The Science of Inspiring Others to Learn and Change

The latest research in neuroscience is helping us understand the mechanisms of how various forms of coaching affect a person’s openness to new ideas, change and learning. In a series of fMRI studies, coaching toward vision and high quality relationships, called coaching with compassion, is distinctively effective at activating the appropriate neural networks. The opposite effect, when engaged in problem-focused coaching, called coaching for compliance, does the opposite. Really, it activates the opposite to what is needed and wanted! The key appears to be a focus on the future and that the coach and client are literally in tune with each other. Their own level of emotional intelligence allows the coach to create and nurture these resonant relationships. They use their EI on the path through mindfulness, hope, compassion, and playfulness.

These experiences of mindfulness, hope, compassion, and playfulness are essential to renewal of the human organism at the neurological, hormonal, emotional, and behavioral levels. Based on decades of research into longitudinal studies of coaching the development of emotional and social intelligence competencies, Professor Richard Boyatzis will lead the audience through examples of how true, evidence-based coaching with compassion (i.e., coaching a person to the PEA, their vision and values) is key to development and more resonant relationships. He will describe his recent fMRI studies on coaching to the Positive Emotional Attractor (PEA) versus the Negative Emotional Attractor (NEA), as well as recent doctor-patient studies showing that arousal of the PEA increased treatment adherence for Type II Diabetics.  He will explain why it is central to neuro-endocrine renewal in the human body (which is the only antidote to the ravages of chronic stress).