How is PerfectCoaches Brain-based?

If you check out the wide variety of products in the “learning and performance ecosystem,” each one, be it an LMS, a coaching tool, or a performance management system, relies on the brain because that is where complex cognitive tasks are performed.

What sets PerfectCoaches apart is that the focal point is not content, not the process for delivering content (in a course or in a performance review), but behavior—what the brain helps a person do.  For purposes of this blog post, we will refer to people using PerfectCoaches as team members, or, collectively, the PerfectCoaches team.

PerfectCoaches was built from the ground up on the principles of human cognition that make “self-managed operant learning” possible. The term “self-managed” means that, instead of passively accepting the fact that their behavior is “controlled” by the antecedents (“cues,” “triggers”) and consequences (“rewards,” “punishment,” “reinforcement”) of their actions, team members become mindful of the antecedents and consequences of their behavior in daily life. By reinforcing this mindfulness via feedback to Journal entries, PerfectCoaches helps put the learner in control of what they do.

How does the method work in practical terms? The foundation is self-awareness, behavioral focus, and feedback. 

• First, self-awareness is increased by a series of questions (including “Who am I?” “What do I do?” “How do I change?”) that each team member quickly answers to take a “snapshot” of the person they are and the person they want to become. These questions are the “Perfect Coaches,” meaning that asking and answering these basic questions throughout life creates an inner dialog that helps an individual become the person they want to be. The questions are the coaches and the coaches are the questions.
• Next, team members focus on one specific behavior.  This can be a skill, a habit, or one of the “best practice behaviors” discussed in the book Life’s 7 Perfect Coaches. By whatever name, it is something that they do. Each day they are mindful of the triggers and rewards in the environment that drive the behavior. Team members assess they own success using the online Journal created at PerfectCoaches.com or our App.
• Feedback from a Motivation Coach reinforces journaling, which in turn sustains the mindfulness that brings behavioral change.

This learning is encoded in the brain. The precise process through which this occurs is likely a combination of the action of neurotransmitters and physical changes to brain structures themselves, and in some sense, this doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the PerfectCoaches emphasis on specific behaviors helps the brain perform that function more effectively.  That’s how PerfectCoaches is brain-based.