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Denial
"I have plenty of time--I'll get it done this weekend!"
Anger
"Dammit, it's way too nice out to stay inside and work--I'm outta here!"
Bargaining
"I'll get started as soon as I clean the house. How can I write surrounded by all this clutter?"
Depression
"Why did I ever say yes to this project? I'm an idiot."
Acceptance
(Sighs, sits down and opens laptop.)
Photo by Thomas Abbs. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
"We come from the stars; we're not made of microchips." -Erica Peng
We all require some degree of what I'll call romance in our lives. I'm not necessarily referring to romantic love for another person, although some relationships certainly qualify. I'm talking more broadly about any passionate yearning for someone, someplace, something, some way of being that fulfills us in a way that's hard to understand, let alone explain to others. Some romances may be logical on a certain level, but ultimately they are their own justification.
But as uniquely fulfilling as romance can be, it's also insufficient. We have to balance the romantic with its converse, the practical. Because romances justify themselves, they can consume vast amounts of resources as we pursue them, but practical things must meet a different standard. They must be justified by the returns they generate in exchange for our investment of resources (e.g. time, money, effort, attention). And as in any healthy market, these exchanges are a sign of value creation on both sides, and, at their best, a source of meaning and purpose.
When our lives are too airily romantic, we may be free to choose our path, but we lose traction and fail to make any actual progress. But when our lives are too stolidly practical, we carve out ruts that become impossible to escape, and although we're making steady progress we can't change course even when we're headed in the wrong direction.
There's no balance that's right for everyone; we all have to find our own level. But it's important to be aware of the internal and external forces in our lives--formative experiences, mental models of what's desirable or necessary, obligations and commitments (both real and imagined)--that might pull us away from our optimal balance in one direction or another.
My dad likes to joke that I've "tacked my way through life," and (although I can't stand being in a boat) it's an apt metaphor. I've pursued some major romances--leaving college to go to art school, following a girl to New England, packing three careers into 16 years, and eventually leaving management to launch a coaching practice. And at alternate intervals I've made some very practical decisions--leaving art school to go back to college, going into management to gain hands-on experience, getting an MBA, and returning to Stanford to join the business school's coaching staff. (I also married the girl, which was both romantic and practical.)
I haven't taken any daunting leaps in a while, and I certainly don't feel that I'm in a rut, so it's possible that in my 40s I've found my optimal balance. (Not that I've been in a hurry--as Seneca wrote, "It takes the whole of life to learn how to live.") I know I'm unusually privileged in that my work as a coach is both a romantic passion--a true vocation, a life's work, not a job--and a practical profession that pays the bills. But I don't take anything in the present for granted, because we all continue to change even when we think we're done. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this feeling of practical romance.
Update: That last line strikes me as too pat. I am privileged to enjoy a certain balance in my work as a coach--it fulfills my romantic desires to make a difference in the world, to connect with people and to feel a sense of meaning and purpose, while also meeting my primary practical needs. And yet I don't feel quite at peace, either. I'm restless by nature--I tend to "repot" myself every seven years, and it's not lost on me that I'm in my seventh year back at Stanford. I know I'm not in a rut--at least not the sort of rut that's prompted me to take those major leaps noted above--because coaching does feel like my life's work. It occurs to me that I don't want anything different--and in that sense I have found the right balance between the practical and the romantic--but I do want more. Of what, I'm in the process of discovering.
The coach in me can't help but ask: Where are you in all this? What are your romantic yearnings? How are you fulfilling them? How are you neglecting them? What are your practical needs? And how are you fulfilling (or neglecting) them? How does the current balance between the two feel? If you could change something, what would it be? What's holding you back?
Thanks to my friend and colleague Erica Peng for the conversation that led to this post.
Photo by Bill Mill. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
@StanfordBiz posed an interesting question over the weekend:
In 5 words or fewer, what does "power" mean to you?
I define power (and seek to exercise it) differently in three specific contexts: Within myself, in a relationship with another person, and in a group:
1. Power within myself is the ability to Express AND regulate my emotions.
As I've noted over the years, emotions are critical to effective performance and reasoning, among many other tasks. And much of the work I've done to improve my own effectiveness, as a coach and simply as a person, has been focused on becoming more skilled both at expressing my emotions, so that my impact is aligned with my intentions, and at regulating my emotions, so that while feeling them fully I choose when and how to express them in order to meet my needs. As you might imagine, this is an imperfect process at best, and I am most definitely a work in progress.
2. Power in a relationship is being Open to each other's influence.
In 2008 I defined "interpersonal power" as "the ability to modify another person's state," and while that still seems true, it also seems insufficient. Someone with power over me may modify my "state," i.e. my external condition, without affecting my attitude, beliefs or feelings. This is how ineffective leaders so often fail: they obtain compliance without actually changing anyone's mind, and so their "power" extends only as far as their ability to monitor and police. Real interpersonal power exists only when any changes we seek to effect in another person are persistent, and that happens only when both parties are truly open to each other's influence.
3. Power in a group is feeling Free to speak my truth.
A group's power is an aspect of its overall culture, not a function of its leadership. A powerful group is one in which every member feels free to voice their perspective, even--and especially--when the leadership is ineffective. A group in which members feel prohibited from speaking up will inevitably weaken, no matter how strong its leadership. And while effective leaders will support a culture that encourages members to speak their truth, each member will ultimately have to exercise that power for themselves.
Photo by Maria Ly. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
I'm not well-read in the classics, but a few pieces have been important sources of meaning to me over the years--most notably Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. There are a number of concepts in Stoic philosophy that I find relevant in my work as a coach--and in my personal life: acceptance of limitations and failure, resilience in overcoming challenges, humility in success.
In my ramblings I've come across a number of references to Seneca's essay, On the Shortness of Life, and the other day I decided to finally look it up and read the whole thing.
Damn--talk about a wake-up call. It really stirred me up, and while it's too early to say just what impact it'll have on my life, it's safe to say I'll be re-reading it. A few of the passages I found most striking are below, and you can find the complete text at the Forum Romanum. (Also, here's a longer series of excerpts [PDF].)
“On the Shortness of Life,” Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Translated by John W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library, London: William Heinemann, 1932
1. The majority of mortals, Paulinus[1], complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live... It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it...3. ...No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal... What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last... You will hear many men saying: "After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties." And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!...
7. ...[E]verybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is busied with many things...since the mind, when its interests are divided, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn... It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die...
8. I am often filled with wonder when I see some men demanding the time of others and those from whom they ask it most indulgent. Both of them fix their eyes on the object of the request for time, neither of them on the time itself; just as if what is asked were nothing, what is given, nothing. Men trifle with the most precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is an
incorporeal thing, because it does not come beneath the sight of the eyes, and
for this reason it is counted a very cheap thing—nay, of almost no value at all...
9. Can anything be sillier than the point of view of...those who
boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order
that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live!
They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is
the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it
snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest
hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes today…
All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightaway!...
20. And
so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose
name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the
price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one
year reckoned by their name[2]... Meantime, while they rob and are being robbed, while they break up each other's
repose, while they make each other wretched, their life is without profit,
without pleasure, without any improvement of the mind. No one keeps death in
view, no one refrains from far-reaching hopes; some men, indeed, even arrange
for things that lie beyond life—huge masses of tombs and dedications of public
works and...ostentatious funerals. But, in very truth, the funerals of such men
ought to be conducted by the light of torches and wax tapers,[3]
as though they had lived but the tiniest span.
[1] When this essay was written—around A.D. 49—Paulinus was praefectus annonae, the official who managed Rome’s grain supply, and an important civic figure. He is believed to have been a close relative of Seneca's wife.
[2] The Roman year was dated by the names of the two annual consuls.
[3] i.e., as if they were children, whose funerals took place by night
Photo by kris krüg. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
An opportunity presents itself. It's intriguing, but you're not sure if you should take it. So frame it this way:
1) What will this allow me to do that I can't do now? (And what am I willing to give up in exchange?)
2) What will this prevent me from doing that I would miss? (And what am I not willing to give up?)
Photo by Petros Pevel. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
If I were to distill the work that I do as a coach and experiential educator down to its essence, it would consist of helping people perform three tasks:
1) Learn to access our emotions more fully, express emotions to others more effectively, and allow ourselves to become emotionally "flooded."
2) Learn to manage ourselves more effectively, interact productively with others and make better decisions while experiencing strong emotions.
3) Learn to de-escalate strong emotions when flooded and find efficient and healthy ways of soothing ourselves.
There's an obvious arc to this emotional journey, one that involves pushing ourselves to reach new heights, navigating those peaks under difficult conditions, and safely returning to lower altitudes. Looked at from this perspective, coaching (and experiential learning more generally) can be seen as emotional mountaineering. I help my clients and students make this journey by traveling alongside them and experiencing it with them--I suppose I'm an emotional sherpa :-)
This metaphor may make sense if you've done meaningful work with a coach or in an experiential learning environment--and if not, I imagine it prompts some questions:
Why so much emphasis on emotions?
The huge gap between the role emotions actually play and how they're commonly understood would be amusing if it didn't have such negative consequences. The popular view is that emotions are irrational impulses that cloud our judgment, and we need to repress them in order for rational thought to prevail. But recent neurological research has made it quite clear that emotions are an essential element in the reasoning process. As USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio wrote in 1994 in his influential book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain,
[H]uman reason depends on several brain systems, working in concert across many levels of neuronal organization, rather than on a single brain center. Both "high-level" and "low-level" brain regions...cooperate in the making of reason.
The lower levels in the neural edifice of reason are the same ones that regulate the processing of emotions and feelings, along with the body functions necessary for an organism's survival... Emotion, feeling and biological regulation all play a role in human reason. [p xvii]
More specifically, emotions allows us to make decisions much more efficiently than would be possible through logic alone. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux of NYU notes in The Emotional Brain that the neurological pathways that process emotions are literally twice as fast as those that process cognitions.
This isn't to say that our emotions never lead us astray; of course they do, particularly strong negative emotions such as fear or anger--see below. LeDoux calls the emotional pathways in the brain a "quick and dirty processing system," one whose signals can readily be misinterpreted. But if we habitually repress our emotions we never improve our ability to discern the signal from the noise, to determine which emotional responses are helpful in a given set of circumstances and which are counterproductive.
Feeling our emotions more fully also allows us to express them more effectively with others. Emotions are the levers of influence, and our ability to inspire, comfort, motivate, or threaten is dependent on our ability to tap into and convey the right emotions in the right way at the right time.
All this work is challenging enough when we're calm and reflective; it's infinitely more difficult when we're hurt, angry, upset or excited--this is why it's important to allow ourselves to become emotionally "flooded," so that we can practice these skills under duress.
What do you mean by "flooding"?
"Flooding" is a term employed by the social psychologist and therapist John Gottman to describe the condition of heightened emotional arousal that creates a sense of overwhelm, typically occurring when we're subjected to criticism or feel attacked in some way.
We experience flooding as a host of physiological symptoms--such as rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, shallow breathing, or sweaty palms--that result from increased levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain, most notably adrenaline and cortisol. These are the biological markers of a "threat response," or what's often called a "fight-or-flight" reaction, that usually accompany strong negative emotions.
Executive coach David Rock has made an extensive study of the implications of recent neuroscience research for organizational life, and his work highlights three findings with special relevance here: First, our brains respond to social situations that we perceive as threatening in the same way that we respond to literal threats to our physical safety. Second, we experience these social threats most frequently at work. And finally, when we're experiencing a threat response our capacity for analytic thought, creative insight and problem-solving is substantially diminished.
This cognitive impairment is one of the primary reasons for popular misconceptions about the role of emotions noted above; we've all made bad decisions while in the grip of a threat response. But rather than seeking to suppress our negative emotions--an effort that rarely works and often leads to higher stress levels--we're much better served by strategies that allow us to both 1) reframe situations so that we experience them as less threatening in the first place and 2) increase our level of comfort with strong emotions and our ability to manage ourselves while flooded.
This is why it's so important to allow ourselves to feel strong emotions and even become flooded in the safe confines of a coaching session or experiential learning environment, where we can step slightly outside our comfort zone without putting ourselves at risk.
So what does this look like in practice?
To be clear, the majority of my conversations with clients and students are upbeat and even lighthearted. I'm a firm believer in the value of focusing on the positive, doing more of what's working, and seeking greater levels of happiness and fulfillment to support our professional effectiveness. And my own effectiveness as a coach depends on establishing a foundation of safety, trust and intimacy, whether on a one-on-one basis in a coaching engagement or among the members of a group in other settings.
But it's important that we also make room for a wide range of emotions in order to be able to do the work outlined above. This means very different things for each of us, of course, and I don't take a one-size-fits-all approach. I try to find the right balance of challenge and support that's called for in every relationship, but a common theme is a willingness to take some risks in order to learn and grow, and this inevitably involves stepping into some stronger emotions--from amusement to elation, from annoyance to anger, from embarrassment to shame, from disappointment to grief.
My experience in thousands of coaching sessions and group meetings over the years is that as we expand the range of emotions we can express in these safe settings, we increase our ability to make effective use of emotion in "the real world," where the risks are higher and the returns are greater. To return to the mountaineering metaphor, by pushing ourselves to new heights we become more sure-footed under stress and increase our trust in our ability to return safely.
Thanks to Mary Ann Huckabay, Carole Robin and Scott Bristol.Photo by Mitch Barrie. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
The Leadership Case for Self-Coaching
Helping people learn to self-coach is central to my approach to coaching. This isn't a noble ideal; it's a result of the fact that I see my clients and students for just 1% of their working hours--the remaining 99% of the time they're coaching themselves through every decision and interaction, and my effectiveness as a coach is reflected in their effectiveness at self-coaching.
A similar dynamic exists in almost all organizations today, especially in fields comprised of knowledge workers, in Peter Drucker's phrase. Knowledge workers rarely, if ever, perform a task under the direct supervision of a leader or manager; time spent together by superiors and subordinates is almost always dedicated to reviews of work already completed or planning for work yet to be done. This reflects the impact of knowledge work on traditional org chart relationships and workplace hierarchies. As Drucker writes in Management Challenges of the 21st Century,
[K]nowledge workers are not subordinates; they are "associates." For, once beyond the apprentice stage, knowledge workers must know more about their job than their boss does--or else they are no good at all. In fact, that they know more about their job than anybody else in the organization is part of the definition of knowledge workers...
To be sure, these associates are "subordinates" in that they depend on
the "boss" when it comes to being hired or fired, promoted, appraised
and so on. But in his or her own job the superior can perform only if
these so-called subordinates take responsibility for educating
him or her... In turn, these "subordinates" depend on the superior for
direction. They depend on the superior to tell them what the "score"
is. [pp 18, 20]
Because knowledge workers require (and desire) little or no direct supervision and typically know more about the work to be done than their leaders and managers, effective leadership has come to look a lot like coaching--which is one of the primary reasons that the new business school curriculum we've rolled out at Stanford over the past decade puts so much emphasis on coaching, interpersonal skills and experiential learning.
And just as my effectiveness as a coach is expanded dramatically by my ability to help others self-coach, leaders can enhance their effectiveness by helping people learn to coach themselves. "Coaching" doesn't need to be a formal activity that occurs between a superior and a subordinate in specially designated conversations, but rather can be a means by which knowledge workers guide themselves through day-to-day activities and over the span of their careers.
Self-coaching can't replace the experience of working directly with a personal coach like myself or being actively coached by a manager, but those opportunities are time- and resource-intensive experiences that are constrained by an organization's budget for coaching and a leader's availability. Effective self-coaching can augment an organization's investment in coaching by outside professionals and internal leaders alike. Further, helping people self-coach is a natural fit with knowledge work's emphasis on self-management and flat hierarchies.
So what does this look like in practice? Here are three principles to bear in mind:
1. Meta-Work (Meta-What?)
Helping someone learn to self-coach primarily means coaching them in a transparent way, so they're aware of the steps being taken and can replicate them later, both on their own and with others--a process I refer to as "meta-work." As I wrote in 2006, meta-work is any effort we undertake in order to work more effectively. Meta-work occurs whenever we step back from a task to ask ourselves "Why do we do this task this way?" or even "Why do we do this task at all?"
In a self-coaching context, meta-work involves leaving time at the end of a conversation to debrief the conversation itself and understand why it was helpful (or why it wasn't), and identifying specific aspects of the leader's coaching approach (both in any given conversation and over the arc of the relationship) so that the other person can apply those techniques on their own. Note that this isn't extra work added to the leader's plate--it's work to be done by the other person with the leader. Our responsibility as a leader is to manage the agenda so that the immediate issues under discussion don't consume all the available time.
2. More Questions, Less Advice
Our first helping impulse is typically to offer advice, and this is particularly true when we're in a leadership role because our mental models of leadership often involve "knowing the answers." And at times effective coaching requires providing some direct advice or feedback. But it's much more useful in a coaching context to ask questions, especially at the outset. As longtime MIT professor Edgar Schein writes in Helping,
The first intervention must always be what I am calling humble inquiry, even if the inquiry is merely careful observation and listening in the first few minutes of the encounter. The critical point is not to stereotype the situation even if it looks like something familiar. [pp 66-7]
Schein notes that the first trap for a "helper" in any helping relationship is dispensing wisdom prematurely; it's essential to defer offering advice or answering questions and shift the responsibility for providing answers back to the person seeking help.
The rationale here is threefold: First, we're more likely to follow up on ideas that we generate ourselves; even when we're accept advice we believe to be sound, we're less likely to act on it. Second, by definition knowledge workers have more information at their disposal than their leaders, and questions will help surface that information more effectively than advice. And finally, while providing answers may make us feel useful in the short run, over time it inhibits the other person's ability to find answers for themselves; asking questions is a much more effective way to help others learn to self-coach.
3. Empathy, Empathy, Empathy
Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who consults to corporate clients, makes the strategic case for empathy in Chief Culture Officer:
In the twentieth century, the corporation was so large it created its own weather system. General Motors, IBM and Coca-Cola could shape the world to their will. And in this world it was enough to be really analytically smart. Now we have to know the world outside the corporation. We have to know worlds alien to our own. We have to know worlds that proceed according to other assumptions. Without empathy, these worlds are opaque to us. [p 128]
This is even more important at the interpersonal level; without empathy--the ability not only to understand another person's thoughts but also to vicariously experience their emotions--their world remains alien and opaque to us. Empathy makes coaching possible.
Another key to the importance of empathy can be found in the work of Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston and best-selling author who's spent years studying the topics of vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. Brown defines shame as "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging." Empathy, in turn, is "the antidote to shame."
The relevance for leaders in a coaching context is that almost everyone seeking help is experiencing some form of shame, even if it's just mild embarrassment--and the more serious the problem, the deeper the shame. Feeling and expressing empathy is critical to helping the other person defuse their shame or embarrassment and begin thinking creatively about solutions.
But note that our habitual expressions of empathy can sometimes be counterproductive. Michael Sahota, a coach in Toronto who works with groups of software developers and product managers, offers a concise synopsis of Brown's work on the traps we fall into when trying to express empathy: "My problem's bigger," "Look on the bright side," and leaping to problem-solving while ignoring the emotions generated by the problem.
The solution is to recognize these responses as traps, catch ourselves before we fall into them and instead truly empathize: Start with inquiry--see above, work to understand the other person's situation and--even more importantly--experience their feelings. We may not identify with their particular situation, and it may not evoke the same feelings in us, but we've surely had those feelings at some point. Tap into them and find a useful way to share them. All this is easy to write about and hard to do, but it's worth noting that recent research indicates empathy can be learned.
The ultimate value from a self-coaching perspective is that people who are met with empathy begin to feel empathy for themselves, a critical step in the process of effectively analyzing and learning from our mistakes.
More on Self-Coaching:
Engaging Ourselves: Consistent self-coaching starts with self-engagement, which is both a fundamental attitude toward ourselves and an ongoing dialogue.
Goal-Setting: The goals we set for ourselves have a significant influence on our performance; that said, goals can support our growth and development, and they can also get in the way.
Self-Awareness: I define self-awareness as both a heightened in-the-moment perception of our physiological and
emotional responses and a growing understanding of who we are as
individuals based on those responses.
Taking Action: The changes that occur in a self-coaching process take the form of a series of moments when we intervene and act--or choose not to act.
Values and Vision: Self-coaching occurs in a context defined by our personal values and our vision for ourselves. (And when someone's values or vision diverge from that of the leader or their organization, it's critical to
Accepting Ourselves: Most high-achieving knowledge workers are their own worst critics, and a key coaching role leaders can play is helping people feel a sense of self-compassion.
Photo by crabchick. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
I was recently asked to help a team prepare to tackle some challenging work more effectively. I was motivated to say yes for professional and personal reasons, but I didn't fully think through the necessary conditions for success, and I made some critical errors in planning and delivery. In a word, I failed.
It wasn't a complete failure--I'm confident that some learning occurred--but I certainly failed to live up to my own standards for success. I've reflected on what I could have done differently, and I've learned a lot--but perhaps the most valuable thing I've learned is the extent to which I've developed a growth mindset. As Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck notes,
In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They're wrong.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work--brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.
The relevance here is that I'm not interpreting this failure as a character flaw or a fundamental inability to do good work. I'm fully aware that I take on projects like this all the time, and most of them turn out quite successfully. This isn't to say that I'm ducking responsibility for my failure or ignoring it in any way. I'm very clear about the mistakes I made and what I'll do differently going forward.
I'm reminded that in 2011 Jonah Lehrer reviewed a study by Michigan State's Jason Moser that applied Dweck's concept of mindset while assessing the neurological processes involved in learning from mistakes:
It turned out that those subjects with a growth mindset were significantly better at learning from their mistakes... Most interesting, though, was the EEG data, which demonstrated that those with a growth mindset generated a much larger [error positivity] signal, indicating increased attention to their mistakes… What’s more, this increased...signal was nicely correlated with improvement after error, implying that the extra awareness was paying dividends in performance. Because the subjects were thinking about what they got wrong, they learned how to get it right...
Moser's study suggests that a growth mindset allows us to pay more attention to our mistakes because we're less upset when confronted with the evidence of those mistakes, which allows us to study them more closely and learn more as a result. In the case of my own recent experience, the outcome is that I'm able to calmly assess my failure, learn from it and move on. I'm disappointed, to be sure, but I'm not upset about it in a way that might have negatively affected other projects or aspects of my life.
By no means am I suggesting that I've mastered this process--it doesn't take much work to envision a failure that would be extremely upsetting. But at the same time it's worth noting that the work I've done over the years has resulted in a greater sense of resilience and an increased capacity to face up to--and learn from--my failures.
Photo by Mikel Ortega. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
I was talking recently with a friend who's considering where to focus his time and energy as he builds his coaching and consulting practice. He's seeking not only to support his own efforts, but also to connect with a community of like-minded people working on leadership, professional development, personal growth and related issues.
Our conversation led me to reflect on the people who command my attention in this regard, people who who consistently maintain my interest through their combination of...
I came up with the list below of 32 people (alphabetized by first name) who fulfill these criteria, and after sharing it with my friend I thought I'd post it here to express my thanks for all they do to contribute to my own learning and development. It's not intended to be an exhaustive list--I know I'll regret leaving someone off--and there's nothing special about 32; these are just the first people who came to mind in this process, and I preferred that to randomly choosing 25 or 50 or whatever:
1. Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton)
London-based de Botton is...a working philosopher? I don't really know what to call him, but I know I've benefited from his guidance.
2. Anne Kreamer (@AnneKreamer)
NYC writer Kreamer's It's Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace deftly balances first-person experience with recent research.
3. Annie Murphy Paul (@anniemurphypaul)
Murphy Paul is amazingly productive writer based in New Haven, CT whose articles, posts and tweets have a particular focus on how we learn.
4. Art Markman (@abmarkman)
Markman is a prof of psychology and marketing at UT Austin, whose work explores thinking, decision making and motivation.
5. Bill George (@Bill_George)
George is a former Fortune 500 CEO who's carved out a second career teaching leadership at HBS.
6. BJ Fogg (@bjfogg)
Fogg is a Stanford prof and tech industry consultant whose expertise is in "creating systems to change human behavior."
7. Brene Brown (@BreneBrown)
Brown is a prof at the University of Houston whose talk on vulnerability has been seen nearly 1 million times and still makes me cry.
8. Bret Simmons (@drbret)
Simmons is a prof at the B-school of the University of Nevada, Reno who integrates topics like personal branding into his courses on leadership and organizational behavior.
9. Dan Oestreich (@DanOestreich)
Oestreich is a coach and consultant based outside Seattle who's one of the very best writers we have on the subjects of leadership and organizational life; it was a privilege to be interviewed by him.
10. David Rock (@davidrock101)
Rock is a coach based in NYC who's studied the implications of neuroscience for leadership and coaching, resulting in such useful tools as his SCARF Model.
11. Daniel Coyle (@DanielCoyle)
Journalist Coyle writes about talent, performance and motivation, with a particular interest in endurance sports.
12. Doug Sundheim (@DougSundheim)
Sundheim is a consultant and coach in NYC and the author of the recently-published Taking Smart Risks, which encourages us to consider the costs of playing it safe.
13. Eric Pennington (@epicliving)
Pennington is a consultant and coach in Columbus, OH whose personal voice is a hallmark of his writing.
14. Eugene Eric Kim (@eekim)
Kim recently left Groupaya, the Bay Area consulting firm he co-founded, to explore new horizons.
15. Halley Bock (@HalleyBock)
Bock is CEO of the Seattle coaching and consulting firm founded by the great Susan Scott, whose Fierce Conversations taught me much.
16. Kelly McGonigal (@kellymcgonigal)
McGonigal is a psychologist and lecturer at Stanford whose work focuses on translating findings from medicine and neuroscience into strategies for personal development.
17. Maria Konnikova (@mkonnikova)
Konnikova is a writer in NYC who's pursuing a PhD in psych at Columbia.
18. Mark McGuinness (@markmcguinness)
McGuinness is a coach in London--and a poet--who specializes in working with creative professionals and who's inspired me for years.
19. Michael Bungay Stanier (@boxofcrayons)
Bungay Stanier is an inspiring Toronto-based coach, consultant and author whose focus is helping people and organizations "do great work."
20. Nilofer Merchant (@nilofer)
Merchant is a Bay Area corporate director and author who addresses a wide range of business topics with an emphasis on innovation and culture.
21. Nir Eyal (@nireyal)
Eyal is an entrepreneur (and Stanford GSB alum) who now consults to tech companies and writes about product design, the power of habit and user engagement.
22. Oliver Burkeman (@oliverburkeman)
Burkeman is a British journalist based in NYC whose recent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking is simply brilliant.
23. Pam Fox Rollin (@PamFR)
Fox Rollin is a coach (and Stanford GSB alum--and a friend!) here in the Bay Area and the author of 42 Rules for Your New Leadership Role.
24. Richard Winters (@drrwinters)
Winters is an ER doctor--and an leadership coach to other physicians--based in Fresno, CA.
25. Stephanie West Allen (@idealawg)
Denver-based West Allen is a former attorney who now consults to the legal field and writes on mediation, mindfulness, neuroscience and related issues.
26. Scott Eblin (@ScottEblin)
Eblin is a coach and consultant focused on leadership development, with a longtime practice in Washington DC and a new home base in LA.
27. Tara Sophia Mohr (@tarasophia)
Mohr is a San Francisco coach and author (and Stanford GSB alum) whose practice focuses on helping women fully achieve their aspirations.
28. Thaler Pekar (@thaler)
Pekar is a NY-based communications consultant who helps people harness the power of narrative to tell their own stories more effectively.
29. Tom Peters (@tom_peters)
Peters is a well-known management thinker (and Stanford GSB alum); what you may not know is how effectively this longtime author makes use of social media.
30. Vickie Gray (@adaptivecoach)
Gray is a coach based in Nova Scotia whose practice focuses on Agile development and whose insights are relevant in any field.
31. Wally Bock (@wallybock)
Bock is an indefatigable blogger and ghostwriter in Charlotte, NC who has plenty of good advice for fellow writers.
32. Whitney Johnson (@johnsonwhitney)
Boston-based investor and author Johnson translates her business acumen into insights on personal growth, innovation and leadership.
Photo by dpika. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
I've been working with someone who's in a leadership role but isn't as motivated as he'd like to be. He's doing a perfectly fine job, but it's not meaningful, in the way we feel when a task truly inspires us. Although there's nothing tragic about this person's situation, reflecting on it I was reminded of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. As I've noted before (under circumstances that were indeed tragic), Frankl identifies three ways in which we can discover meaning: "(1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The first, by way of achievement or accomplishment, is quite obvious. The second and third need further elaboration."
No one's suffering here, thankfully, so at least in this context I can set aside Frankl's third option--but his discussion of the second path to meaning offers advice that I find both profound and practical:
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true...
If that's not a powerful definition of leadership, I don't know what is. (It's a damn good definition of coaching as well.) To fulfill Frankl's vision of helping others realize their fullest potential, we have to see that potential within them. And to see that full potential, we have to truly understand them--we have to "become aware of their essence." And to do that, we have to love them.
Love is a big word and a frightening one, and we often hesitate to use it in the professional realm, at least in any meaningful way. I suspect that the problem lies with our narrow definition of the term--we hear "love" and automatically think of romantic love, or familial love, and it seems embarrassing or even inappropriate to apply the term to our professional relationships. But in the best of those relationships it's love we feel--not romantic love or familial love, but love nonetheless, and as leaders our ability to summon and express that love can be a powerful force.
I've had the privilege of working with a number of good, very good and truly great leaders in my life, both in my 15-year career before becoming a coach and over the last eight years with my clients and students. The good ones are passionate, but it's not quite love. The very good ones do feel love--for their team, for the work, for life--but they can't quite bring themselves to say it out loud and fully express the feeling. The great ones feel it, and everyone around them knows it and benefits as a result.
At its core leading is an act of love. It's the ability to love those around us in a way that allows us to understand them, to see their full potential, and to enable that potential to be realized. Can we lead this way 24/7? Can we live this way every day? No--at least I certainly can't. There are plenty of days when love is the furthest thing from my mind, and it's all I can do to be civil. But I've experienced it often enough to know how effective I am when I feel it--and even more so when I'm able to convey it to those around me.
Returning to the leader noted above, having considered his struggle to find a deeper source of meaning in his work, I asked him: What form of love might you feel for your people? How might you tap into it and express it? What might you see in them as a result? And what might you do then?
Photo by David Goehring. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
