The CREATE Coaching Framework

How to Establish a Learning Mindset and Culture of Continuous Improvement

What if something is too good?

What if the list of benefits is so long that it’s difficult to find a niche?

These are challenges faced by ENHANCE as a result of the broad range of positive outcomes that it delivers. Although it has been used by organisations from within lots of different sectors, we are often asked about how it will specifically benefit users from a new organisation or sector.

Brain health improvements and enhanced cognitive skills sound like things worth having but they are not that attractive to most people or budget holders within companies.

How will this benefit me in the real world?

What is the direct outcome for my organisation?

We faced these questions when we first introduced the programme to schools and the education sector. Replicating gold standard research done elsewhere with significant improvements in brain health and cognition were not enough. We needed to demonstrate the impact that these outcomes had on school performance measures such as learning behaviours and academic progress.

(As a side note, children’s mental health improvements are also insufficient to justify financial investments from school budgets, at least in the UK. Financial pressures mean that schools are often unable to invest in these proven solutions because they have to prioritise their core service offer of teaching and learning. This may change in the future when there is wider recognition and prioritisation of the neurological conditions needed for effective learning by all children.)

The Evolve team has been wrestling with this bespoke corporate benefit challenge over the past few months. Like is often the case, a solution was right there in front of us.

A key element of ENHANCE is the mentoring provided, either externally by Evolve staff or internally by trained colleagues. As well as supporting progress through personalised neurocognitive development programmes, ENHANCE mentors also help participants to apply learning and cognitive enhancements to specific behaviours that they would like to change (personally, professionally or both).

Within business settings, these behaviour change goals can be linked to individual, team or organisation-wide KPIs or objectives. ENHANCE Mentors work with participants to implement these continuous improvement goals over the course of the programme.

In some cases, participants opt to address different goals each week, whilst others focus on achieving one larger goal over the 12 week duration. ENHANCE Mentors have developed a coaching framework called CREATE to help their participants successfully achieve these objectives:

C – Clarify: What is an improvement that you would like to make? Why is this important and what are the benefits?

R – Rationalise: What information do you need to achieve this goal? e.g. analysis, data, research, facts and/or figures.

E – Execute: What is your plan for achieving this goal? Outline the steps that you will take.

A – Associate: Who is already involved? Which influencers and/or decision makers do you need to engage or avoid?

T – Think: Is it meeting your improvement objectives? How will you know if you are on track?

E – Enhance: How can you make it even better? What will you do next to make further improvements?

These prompts are included in a weekly online journal that participants are encouraged to complete at the start of each week. By the end of the 12 week programme, employers and programme sponsors now have access to a raft of improvements that have been made within their organisation. These tangible outcomes provide further justification for this workforce investment, alongside the wellbeing, cognitive and performance benefits that are already well evidenced.

As corporate training continues to evolve as we adjust to the post pandemic hybrid working environment, CPD is no longer bound to “away-days”, long commutes and overnight accommodation. Ideally, development opportunities should involve on-demand asynchronous elements (e.g. reading material, pre-recorded video content) as well as synchronous (in-person or remote) opportunities for discussion and sharing. ENHANCE Mentors coordinate regular group discussions with participants so that they may share and reflect on the progress they are making with their improvement goals.

We have known for some time that real learning occurs “on-the-job” with the impact of corporate training workshops and formal qualifications only having limited impact. With the CREATE coaching framework, ENHANCE provides the structure required to establish learning mindsets and a culture of continuous improvement that will benefit every organisation from all industry sectors.

About the Author

John Bishop

John has worked in the education and professional development sectors for over 25 years. His health mentoring programmes have benefited thousands of people in schools, colleges, universities and workplaces and he continues to pioneer new ways of enhancing learning, wellbeing and performance outcomes.