Coaching High Performance through State Change
When we discuss high performance in organizations we are usually referring to more effective, more efficient work that generates higher productivity. For an individual this can include lower stress, higher creativity or better time management. Interpersonally, high performance might entail improved communication, better teamwork or more harmonious relationships.
In this article, I’ll share the journey of my client, John*, as he works to enhance his work performance by managing his state. John is a clinical psychologist seeking support from a coach as he prepares for an important meeting at work that will involve a highly confrontational conversation.
Under pressure, John tends to stutter, clam up, sweat profusely and sometimes become physically ill. His goal is to manage his state more effectively. He’ll achieve this goal through a process of making physical, mental and biochemical changes that cascade back down to higher performance. In other words, he’ll work toward achieving what psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi termed the flow state.
Accessing the Internal State
My first step is to support John in understanding how his state is created. States are the result of physical inputs (diet, exercise, oxygenation, posture, dress), mental processes (perceptions, filters, stereotypes, memories, beliefs, inner dialogue) and biochemistry (hormones, neuropeptides, drugs). John’s state and his experience of confrontation are not serving him well. If he can change his state he can change his outcomes. He can achieve a temporary state change by changing physical inputs, mental processes or biochemistry.
Experience It: Pause and think about something that makes you feel sad. Hang your head as you do so. Next, lift up your head. Smile broadly and laugh out loud. You’ll likely find that it’s harder to retain the feeling of sadness when your head is high and you’re wearing a huge grin.
As John works on becoming increasingly aware of his state, we role-play confrontational conversations. I support him in identifying strategies for changing his mood quickly and easily—by recalling fond memories, for example, or by gently applying pressure at the spot where his wrist forms a crease with his hand (an acupressure technique that helps relieve anxiety and tension).
Experience It: Recall a happy conversation that you had recently with a loved one. Tune in to how these memories impact your overall state. If sensory anchors help “trigger” your memories, listen to a song or find a fragrance that evokes happy memories.
Moving Toward Permanence
In our second session, I introduce John to the concept of a circle of excellence. I ask him to imagine a circle on the ground in front of him. He imagines a past experience where he had great rapport and good conversational state. Then, he steps into that state as he steps into the circle. He is right there, in the moment. We do it again and the second time I ask him to add in any other resource he needs (feelings, sensations, beliefs, information, visual cues, a metaphor). Now, when he steps into the circle, his performance state is heightened.
We repeat this a few more times until he is sure it’s “all there” and then he tests its literal portability by doing the exercise in another room. Finally, we test its potential application to a scenario in the near future; namely, the upcoming meeting where he knows there will be a confrontation. John imagines the confrontation and, just before his stress level peaks, I invite him to step into the circle. To his surprise, the stress dissolves. He is amazed at his own ability to make that happen simply by creating state changes.
The next day, John is able to take his new high performance state to work with him. There, he steps into it and handles the confrontation beautifully. It changes his confidence forever.
Automating the Actions
John now has a designer state and a corresponding set of actions (triggers) to access it. The more he practices, the more routine this reaction to stress will become, running like an automated program.
Research has shown that more than 90 percent of our daily actions are unconscious. This is a fabulous thing about being human. We’re able to take highly complex tasks, break them down, learn them systematically like little programs, and then submerge them into the unconscious until they are triggered by our circumstance or environment.
John has a new and improved “confrontation” program with a higher performance state attached to it. However, the applications of these state change techniques can go beyond workplace confrontations to impact our clients’ overall well-being. General practitioner Lewis Walker, M.D., has applied the concept of building high performance states to collapse his patients’ old response patterns, thereby improving their recovery.
Looking Ahead
John is now able to “do confrontation” in the workplace better, but this one circle of excellence, built for difficult conversations, may not serve him when it comes to a making a board presentation or managing his team’s performance. These situations come with new triggers and different embedded programs and corresponding states. John will need to access different states to enhance his performance in these situations.
However, he can apply the same strategies that he learned during our coaching conversations, making adjustments to his physical inputs and environment, tapping into fond memories or mental processes, being aware of the biochemical changes, and creating a circle of excellence that he can step into when faced with a new professional challenges. He’ll be able to carry these tools with him, long after our coaching relationship ends.
As John begins applying these new strategies on his own, he also discovers that our work together has had other, more subtle, benefits. The employees John works with observe his increased confidence and during a staff meeting they ask how they can go about initiating the same changes in their own work lives. He brings this question back to me, and I partner with him in creating a plan to “pay forward” the benefits of coaching by teaching the team leaders in his department exercises and actionable strategies for enhancing their own performance through state change. Although he is not a coach himself, John is now a leader using coaching skills to support the performance of his team.
As coaches working directly with executives and teams—each steeped in their own, distinctive organizational cultures—we must be aware of the way unconscious programs fire on environmental, sensory and physical triggers and carry state with them. We aim to help our clients become more aware of their state and how it comes to be. We show them they can temporarily affect their state at will and give them tools to build more permanent change to their internal programs. If they learn to control their state they will control the outcomes.
*Name has been changed.