Neurological Levels

 


It took me quite some time to properly process the lesson and it dawned on me to try and find something familiar or a metaphor, something I can easily relate to, to help summarise my learnings for the webtorial. To help me understand the lesson better in this particular instance, I realised applying this framework in coaching is like trying to “debug” a faulty software code.


Software codes are basically a collection of “instructions” and algorithms that are put together to perform a certain task. Without going into much technical detail, software codes are structured into parts or levels, each part/level is designed to perform a certain function. Some parts/levels need to work with other parts to complete a function, while others may work independently. Collectively, they come together to make the software whole. Like most software (or applications), there is a “user interface” that we interact with, the part that we see, touch and feel, and then there’s the part we don’t see, the inner workings or the code which makes up the software. This kind of sums up my understanding of Neurological Levels. 

To me, coaching with Neurological Levels is like helping a coachee develop an awareness of the “input” they are receiving from their external environment and how that interacts with their “internal software”. And how their “internal software” affects the “output” they produce as a result of this interaction. 

It was immediately apparent to me the level of depth we are able to dive with Neurological Levels and how we can use the framework to guide the coaching process. While we may not know the right level to start the “debugging” process, like debugging software code, we have to look at all levels and oftentimes, we have to “test” the different levels individually in a process of elimination to find the root cause. And I guess the same applies to coaching.

Most programmers find it challenging to debug their own code. The most obvious errors are the hardest to find… but once someone points it out, you just can’t unsee it. I see the framework as something coaches can use to help coachees walkthrough their “internal software” and test it with them, level by level, step by step, to hopefully shine a light on that algorithm or piece of code that doesn’t fit well, and needs some adjustment.

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