Physics of Performance

Mastering Behavior Science to Drive Team Results
A group coaching program for organizational teams.  

 

The difference between getting up a ladder and getting to the moon is a knowledge of physics. The laws of behavior are the physics of teams. In this course, you’ll begin mastering the application of behavior principles to team performance and communication.

This series blends self-paced online modules with interactive group coaching, ensuring you can apply the concepts to your team and see tangible results. By the end, you’ll enhance your leadership skills and experience improvements in all aspects of your life.

Course Structure

Self-Paced Learning Modules

  • Complete 1-2 hours of online training at your convenience (prior to coaching sessions).
  • Dive deep into the science of practical leadership skills.

Group Coaching Sessions

  • Participate in engaging group sessions to review content.
  • Apply new insights to real-world scenarios within your team.
  • Foster a culture of continuous improvement and fulfillment.

Course Content

Foundations of Behavioral Principles – Learn the basics of operant conditioning, focusing on positive and negative reinforcement. These principles lay the groundwork for effective management, which is crucial for sustained leadership. By mastering these foundational skills, you will enhance team productivity, engagement, and satisfaction.

The Power of Language – Explore the transformative role of language in shaping our reality and interactions. This unit delves into the technical aspects of language, demonstrating how it influences our experiences and behaviors. Through powerful exercises, you’ll learn to harness language to achieve desired results and improve overall well-being.

Mastering Communication – Focus on the critical skill of listening, which is often misunderstood as merely speaking. Learn to meet others where they are, seeing the world from their perspective. By developing this skill, you can create partnerships that solve problems in mutually beneficial ways.

Redefining Leadership – Challenge common misconceptions about leadership in discovering true leadership is not about titles or credentials but about inspiring others to imagine and work towards a meaningful future. Learn to provide leadership in both speaking and listening.

Integrity – THE Foundation of Leadership – Discover how integrity underpins successful leadership. This unit addresses the common issue of disempowerment related to promises and agreements. Learn a new model of interacting with integrity that enhances effectiveness and vitality, transforming accountability into a powerful tool for achieving vision.

Communicating for Growth – Integrate all the practices learned into actionable steps for impactful conversations. Whether dealing with complaints, resolving conflicts, or providing accountability, this unit equips you with the skills to ensure every conversation contributes to growth and improvement.

Getting Started

The results are profound, but the work is challenging.  It isn’t for everyone.  Book an exploratory call to determine team readiness.  Choose a time here.  

About the facilitator

Scott Herbst, Ph.D., BCBA got his doctorate at the University of Nevada, Reno where he studied Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), Relational Frame Theory (RFT), and Acceptance and Commitment Training. His ACT training beyond the classroom includes experiential workshops with Steven Hayes, Ph.D., and Kelly Wilson, Ph.D., two of the authors of the original ACT text. As a graduate student, he facilitated workshops targeting stigma and is a co-author of numerous ACT publications. He has since designed and facilitated dozens of experiential ACT workshops that participants reliably report make a profound difference in areas of personal importance including relationships, career, leadership, family, and leisure.

Logistics, Meeting Dates & Times

This course follows a cohort model with options for live or a-synchronous learning. Live meetings take place on zoom at dates and times listed below. During live meetings, there are opportunities to practice learned skills with other learners. Anyone who participates live will also have access to asynchronous content.

Asynchronous learning is delivered and tracked through content modules via our learning platform. Content is created for an asynchronous experience, with exercises specifically tailored for this platform.

Participants have the option to attend any combination of live and asynchronous but will only earn CE for one. You will have access to all materials for one year, however, must complete continuing education requirements within 6 months of the beginning of the cohort.

Dates and times of open courses

 

January 2025 Series - Wednesday
Live Meeting Times* - Wednesdays 12pm EST / 11am CST / 10am MST / 9am PST
January 15, 22 & 29
February 5, 12, 19 & 26
March 5
*Live attendance is NOT required to earn full CE credit

Register

February 2025 Series - Monday
Live Meeting Times* - Monday 8pm EST / 7pm CST / 6pm MST / 5pm PST
February 24
March 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31
April 7 & 14

*Live attendance is not required to earn full CE credit

Register

Syllabus Sessions:

Session 1 – Introduction and Orientation

In this session learners orient to the course.  We introduce some fundamental properties of the behavior of language, introduce and begin to apply ACT processes.  Learners begin practicing the first fundamental communication skill: reading the feedback people give during communication exchanges.

Objectives:

  1. Participants will be able to explain how mindfulness and willingness relate to the behavioral principle of negative reinforcement.
  2. Participants will be able to explain how values relates to the behavioral principle of positive reinforcement.
  3. Participants will identify two things people do when they are heard and when they are not heard.

Session 2 – Accountability as Empowerment and The Performance Matrix

Here we begin exploring how we relate to accountability and begin applying ACT to move from a view of being accountable as “the right” or “good” way to be, and practice relating to it in terms of workability. This will serve as the basis for providing accountability as a source of freedom and empowerment. We also introduce and begin to work with “The Matrix,” a tool for identifying what matters, the actions that will fulfill that, and the circumstances (including our own thoughts and feelings) that move us away from valued action and rob us of power and aliveness. Learners also practice key communication skills for evoking problem-solving in coaching interactions.

Objectives:

1. Participants will identify some of the predictable outcomes of relating to promises in terms of “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong”.

2. Using the Matrix, participants will complete a self-assessment of one behavior controlled by avoidance and identify one values-consistent action.

Session 3 – Rules and Where They Fail

Here we deepen our work with the Matrix by and investigate the degree to which what we say about the world – our verbal behavior – influences our actions towards and experience of our clients, supervisees, superiors, and selves. We focus on identifying ineffective rules, discovering how they impact our performance, and begin the practices of acting more flexibly towards what matters. Learners will also practice the next component skill of communication – evoking listener feedback.

Objectives:

1. Participants will provide one example of a self-generated rule and describe how it influences avoidance responding as it relates to supervision.

2. Participants will practice evoking listener feedback and identify whether the listener is being heard or not.

Session 4 – The Self

In this session, we explore the fundamental nature of self and engage in powerful exercises to identify the content that makes up who we generally consider ourselves to be. Learners will identify rigid behavioral patterns that emerge around this way of relating to self. Learners will also practice the next aspect of communication – identifying emotional behavior.

Objectives:

1. Participants will explain self-as-content in behavioral terms.

2. Participants will state relationships between their own self-concept behavior and their overt behavior, including situations they move toward and away from.

Session 5 – Turning Outward

We complete our conversation for having conversations for accountability. Then, having dealt sufficiently with what stops us as supervisors, we now turn toward implementing practices to empower others. Learners practice speaking in a values-consistent way as a means to open doors to communication. We also practice relating to others in terms of values and commitment.

Objectives:

1. Participants will practice a conversation to restore a sense of self as being whole and complete.

2. Participants will construct a statement that connects activity in the present to values and commitment.

Session 6 – Being an Environment for Employee Growth

Empowering others is learned behavior. It involves practicing the skills where people deal authentically with their own barriers to performance. In this session, learners put together all communication skills to practice evoking problem-solving behavior.

Objectives:

1. Participants will define listening and identify its effects on speaker behavior.

2. Participants will practice communicating such that a speaker has the experience of being fully heard.

Session 8 – Using the Matrix in Coaching and Moving Forward

Nothing in this course is a magic pill that will make you a great supervisor. What you learned were behaviors. With practice, you will get better. However, what will make practice take hold is an environment that supports you. In this final session, we turn our eye toward creating relationships where these practices will be more natural. We also practice using the Matrix with others to elevate their performance.

Objectives:

1. Participants will practice conversations to identify their own and others’ values.

2. Participants will practice using the Matrix during supervision and coaching conversations.