Organizations hire leadership development coaches, but many managers soon resume old ways. But what if coaches offered scientific evidence of the brain’s wiring for change and novelty — and ways to leverage that wiring even in resistant people?

That’s Terrence Maltbia’s premise for redesigning the Columbia Coaching Certification Program, a TC-Columbia Business School collaboration that prepares professional coaches of corporate, nonprofit and government clients. “We’re grounding our empirically-based strategies, drawn from academic disciplines including adult learning and development, clinical and counseling psychology and action research, in emerging neuroscience,” says Maltbia, Associate Professor of Practice in Adult Learning & Leadership.

Social neuroscience supports emphasis on client learning rather than a coaching agenda. 'You can encourage compliance, but you can’t legislate commitment.'"

— Terrence Maltbia, Associate Professor of Practice

More than 500 alums have completed the TC-based coaching program’s entire year- long credentialing, undergoing a one-week residential coach intensive, an eight-month, faculty-supervised field-based practicum and an advanced week-long residential coach intensive capped by written and oral exams. Another 800 open-enrollees have completed the front-end intensive.

As the program celebrates its 10th anniversary, and with Columbia’s new Jerome L. Green Science Center focusing on mind, brain and behavior, Maltbia, himself a corporate veteran, sees a rebranding opportunity. With TC Provost’s funding, he’s identifying everyone at Columbia who conducts cognitive, behavioral or social neuroscience research, including Nobelists Eric Kandel and Richard Axel. Social neuroscience supports the program’s emphasis on client learning process rather than a coaching agenda, listening more than talking, facilitating discoveries and turning resistance into teaching moments. “You can encourage compliance, but you can’t legislate commitment,” Maltbia says. For example, a 2014 study in Neuron found that curiosity increased learning and activity in brain regions associated with memory and reward.

Maltbia and his team help students apply such findings. One graduate predicted which managers in her company would disregard accountability training and found that those adopting a “growth mindset” won higher marks from employees.

Which is, as they say in the corporate world, money in the bank.