Meyler Campbell Masterclass with Carol Braddick pushes the boundaries of Technology in Coaching.

Carol Braddick Masterclass

Rarely is the Meyler Campbell community stunned into silence.  The Carol Braddick Masterclass this week on coaching and technology did it: some of the things Carol said “shocked” one seasoned attendee, another stated, “I’ve been on a roller coaster right through this afternoon”, while three days after the event another added that their “head is still spinning!”  What caused the intent silence, and occasional stifled gasps?  Seventy-four comprehensive slides, three intensive yet practical hours, firmly set in our real world of leadership coaching – not possible to precis, but let’s try and give at least a few glimpses.

Carol spoke on three topics: Apps; People Analytics; and AI.

Apps

Some highlights included:

• 7 Guidelines for using mobile health apps (applicable to using coaching apps with our clients) from Dr. Margaret Morris, from her time as Senior Researcher at Intel, the overall theme being the need to integrate a useful app within the coaching relationship, and the client’s context. It won’t do the work on its own, but it can supplement ours, e.g. productivity apps can keep the momentum going between sessions (and the coach informed of progress – avoiding that feeling where you turn up for the next session and have no idea what has happened.)
• One app (the IBM ACE app) which among other things enables employees to give and receive fast anytime feedback has a ‘check tone’ button – which gives the user information (based on Watson) on the potential impact of their feedback.
• Practical tips from the Time Well Spent movement, to minimise the disruptive impact of technology – e.g. customise vibration so you can tell if the incoming is from automated text or a human; and clearing the first page of your phone (so impulsive time-devouring clicks are slightly less easy)
• April 2018 research study results presented at the American Psychological Association (APA)’s Technology Mind and Society Conference – study participants were randomly assigned to receive their notifications as usual / 3 times a day / or never – the 3 x p.d. group reported improvements in attention; stress; perceived productivity; happiness; control.  (One of the audience gasps was when Carol reported Microsoft MyAnalytics research that average inbox checking is now 30 times per hour.  Average workers spend 28% of their time managing email, have 8 windows open at once, and are interrupted every 3 minutes – coaching clients often have an ‘OMG moment’ when they see their personal data, and can implement changes.)
• Carol also covered new work on user-centric design for apps; a quality seal for apps; and a movement seeking recognition of new ‘human rights for the neurotech age’ including the right to opt out from having one’s mental state altered without consent; the ability to prevent illegitimate access to one’s brain; protection from potential harm e.g. ‘hacking’ of a neuro-device, etc. If you are unsure as to what Carol means by neurotech, it can be referred to as using the increasingly available DIY consumer devices for brain sensing.

This triggered a flurry of tips shared within the audience over coffee at the break – e.g. coaches handling acutely sensitive client information, should be aware that Siri and Alexa are always listening – as is every modern television set, which all have microphones.  Switching things off is obvious, but it’s not easy – if you switch Siri off someone said, it then switches itself on at individual sub-app below, and you have to go through and switch all them off as well.

People Analytics

Throughout, Carol advocated no particular point of view, neither ‘techie’, nor alarmist, she simply presented the facts as they are now – everything she showed us is happening out there already.  She emphasised that while there is much to be vigilant about, there can also be valuable insights.

For example, People Analytics, where data from employees (from email, wearables, intelligent badges tracking movements etc) enables data-driven decision-making.  There have been outcries in organisations where data-generating badges were introduced insensitively.  Yet the data this generates can also yield insights into divisions or areas within firms that receive less attention, hidden gender disparities etc.  One learning in using the data is to convert it into ‘storytelling that generates insights’.  One organisation combined the people analytics data with data from staff wearables, spotted that the engineering team was getting 2 hours less sleep a night compared with the previous quarter, and intervened to schedule fewer late night meetings with China.  Carol felt it was also important to note that while it might seem OTT, the next time an upgrade or install fails, it could be that the team was sleep deprived and failed to catch the glitch before it went live.

Many organisations are now using network analysis – coaches should ask if this is in place (it is, in more firms than we think, but HR and clients may be unaware of it).  If so, it enables simple measurement of coaching effectiveness: if ‘personal impact’ or reach are the coaching topic, pre- and post-coaching tracking improvement in clients’ networks within and outside their firms provides instant feedback.  Carol showed an example of a network analysis tool that converted the data into a TrustScore (compiled from the firm’s big data) mapping the trust individual employees were building or losing over a four-month period.  Another use of the data, is to generate personalised ‘learnscapes’: coaches often suggest books, TED talks, etc to their clients – but an algorithm can do it more accurately, and make suggestions from a wider resource of courses, the organisation’s mentor and coach network, books, podcasts, blogs, people (internal and external), groups (internal and external), and at precisely at the time the client wants it.

Data is also generating decisions into who ‘gets’ an external coach; feeding into evidence-based coaching (baseline, goals, progress and evaluation); and has potential insight into coachability; the best internal coach for a client; potential ‘flight risk’ (i.e. signals that the employee is considering leaving the firm); and how good the manager coaches actually are.

So coaches who currently ask about 360, psychometrics, interviews etc at the start of a coaching relationship, might soon need to ask, how coachable is your client?  What tools and data are available that could be potentially useful given the purpose of the coaching?

Coaching itself might be reconfigured – if the coaching topic is which global matrix relationships need attention, then the leader’s network analytics are relevant.  Carol also gave us a vivid picture of the use of Virtual Reality (VR) sessions in coaching, where clients are able to ‘walk through’ the web of their actual relationships within their world, and see where some are strong and some are weak.

AI

BetterUp raised $26 million in March 2018, its second funding round, to ‘democratize and enhance coaching’ with AI.  They are having success with a ‘mobile first’ offer to the middle market that generally doesn’t have budget for our fees, working with human coaches and using AI to customize content for coaches to share with their clients.

Carol shared examples and photos of how digital coaching devices are being built now both as pure play (no human coach!) and for use by human coaches with their clients.  Think coachbots, but smart – and they’re being taught empathy, including how to recognise clients’ micro-emotions, more perceptively than we can, and of course without flagging.)  In conclusion, Carol made a ‘call to action’, encouraging the audience to support advocates of #techforgood such as Time Well Spent; join conversations on codes of ethics on AI, privacy, and consent; and help buyers understand the pros and cons, navigate market choices, and set expectations among employees.

The survey data on the participants which she shared at the beginning showed few of us are in the ‘early adopter’ category, but she offered us the new perspective of being ‘fast followers’ and several in the audience were sufficiently intrigued to ask her afterwards for more information on how we could do this.  Watch this space!