Ed Batista

Top Posts

Here are a few posts from recent years (updated March 2008) that continue to resonate with me.  Topics include executive coaching, personal and professional development, leadership, management, motivation, organizational culture, and the process of change.  I'll update this list as time passes, but you can always find any post using the search boxes below my Contact Info in the left-hand sidebar.

The Influence Pyramid (February 2008)
"[I]t integrates...a...sense of personal empowerment...with...[an] awareness of our interpersonal impact and the concepts...that underlay contemporary 'theories of influence.'"

Energy vs. Intensity (February 2008)
"[U]nderstanding the subtle difference between [energy and intensity] can help us be more aware of the choices we're making and allow us to tailor our approach to a given interaction...."

Experiential Learning Cycles (October 2007)
"The point is to recognize how much can be learned from our every experience and interaction, and to begin to capture more of that learning on a consistent basis."

Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good People (September 2007)
"Why do so many well-meaning people give such bad presentations?  Last year Andy Goodman and Cause Communications sought to answer that question..."

Ground Rules for Meetings (September 2007)
"What makes a meeting successful? ...{T]he culture we established at the outset with these ground rules seems to have helped the group stay focused and productive despite the disruptions."

Successful Debriefing: Ask, Don't Tell (September 2007)
"To get people to talk in clear, readily understandable and quotable language, you have to ask really simple questions that can have the effect of making you look uninformed at best and foolish at worst."

Bill George on Teaching Leadership (August 2007)
"The hardest thing we have to do is see ourselves as others see us.  And do you gain that self-awareness?  Some people think they have it, but they've never really tested themselves, and that is crucial."

T-Groups, Feedback and Double-Loop Learning (March 2007)
"How effective are your interactions with others?  What behaviors enhance your effectiveness, and what behaviors undermine your effectiveness?"

T-Groups, Trust, Leadership and Management (February 2007)
"Why are personal issues relevant in a professional setting?   How do our internal dynamics shape our external effectiveness as leaders and managers?"

The Problem with Positive Feedback (February 2007)
"[T]oo much praise will eventually have the same effect as no praise at all.  But by uncoupling the feedback from any goals other than rewarding the recipient, you'll increase its value as a motivator."

The Value of Soft Startups (January 2007)
"[S]pouses are much more likely to resolve difficult conversations successfully when they use a soft startup, and I'm inclined to believe that the same is true in most of our professional relationships as well."

Double-Loop Learning and Executive Coaching (December 2006)
"When we begin a double-loop learning process, everything comes to a full stop while we ask such challenging questions as 'Why do we do this task this way?' and 'Why do we do this task at all?' '"

Agreement vs. Alignment (October 2006)
"Agreement = Everyone gets their first choice (difficult and time-consuming to obtain.) Alignment = Everyone can fully support the choice that is made (much easier to obtain.)"

The Inner Game of Work: Who Are You Working For? (September 2006)
"We need to listen to our inner voice and work freely for ourselves without simply giving in to indulgent whims.  And we need to be of service and to create value for others without simply responding to external demands."

Finding Professional Fulfillment (July 2006)
"What makes a job satisfying?  What constitutes fulfillment?  What factors have to be balanced to achieve it?"

Johnny Cash on Doing it Your Way (June 2006)
"It doesn't matter to me that I only know three or four chords... I just believe that when it all comes together it's the right way for me to do it."

Organizational Development: Is Humanism Overrated? (June 2006)
"A better understanding of how our brains function will allow organizations to embrace change and tackle new initiatives much more effectively.  But I wouldn't throw the humanistic baby out with the bathwater just yet."

Pfeffer and Sutton on Leadership (May 2006)
"We tend to assign more credit and blame to leaders than...they actually deserve... But...leadership can make a difference, and Pfeffer and Sutton have a short checklist to help leaders be as effective as possible."

Matt Doherty: Live and Learn? (February 2006)
"There's more to leadership than command authority, and Matt Doherty's experience during and since his time at UNC suggests three big take-aways for the rest of us..."

Peter Drucker on Managing Oneself (November 2005)
"Most people...do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.  By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths?  How do I perform?  and, What are my values?"

Jeff Jarvis: Agent of Coalescence

Companies and organizations that continue to resist blogging often do so because they view bloggers as isolated individuals with hidden agendas and axes to grind.

Dell initially made that mistake with Jeff Jarvis, but as Jeff noted yesterday, they're taking a different approach now:

...I had a rather infamous run-in with Dell here at Buzzmachine when I complained about a bad machine and service. They ignored me, but thousands of similarly frustrated customers did not. Dell’s attitude toward blogs at the time was “look, don’t touch.”... But things began to turn around when Dell opened a company blog, which was off to a puffy start until Lionel [Menchaca], the chief blogger, entered, speaking with customers in an honest, direct, humble, and human voice. Next they put together a team to reach out to bloggers who had problems...

It is clear, through [Lionel and his colleagues], that at least at some levels, Dell has changed its culture and certainly its attitude toward bloggers. They now see value in reaching out. As they’ve said before, bloggers tend to state their problems clearly, which makes it easier (and, I assume, more efficient) to solve them. A problem solved is not only a customer likely to be saved, but also often leads to good PR and branding as the bloggers recount their happy endings. And the Dell guys say they get information and data from this; they hear about problems that may arise before others in the company do, because their customers are talking about it...

Lionel, who came from years of customer service and PR at the company, said the team working on the blog and with bloggers loves it. Aren’t there a few people out there who just can’t be satisfied, no matter what you do? Lost causes? Bozos? They agreed that there are a few and the outreach people don’t always say yes to their demands. But my drinking companions agreed that in an open forum, other folks tend to know who the bozos are. And the bozos tend to stand alone.

That, you see, was the real moral to my story. Whether or not I was a bozo, I did not stand alone. My story wasn’t about me but the people around me, the ones who said, “me, too.” I was merely the agent of coalescence. That’s what you have to watch for on the internet. That’s what the internet enables. [emphasis mine]

The "agent of coalescence"--I love that phrase.  It may have been easier for Jeff to step into that role because he's a big-name blogger with a sizeable readership, and because he tapped into frustrations shared by thousands of Dell customers, but any one of us can do the same, albeit on a smaller scale.

We blog because we care, passionately, about something.  And thanks to the live web, others who share that passion will find us.  If we're not bozos, they'll join us--they'll say "me, too," in any number of ways.  This is how movements and constituencies and networks of all sorts are built today--they form around agents of coalescence.

Which leads me to two questions: If you're blogging, how might you serve more effectively as an agent of coalescence on behalf of a cause you're passionate about?  And if you're a company or organization, how might you identify and engage those agents of coalescence who are passionate about what you do?

Photo of Jeff Jarvis by Doc Searls.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Swivel

Swivel is a content-sharing application for data and graphs.  It's sort of like YouTube meets Wikipedia for people who love spreadsheets.  As with YouTube, you can create a user account, upload your content (in Swivel's case, raw data or a spreadsheet file rather than a video), format and tag it, and set it free for others to view, comment upon, embed or otherwise use as they see fit.  As with Wikipedia, accuracy is in the eye of the beholder, so read the citations and take the figures with a grain of salt.

The most-viewed graph on Swivel today is Growth of Creative Commons Photos on Flickr, by Brian Mulloy, Swivel's CEO and co-founder:

There's tight integration with several Google apps, including the ability to make Swivel graphs from Google spreadsheets and a feed from Google Blogsearch showing people posting Swivel graphs, which just this minute led me to my friend Beth Kanter, who posted today on this very same topic, using the very same graph above.  Small world!