South Wales Coaching Network – July

16.08.2017

If you have a brain, you have a bias’

‘We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are’

Implicit or unconscious bias happens by our brains making incredibly quick judgments and assessments of people and situations without us realising. Our biases are influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences.

Laura began the discussion by explaining that unconscious bias is everywhere, including in the coaching space. We thought about how coaches can build awareness of their biases – acknowledging the impact that these unconscious drivers of behaviour may have in their coaching practice.

We talked about how our client’s unconscious biases may also be impacting on their results. We took part in a group visual exercise that demonstrated just how easily we slip into unconscious bias!

Laura then shared the NLP Communication Model and explained how the unconscious mind processes and filters data/information coming in via all our senses (sight, sound etc) – it inherently has and requires bias/pre-existing patterns to function. We discussed how our biases can lead to misunderstanding, as well as missing, distorted or generalised information upon which we automatically react/act on or make decisions.

Becoming aware that many coaching clients have beliefs that limit them – we practiced different techniques to help coachees challenge and change these in order to help them get better results.

We used anchoring to tune into and replicate positive behaviours – this proved a really powerful tool and the difference in our outcomes post conversation was quite significant. We repeated the process to really gain clarity and cement the feeling in our minds, so that we could access the moment with ease.