How Emergenetics Can Change Perspectives: GROW-ing Creativity with Coaching

Contributed by Emergenetics Associate John Yeo

Here’s a question for those who attended the galvanizing Brain Summit 2009: How did the Brain Summit change your perspective?

Here’s one of my favorite take-aways: Deliberately make a connection of subject areas to COLORS! After my session on Creativity, someone asked me, “The tools you shared were great to help me shift my perspectives, but WHERE exactly do I start?”

I am filled with admiration for the Associate who asked this question as she had the courage to seek the first step to being creative! My very simple answer - “Ask yourself, what matters most to you? Start enjoying a conversation with your MPA!”

Perry Lam’s session on Coaching did just that! After introducing the *GROW Coaching Model, we were grouped by MPA and starting brainstorming on questions that best speaks to each of our thinking preference. The best think (oops...note the Freudian slip) to do is simply engage your coachee/ client by first speaking through their preferred thinking preference.

GROW Model (click to view)

Dave Meier, Director of the Center for Accelerated Learning highlighted that shifting into a creative mode starts by being conscious of “where” our thinking originates...and I agree.

In closing, the secret to creating new ideas is really to be more conscious of which Thinking mode we are in. Organize your thoughts and start pacing with the coachee/ client’s preferred thinking color before leading them to diverge by looking from other perspectives (i.e. Change the color of your language)!

*Note: The GROW Coaching Conversation Model was developed by Max Landsberg from his book “Tao of Coaching”