Let us all be Coach – My approach in changing mental models

Today during SMC meeting, we spoke on having Generative Conversations and the question about Mental Models came about – whether we are able to alter one other’s mental models and how we can go about changing such mental models.

For me, I will start by setting the tone for my team, emphasizing on incorporating in the minds and behaviors of teachers that we need one another to work together as a team so as to enable effective action. Everyone in the team will be a coach! To me, coach teaches in ways that are different from the methods most instructors use. They cajole, praise, flatter, motivate and challenge. I have seen students who accept a far more mocking critique of their shortcoming from a coach than they would from a professor in one of their courses because of this different relationship.

I see coaches setting almost impossible high expectations for everyone and to use whatever strategies they think are necessary to help them reach those expectations. So it is important to show what and how to do to achieve the desired results and not just expecting the results! There should be that conveying of a can-do attitude and support structure to help individuals achieve a higher degree of excellence than they even thought possible. This may start the change in mental model.

However, to keep at it, we should reinforce positive values even while we refuse to accept excuses when things are not going as well. As a middle manager, I hope to bring some of these coaching strategies to my area of responsibilities. In this way, I think it is not just to make the programs better but to make the team members better and more successful at what each of us do!