The quote above should appear in any promotional material for leadership development programs – sort of like the FDA warnings on cigarettes.

Dear consumers of leadership development programs (either individuals or organizations): before dishing out thousands of dollars for a program, ask what the evidence is that the program works.

Be an informed consumer… and May the Force of Scientific Evidence Be With You, dear reader.

PS: a very interesting conversation about this is going on here –> http://lnkd.in/g2gRFP (Linkedin – Solution-Focused Canada).

Tags: barbara kellerman, customer beware, evidence, Evidence-Based, FDA, kellerman, leadership, leadership development, science, science-based, the end of leadership, warning labels

I was given the book “Changing on the Job” by a friend and a very esteemed colleague of mine. He is very excited about the ideas in this book.

Usually I read books about psychology – and lately many excellent books have been coming out: The WillPower Instinct, The Power of Habit, Imagine – How Creativity Works… I enjoyed each one of them immensely.

Given my friend’s passion about “Changing on the Job”, I decided to veer off my path and read this book about leadership (the subtitle is: “Developing Leaders for a Complex World”). I usually stay away from leadership books. So much leadership development apparently going on, so little leadership seen around.

I found some good, some bad, a lot of gray.

Let’s start with the bad:

- the whole book is built around Robert Kegan’s theory of adult development. The theory identifies 4 kinds of “minds”: the Self-Sovereign Mind, the Socialized Mind, the Self-Authored Mind and the Self-Transforming Mind. Unfortunately, these constructs have not been derived by research and have not been validated empirically, at least not yet. There are dozens of systems out there which categorize individuals as belonging to “types”, either set or on a development continuum. They all make some intuitive sense. But none is supported by a substantial body of research and they are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. Contrast this approach to what science does, e.g. the decades of research that led to our fragile current understanding of personality (NEO-PI-R).

- the idea of set stages of development. It is telling that the author makes specific references to Piaget’s work. Unfortunately, Piaget’s schema has been seriously challenged by a three-pronged assault from evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and a careful analysis of Piaget’s experimental methods – which were found to be lacking, at best.

- the idea that each stage of development bundles together a set of cognitive, affective, perceptual and motivational characteristics. However, how could such different processes be organized by one function? This idea is a relic of the psychoanalytic concept of “ego development”, and it flies in the face of what we know about how the brain works. Which is by activating highly goal-specific, context-dependent modules. Translated in plain-speak: people think and behave differently in different situations.

- One example: the book discusses how the different kinds of minds see “authority”. However, the whole construct of authority as an over-arching concept is problematic. As Walter Mischel found out way back when researching the issue, “attitude toward one’s father correlated 0.3 with attitude toward one’s boss”. And similarly low levels of correlation are seen when comparing attitudes to other “authority figures”.

OK, and here is the good:

- the emphasis on sense-making. It is a critical challenge for leaders in these uncertain and fast-moving times. It is a precious skill which needs to be cultivated. It is a key ingredient to successful leadership. Recent research in the area of decision-making supports this claim (for a good summary, see this great book by Gary Klein –> Streetlights and Shadows).

- the fact that Jennifer G. Berger urges coaches to pay attention to the structure of the stories told by clients, not only to their content. Listening for who has responsibility in the story; which kind of conflicts permeate the story; from which perspective the story is told; which assumptions about the world are embedded in the story. However, the author suggests to pay attention to those things as diagnostic criteria to figure out which kind of “mind” the client has. I would recommend to pay attention to those things simply as further areas of exploration. Just be curious about it and ask clients about it. Who knows, clients might discover something useful!

- the idea of stretching people’s cognitive capacity by introducing more complexity and reflection via skillful questions; and there are quite a few good coaching questions in this book.

As for the shades of grey:

the book is a great source of reflections; the case studies are instructive, and it is always good to hear a coach share her experiences – even if viewed through the lenses of a model I am not quite sold on.

I can see different ways to make sense of “cognitive depth” or  to work with clients on “self-complexity” (whatever that is)  in a way that would not require me to label them as being in a set stage of development.

For example, the “boundary-pushing questions” mentioned in the book are good questions – but they look like and sound like a good repackaging of questions used in other established models which have been around for a long time, like Cognitive – Behavioral approaches or System Thinking.

There are plenty of tools out there to expand the “cognitive capacity” of clients – from the “ladder of inference” (System Thinking / Senge) to “Logical Levels” (NLP / Dilts) to ways of thinking about complexity (e.g. the Cynefin Model).

If I were to go from grey to dark grey, I would even say that the framework put forth in the book is a good example of the widely used, yet unproven, theories which make up the field of “Leadership Development”. For more on that, check out the excellent book by Barbara Kellerman “The End of Leadership“.

I might write more about it at some point…

Tags: authority, changing on the job, coaching questions, cognitive capacity, constructs, evidence, Jennifer G. Berger, Kegan, ladder of inference, leadership, logical levels, minds, personality, Piaget, Robert Kegan, sense-making, situational, situations, stages of development, system thinking, the end of leadership, theory of adult development, validity cynefin, Walter Mischel

The ICF (International Coach Federation) just released its 2012 Global Coaching Study.

While commissioned by the ICF, the study was actually undertaken by PricewaterhouseCooper.

It is basically a survey, but significant given its worldwide scope and the number of respondents (12,133 valid responses).

You can download the executive summary of the study on the ICF website, >>> HERE <<<

Here are some points that I personally find very interesting:

- a resounding majority of coaches (43% of respondents) identify “untrained individuals who call themselves coaches” as the main obstacle facing the industry. I totally agree with that. I would say that not only this is the obstacle #1, but also it is #1 by a magnitude of 10, i.e. it is 10 times more serious an issue  than any other factor. Personally, I have been so frustrated by the number of untrained individuals who call themselves coaches that I considered re-branding myself – just to distance myself from that crowd. I also think that the main obstacle identified by another 30% of respondents – “marketplace confusion” – is strongly determined by issue #1.  I am happy to see the ICF taking steps in the right direction by changing membership requirements this year.

- I am also happy to see that the majority of respondents (53%) think the profession should be regulated. I am perplexed by the 23% who think it should not (24% have no position on the issue). If any of you readers  think coaching should not be regulated, would you be kind enough to post a comment or send me a note explaining your position? I am asking just out of curiosity…

- as it is clear to anybody who works in this field, the annual revenues earned from coaching show a considerable variation. While the average annual revenue for coaches in North America is US$ 50,400, the median is US$ 29,100. Which means that about half the respondents make less than US$ 29,100 per year from coaching. Something anyone considering coaching as a profession should think about before investing into it.

And what struck you as interesting in this Global Coaching Survey?

Tags: becoming a coach, coaches' income, coaching, coaching as a profession, coaching industry, ICF, ICF Global Coaching Study, ICF Survey, international coaching federation, membership, regulating coaching, untrained individuals

Guest post by Coert Visser

Solution-focused principles and techniques, orginally developed in psychotherapy, have found their way into coaching, over the last decade. While an evidence base of solution-focused brief therapy is beginning to come off the ground, little research is done on the effectiveness of solution-focused coaching (one researcher who is already doing interesting research in this area is Anthony Grant). It is important that an evidence base on solution-focused coaching is built, too. Individual clients, client organizations and society at large rightfully demand that solution-focused professionals not only discover things that work but also justify what they do by scientifically testing their claims.

Standard effectiveness research approaches involve randomized controlled experiments in which the treatment of interest is compared with a reference approach and a control group. A recent review summarizes this type of coaching research, which is still in its infancy. While this approach is indispensable it is not the only useful approach and it is not without weaknesses. For one thing, this type of research requires the existence of generally accepted definitions of the treatments (coaching procedures) that are researched. This type of research comparing coaching approaches does say something about the relative effectiveness of these approaches but does not say much about the relative contribution of the constituent elements of these approaches because these are not examined separately in these types of experiments but in combination with each other.

Research aimed at a micro level of coaching can be an important addition to these standard research approaches. One example is micro-analysis research done by Janet Beavin Bavelas and her colleagues. Micro-analysis research will, in the near future, I predict, be supported by software to analyze language used in coaching conversations. As this type of research will develop a much more nuanced and specific kind of knowledge will emerge about what works and what not.

Survey based research also offers some interesting opportunities to analyze the specific interventions and behaviors of solution-focused coaches. Recently I published such a study: Testing the Association between Solution-Focused Coaching and Client Perceived Coaching Outcomes. I designed a web-based survey and administered it to 200 clients of coaches. The survey consisted of a list of 28 coach behaviors, 14 of which were solution-focused behaviors and 14 of which were behaviors solution-focused coaches would deliberately avoid. I asked clients to describe what their coaches had done and what they had not done (without referring to the solution-focused approach or any other approach, by the way). In addition to that, I asked clients to describe on several dimensions how effective the coaching had been. Solution-focused coach behaviors turned out to be were strongly positively correlated to positive coaching outcomes. Non-solution-focused coach behaviors, on the other hand, turned out to be moderately negatively correlated to positive coaching outcomes.

Then, I used a statistical technique called multiple regression analysis which gave insight into which specific coach behaviors were predictive of coaching success. This showed that the following 10 solution-focused coach behaviors in particular were associated with positive coaching outcomes:

• The coach responded with understanding to what I said (coach understandingness)
• The coach let me decide whether the coaching should be continued or terminated (client continuation choice)
• The coach focused on topics that I found useful to talk about (client topic choice)
• The coach encouraged me to describe how I wanted my situation to become (desired situation description)
• The coach encouraged me to describe what I wanted to be able to do differently (positive future behavior description)
• The coach gave me positive feedback (complimented me on what I had done well) (positive behavior feedback)
• The coach encouraged me to choose which step(s) forward I would to take (client chosen action)
• The coach used the same words as I had used (language matching)
• The coach checked several times whether our conversation was useful to me (client usefulness check
• The coach asked questions about what I had already done that had worked well (exploration of what worked)

The number of non-solution-focused coach behaviors that was predictive of positive outcomes was smaller. Three coach behaviors were, as expected, negatively associated with coaching outcomes:

• The coach told me whether the coaching should be continued or terminated (coach continuation choice),
• The coach gave me negative feedback (criticized me on what I had done wrong) (negative behavior feedback), and
• The coach chose what topics we talked about (coach topic choice).

Surprisingly (and interestingly), two non-solution-focused coach behaviors were, contrary to this study’s expectations, positively associated with coaching outcomes:

• The coach analyzed with me what the causes of my problem might be (problem cause analysis)
• The coach asked questions about when my problems were at their worst (problem peak focus)

I hope this is a good (while modest) beginning of survey based research into the effectiveness of solution-focused interventions in coaching. The details of the study can be found in the full article. Soon, I hope to publish a study into the effects of the coaching approach on coaches themselves

Tags: coaching behaviors, coaching questions, Coert Visser, Evidence-Based, Guest Post, paper, research, Solution-Focused coaching, Survey, What works

Solution-Focus relies on positive feedback – i.e. noticing what is working and going right instead of pointing out what is not working and going wrong.

Even more so with Solution-Focused training: for example, the whole Solutionsurfers’ Brief Coach Training is designed around positive feedback. Exclusively positive feedback. That makes the learning experience unique. At first participants are disoriented – but very quickly they begin to appreciate the empowering nature of positive feedback. Practice session after practice session, each participant’s unique coaching skills develop and evolve, by focusing on what works and ignoring what does not. A process similar to Darwinian Evolution, as pointed out here.

Yet, somehow, not using negative feedback is considered to be a sign of being a wimp. A softie. Out of touch with reality.

Actually, that is quite the opposite.

Everybody can deliver negative feedback. But only expert performers can deliver positive feedback. Because positive feedback is based on tacit knowledge rather than explicit knowledge.

This point has been brilliantly developed by Gary Klein in his latest book “Streetlights and Shadows – Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making” (pages 45-47).

His reasoning:

- “when we try to improve performance, we usually emphasize explicit knowledge more than tacit knowledge”; that is because “it is hard to give people feedback about tacit knowledge”

- so “in giving feedback, we tend to focus on specific procedures”

- but that means “we give feedback about departures from procedures, instead of helping people to notice subtle cues and patterns”.

- conclusion: “we find it easier to give feedback about errors than about skillful actions or about  improvements in mental models“.

So while how to deliver negative feedback is a critical and important skill, delivering positive feedback is an often neglected ingredient for building expert performance.

Noticing what works is an essential part of developing expertise. And you need to be an expert to notice the little things that are working, maybe just a little bit.

Positive feedback is for pros! :-)

Tags: adaptive decision making, Decision Making, expert performance, explicit knowledge, feedback, Klein, negative feedback, noticing clues, positive feedback, solution focused training, solutionsurfers, Streetlights and Shadows, tacit knowledge

Here is my rule-of-thumb regarding “social media”:

- I use this blog to share observations, thoughts, reflections about (Solution-Focused) Coaching, Training and Consulting.

- I use my business FaceBook page http://www.facebook.com/paoloterni to post daily links to articles or blog posts that might be relevant to Coaches,  Therapists, Trainers and Consultants. If interested, just “like” the page and the links will appear in your FB newsfeed.

I decided to break my own guidelines and post here the following link —>  http://lifehacker.com/5867049/nine-stubborn-brain-myths-that-just-wont-die-debunked-by-science

And here is the summary:
Nine Stubborn Brain Myths That Just Won’t Die, Debunked by Science
Brain games will make you smarter! The internet is making you dumber! Alcohol is killing your brain cells! The brain is a mystery we’ve been trying to solve for ages, and the desire to unlock its secrets has led to vast amounts of misinformation. Many of these false notions are more widely believed than the truth. We took our healthy skepticism and a bunch of brain research to find the truth behind some of the most common myths about intelligence and our brains. Here’s what we learned.

Tags: alcohol, Brain, brain games, Debunking, internet, left-brain, memory, Mozart effect, Myths, neuroscience, research, right-brain, science, Skepticism