Could behavioural neuroscience be the answer to managing your career in the economic downturn? I recently spent a weekend on a 'retreat' organised by The Mangrove, a company directed by two professional coaches, Marie de Guzman and Damon Newman. Their approach to supporting career and personal change is based on the idea of 'brain plasticity', which refers to the way that new ways of thinking lead to changes to the neural activity of the brain.
This apparently is needed for sustainable change in our thinking, behaviour and problem solving. It was previously thought that only children's brains had this plasticity but now evidence shows adults do too, so there is hope for all of us. There is no way those of us uninitiated in behavioural neuroscience can assess its validity for a career development weekend, but it is a useful metaphor to show that to change you need to reinforce new behaviour over a long time frame.
The Mangrove runs its retreat weekends to stimulate brain plasticity through creative thinking and activities include a cooking workshop with a top chef, sports coaching on a golf range, a financial clinic, one to one coaching and even a flower arranging lesson. There is a dedicated chef and sommelier and you get to sample wines normally only available in the best London restaurants.
But was it more than a luxury weekend break with some coaching thrown in? While I was unconvinced that the theory behind brain plasticity could really be so easily translated into a set of group activities, I found the event helpful, fun and at times inspiring, and potentially useful for people who need a change of direction in their life or career and who are struggling to know where to start.
Comments (3)
Posted by Mike Aitken | December 3, 2008 12:44 PM
Looking at this issue from a Cognitive Behavioural perspective the concept of brain plasticity is not a new one. Cognitive Behavioural Coaching helps to change the way people think and in turn this changes the emotional response and subsequent behaviour over the longer-term. All of this is substantiated in the known research in neuroscience.
What isn’t clear from this review is how delegates are helped to understand and analyse the way they think and behave. There is no point simply exposing individuals to new experiences unless those experiences are used to uncover the cognitive and behavioural processes the individual engages in. It is only by being able to understand these and then develop appropriate strategies to overcome self-defeating thinking and behaviour that effective long-term changes can be brought about.
Posted on December 3, 2008 12:44
Posted by Gladeana McMahon | December 3, 2008 12:46 PM
Looking at this issue from a Cognitive Behavioural perspective the concept of brain plasticity is not a new one. Cognitive Behavioural Coaching helps to change the way people think and in turn this changes the emotional response and subsequent behaviour over the longer-term. All of this is substantiated in the known research in neuroscience.
What isn’t clear from this review is how delegates are helped to understand and analyse the way they think and behave. There is no point simply exposing individuals to new experiences unless those experiences are used to uncover the cognitive and behavioural processes the individual engages in. It is only by being able to understand these and then develop appropriate strategies to overcome self-defeating thinking and behaviour that effective long-term changes can be brought about.
Posted on December 3, 2008 12:46
Posted by Steve Miller | December 3, 2008 12:47 PM
As business confidence plummets, businesses cut cost and directors protect revenues, I think there are more urgent training and development interventions required rather than for what I consider to be a luxurious escape from life. Professionals are better advised to crank up their business skills rather than pussy footing around cooking and playing a bit of sport. Such an initiative is great in the good times but I am afraid the focus now has to turn to developing one’s commercial acumen. I cannot see this being at the top of the people development agenda for a few years to come.
Posted on December 3, 2008 12:47