-and the need for Behavioral Flexibility to achieve our goals..

- Achieving Behavioral Change with validated Neuro-Behavioral Coaching Techniques
(includes extracts from text book 'Behavioral Coaching' by Zeus and Skiffington -  McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing)

Behavioral flexibility and Performance.
If you want the same results, then keep doing what you are doing. A major barrier to improving performance is rigid thinking or habitual responses formed from previous experience. We all need to recognize when to persist and when to adopt a different approach.

Each of us has a set of behaviors which defines us. Too often, we become comfortable acting a certain way and struggle with behaving in a different fashion. How we act is a reflection of where we stand. Think of it like this, what makes a person more effective at what they do?

The Science
Cognitive and behavioral flexibility is a core adaptive function of the executive control system in the human brain. Executive functions include a set of processes that allow for control in “nonroutine situations.” Goal-directed behavior requires a plausible sequence of actions that must be accomplished to achieve it but also an ability to prioritize goals (represent the relative value of various goals at a given time), initiate a goal-directed process, and maintain goal pursuit in the face of unexpected environmental factors. Too much environmental dependency will result in distractibility, a tendency for tasks to be interrupted, and, ultimately, an inability to complete a complex task sequence aimed toward a particular goal. However, one must also be able to discontinue an activity, switching to a different task when appropriate. An excessively rigid adherence to a predetermined behavioral pattern prevents an individual from appropriately responding to changing environmental contingencies.

In most performance tasks impairments of behavioral flexibility account for a significant restriction in the range of self-generated behaviors (reactions, feelings and actions) an individual exhibits leading to a breakdown in task functioning, and in many cases -stress and acceptance of lower levels of accomplishment or failure.

Mental Strength
Perseveration (repeated behavior), in its broadest conceptualization, can occur at a variety of levels of organization from simple motor behaviors -verbal utterances, and perseveration of affect in mood and anxiety disorders. Hence, the need for leaders to be able to flex their style, dependent on the situation. For example; A business faced with new, adverse market conditions, requires a different style to one which was enjoying a profitable, steady state.

The ability to use different thinking strategies and mental frameworks.
Leaders who have behavioral flexibility are more able to incorporate different mental frameworks and thinking strategies into their people management, project planning, decision-making, and the general management of day-to-day work. They can simultaneously hold multiple scenarios in mind and can see when to shift and inject a change in themselves. Behavioral flexibility in a leader indicates nimble, divergent thinking, an interest in developing new approaches, the ability to see and leverage new connections, and the propensity to work well across the organization. These leaders readily learn from experience and recognize when habitual approaches don’t work.

Maintaining behavioral flexibility, i.e., the capacity to shift behavioral strategies in a changing environment, is critical to an individual’s ability to update environmental representations.
Individuals with low behavioral flexibility can suffer higher levels of stress, less growth and optimism. Conversely, individuals with heightened behavioral flexibility exhibit enhanced resilience to change and self-efficacy. Clinical studies have shown that individuals with very low levels of flexibility exhibit increased psychopathology characterized in affective, anxiety, and mental disorders.

The good news is that behavioral flexibility can be heightened in most people to help them progress to their next level of success and beyond.

John, a senior manager in an IT business, described a situation where his boss failed to adapt her leadership style. They had to deliver on a 14-week contract and were 3 weeks behind schedule. John said: “She’s great at recognizing where the problems exist, but she’s not driving the accountability for getting them fixed.” His boss’s high-level view wasn’t enough. At this project-critical stage, she needed to grasp more of the detail – both of the project and of the dynamics occurring within her senior team. She wasn’t adapting her style to the changing circumstances.

As people move into leadership positions and up into senior management, they need to develop a wider set of skills. Each leadership transition needs to come with a parallel shift in self-concept, for example, from an individual contributor to a team leader, or from a functional manager to an enterprise-wide leader.

Behavioral flexibility is ultimately the ability to adjust our behaviors, so that we can deal with different scenarios in the most effective manner possible. To create a safe space that allows all people to shine and be successful requires leaders to develop a flexible behavioral repertoire. 

Today's distinctive leaders set themselves apart, not by adherence to a particular leadership creed, but by the way they behave in a range of challenges. The wider their behavioral repertoire, the more effective their leadership.

Developing behavioral flexibility is not just about knowing what to do and exercising those behaviors skilfully. It’s also about knowing what not to do and avoiding potentially costly mistakes. The humility required to reflect on your own and others’ behavior as a leader and to then change and flex as required is the one element that a leader should never be without.

Behavioral flexibility is about:
- Having the ability to change the actions you have, when they don’t deliver the outcome you are looking for.
- Trying to do things differently when you discover they don’t work, or because you are not getting the results you are looking for.
- Taking the time to step beyond your comfort zone.
- Ultimately, behavioral flexibility is about saying “how can I change my behavioral drivers that will result in a different and improved outcome?”

When you have behavioral flexibility you can change and adapt to different situations; you can expand your mind, improve your decision-making, your tactical thinking, your performance and be flexible in your communication with others but importantly you get better results!

The BOTTOM LINE
It is essential to devote energy and time to be: creative, embark upon challenging tasks, new projects, adventures. It is precisely our ability to flexibly undertake new challenges that is the greatest source of sustainability. Like learning to walk, forcing ourselves out of balance as we step is the only way in which we can move forward. And it is the only way that human flourishing can be enhanced.

It’s simple really. If you are getting the best results you want, then continue to do what you’re doing. If not, it’s time to explore variations on things and reach new levels of success by adapting and adjusting.

Ultimately, it’s about learning who you really are. Developing behavioral flexibility provides a journey of self-discovery for exploring our personalities, our potential, our lives, and the human condition.
 

HOW TO INCREASE BEHAVIORAL FLEXIBILITY

Flexible / Modifiable Behavior versus Fixed Behavior
Today’s behavioral science has confirmed that Emotion feelings constitute the primary motivational component of mental operations and behavior. One of the major qualities of emotional drivers of behavior is its flexibility, which contrasts with the rigidity of the small number of stereotyped, fixed behaviors formed by reflexes. Emotion-driven behavior has the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with a range of interchangeable, adaptive, emotions in a manner that is more preferable.

By monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions we can generate a whole range of results depending upon which emotion driver we select to use. This includes the regulation of one's own feelings (the expression of our emotions).

Behavioral flexibility is all about modulating one's state or behavior in a given situation – for example the subjective experience (feelings), cognitive responses (thoughts), emotion-related physiological responses (for example heart rate or hormonal activity), and emotion-related behavior (bodily actions or expressions).

Today, there is a “new alliance” between the behavioral sciences, neuroscience and psychotherapy. The result is Next Gen Coaching sweeping across the global organizational / business landscape.

Be part of the future
Today’s next generation coaches surpass yesterday’s first-generation coaches knowledge, skills and practice standards.

The Behavioral Coaching Institute’s courses are acknowledged as the global leaders in Next Generation Coaching.

Behavioral focused coaching Change Models and Tools
By using the latest human performance psychology from the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology the Institute’s students learn how to assist all people, in all positions to refine their mindset, emotional control, neuro-behavioral patterns and way of thinking.

The Behavioral Coaching Institute (established 1994 -world's first professional coach training School)
The Behavioral Coaching Institute’s (BCI's) internationally, recognized Coach training courses meets the critical needs for people development practitioners to be trained (via fast-tracked, Self-Study/E-Learning course format) in the use of a range of validated, reliable, neuro-behavioral change models, tools and techniques with a user-friendly, coaching delivery model.

The Behavioral Coaching Institute’s range of specialist courses include; easy-to-follow, accelerated, step-by-step, intervention protocols and an extensive, proprietary Behavioral Development ToolKit. Measured, sustainable positive results are generated by clients of our graduates typically within just two to three, short coaching sessions.