Coaching Trends: 2022 Predictions

Imagine being able to work with a client in this way – looking at their brain activity and neurological responses to what is happening in their lives or in the workplace and devising strategies to cope better.

Could we see this spilling over into the boardroom? We already have coaches who base their work on neuroscience.

Will it progress usefully from data collection and analysis/ predictive analytics?

What does this mean for us as coaches and what capabilities we need to develop?

Perhaps, we need to flag this on our horizon and start keeping an eye out for potential collaborations.

Just like we use things like Enneagram assessments, etc we may see a future where we will use AI and applied neuroscience as an adjunct to coaching.

I don’t think it’s too great a leap from personality and behavioural assessments to the introduction of technology like EEG’s and galvanic measurements from neuroscience.

Is there a possible opportunity for someone to make this technology more accessible?

6.The 5th Industrial Revolution

This is starting to leak into the 5^th Industrial Revolution.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example based on a prediction about the use of AI by Alan Couzens.

I’m going to change the scenario that he created to that of a business/team.

So you’re a coach working with a team in a business.

In the morning, you wake up to a report on the team giving you info like:

Mary’s sleep quality has been poor for the last few nights. There is a direct correlation between her sleep quality and her ability to make good business decisions. Perhaps you could encourage her to set aside important decisions for another day, or to work more closely with a colleague on making these decisions.

Dave has been exhibiting signs of high levels of stress if we refer to his HRV. Perhaps he needs to focus heavily on mindfulness practice and also taking regular breaks from his desk plus introducing other strategies to reduce cortisol levels in his system.

I think that BIG DATA actually allows for a more humanistic, somatic and human-centred approach to be introduced – although it may take a LOT of convincing for clients to agree to this level of intrusion.

I think this is hugely exciting and filled with enormous possibilities for catapulting the effectiveness of coaching to a new level completely.

It will, however, need to have a whole school of ethics dedicated to this – and apparently this work is in progress in progressive organisations like the ICF.

Neuromining is using neuroscience and behavioural psychology to analyse, understand and influence our behaviour and give us a deeper understanding of our clients.

The Fifth Industrial Revolution will see much more advanced collaborative interactions between humans, machines, processes and systems for maximum performance optimisation.

The World Economic Forum puts it this way: “In contrast to trends in the Fourth Revolution toward dehumanization, technology and innovation best practices are being bent back toward the service of humanity by the champions of the Fifth … In the Fifth Industrial Revolution, humans and machines will dance together, metaphorically.”