Leverage Behavioral Science for Coaching That Drives Change
- by Ivan Palomino
Training Industry — Organizations have spent more than $370 billion globally to train their workforce and yet have 70% of employees claiming that they are not prepared with the right skills they need to master their jobs.
Organizations have shifted their learning and development (L&D) priorities toward building the skills learners need to address the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 crisis, namely a lack of agility low employee motivation. To build these skills and behaviors, there needs to be a specific learning approach: an approach that is reliant on using human’s mental power to unlearn previous practices, create processes for self-management and reduce the brain’s natural resistance to change.
Traditional in-classroom training has failed to drive behavior change, as it is based on intensity and knowledge transfer. According to the Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning, learning is a process that is active; builds on prior knowledge; occurs in a complex social environment; is situated in an authentic context; and requires learners’ motivation and cognitive engagement.
Corporate training often tries to convert knowledge into sustainable behaviors, but knowledge retention is not enough to make people want to use what is stored in their brains: This is where coaching becomes essential in its role of guiding and enabling change. It is specifically in the area of change of people’s routines and adoption of new behaviors that the use of behavioral science can optimize the coaching process. We can see this in the examples of influencing behaviors and habits formation, where researchers such as BJ Fogg, a Stanford University professor and behavioral scientist, have made a great contributions.