The Role of Behavior
One way to think about the role of behaviour in an organization is to consider these three interlocked factors for an enterprise’s success: strategy, process and behavior.
Strategy -sets the direction for the enterprise—where it’s going and why.
Work processes -organize the work toward strategic objectives.
Behavior -is the enabler of both strategy and process. It is people’s behaviour—what they say and do—that is either aligned or mis-aligned with strategy and process.
Behavior-based coaching has its foundation in the objective and reliable science of psychology.
The applied behavioral sciences, based on more than half a century of research, provide a method for understanding and addressing the critical behavioural side of professional development. It provides us with a rigorous way to approach the people side of the change process and tells us we can understand and successfully work with behavior if we analyze the factors that influence the behavior.
The principles and procedures of behavior-based coaching have been developed and verified through a combination of many years of rigorous evidence-based psychological principles fused with proven management, leadership and organizational change principles and practice.
Some definitions:
- An Organization -consists of a collective of disparate people (fluid software) and innate resources (hardware) organized towards producing a measurable end result.
- People (the software) -are fluid individuals with different patterns of behavior (thinking and doing).
- Behavior based Coaching Program (a leadership style and people development platform) -is used by the organization's leaders, managers and specialist practitioners to affect sustainable, measurable, positive bottom-line results.
Developing a Behavioral-Based Coaching Plan can provide a relatively quick and cost-effective increase in individual and organizational productivity and well-being. Using industry-proven behavior based coaching models, practitioners can develop a Behavioral Coaching Plan to assist people to develop competence by identifying the key aspects such as; beliefs, values, attitudes, heuristics, mental processes and physical activities etc -that characterize expertise.
The first step is to recognize that developing a behavioral-based coaching program depends on both the rigor with which the
methodology is used and the rigor with which the necessary behaviors are identified and addressed.
A Definition: Behavior based Coaching is a scientific approach whereby professional practice is capable of being justified in terms of sound evidence based upon a process of methodical clinical and industry research, evaluation, and the utilisation of up-to-date systematic research findings to support decisions about practice. Behavior based coaching is a way of distinguishing professional coaching practice grounded in proven science versus the simplistic, unproven coaching approach popularized by the many coaching associations and coach training providers engaged in mass-marketing to a primarily uneducated marketplace.
Some notes on Belief based Coaching or Traditional Coaching:
Belief based coaching is the common and traditional form of coaching. Its guidelines for practices are usually a mix of personal experiences, some basic education about training and professional development, selected incomplete knowledge of coaching practices, and a self-belief in the practitioner’s coaching approach. Any changes in coaching practices usually only occur through a process of self-selection.
The accumulated knowledge of belief-based coaching is subjective, biased, unstructured, and mostly lacking in accountability. Belief-based coaching also includes pseudo-scientific coaching. There are an alarming growing number of pseudo-scientists (versus qualified behavioural scientists) in the coaching industry who are training business coaches. These coaching associations and providers attempt to give the impression of scientific knowledge and utilize fuzzy, unproven coaching processes mislabelled as behavioral coaching. Invariably their knowledge is incomplete and inaccurate resulting in false/erroneous postulations.
Today, belief-based coaching is the foundation of most organizational coaching programs. Many coaching practitioners either are unaware of their level of practice or simply do not want to hear that they require further instructed, more advanced learning.