Superintendent, Kathy led her Texas district to the highest ranking of Exemplary by coaching and supporting her school leaders and teachers to their very best results. She is the past President of NSDC and TSDC and currently serves as Co-director of Teaching and Learning for Coaching School Results.
See details and register at www.coachingforresultsglobal Each seminar below has a series of three, hour-long follow-up teleclasses specifically designed for seminar participants and provided at a nominal fee. Those registering for a seminar will want to be sure to sign up for the follow-up teleclasses!
We have found Quiet Leadership by David Rock to be an informative and helpful book for coaches and school leaders.
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neuroscience that support coaching as the process and skill that influences results in people and organizations. Quite simply, change is hard for humans for numerous reasons while the ubiquitous questions and focus of powerful coaching support individual and group success. A second factor to contemplate is Attention Changes the Brain. Because the brain is space selfish and easily tired from critical thinking, it is by nature continually dropping unimportant or unnecessary information or moving information into long term memory which can be retrieved when needed at a level of near unconsciousness. Coaching, in its purpose, brings attention to thinking and actions. The field of neuroscience is emerging with more and more information that supports the power of how attention changes the brain. For many years research with stroke victims has provided evidence that when one part of the brain is damaged or weakened, other parts of the brain can take over with strong attention to relearn a skill. Jeffery Schwartz, in his book, The Mind and the Brain, points out that when you do things to focus on what is needed, the brain changes to accommodate. The brain is changing every second and we can assist and divert the change based on how we focus our attention. The term neuro-plasticity defines the dramatic changes in the brain from focused attention. Another best seller, Train Your Mind - Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley, offers more evidence that the adult brain, in short, "retains much of the plasticity of the developing brain, including the power to repair damaged regions, to grow new neurons, to rezone regions that performed one task and have them assume a new task, to change the circuitry that weaves neurons into the networks that allow us to remember, feel, suffer, think, imagine, and dream. Yes, the brain of a child is remarkably malleable. With focused attention the brain can change its physical structure and its wiring long into adulthood."
