CONFERENCE ROUNDUP: INTERNATIONAL COACH FEDERATION UK NEUROSCIENCE CONFERENCE, LONDON, 16 NOVEMBER 2011
By Varya Shaw
Top companies use neuroscience to develop their leaders because it’s rigorous enough to gain their trust, according to Tara Swart, an executive coach with a PhD in neuroscience.
Neuroscience was used to help one of her clients, energy company Centrica, improve safety on drilling rigs by boosting emotional intelligence, said Dr Swart.
Staff were “out on platforms, looking at computers, not having to communicate much – they had really high IQs but not much EQ…Centrica felt neuroscience was a way to elevate EQ and bring it into line with IQ. They felt science would appeal to their leaders and boost trust. Its clear links to performance were also appealing,” she said.
Dr Swart asked delegates to say or write “I feel” rather than “I think” at least half the time, explaining that “saying ‘I feel’ sends a signal back to your brain that you want to use that part of [it]”.
She also asked them simply to look at each other as this could activate emotion in a way similar to a mother looking at a newborn.
Tara said it was “only a matter of time” before it was proven how coaching changed the brain in the same way as other psychological interventions:
“Why are FTSE 100 companies using neuroscience to nurture their top talent? Because psychology has underpinned the way we work as coaches for a long time, but neuroscience gives another dimension below that, a depth that didn’t exist before.”
She also said coaching cannot work unless it bypasses the rational cortex and reaches the emotional limbic system: “I say coaching is brain surgery. I need a knife to cut through the cortex and get to the limbic system but to do that your scalpel needs to be sharp.”
Coaching at Work, Volume 7, Issue 1