Ed Batista

Developing Your Professional Vision

"Truly great [professionals] understand the difference between what should never change and what should be open for change, between what is genuinely sacred and what is not.  This rare ability to manage continuity and change--requiring a consciously practiced discipline--is closely linked to the ability to develop a vision."

Introduction

The passage above is from Jim Collins and Jerry Porras's Building Your Company's Vision, originally published in the September-October 1996 issue of the Harvard Business Review and derived from their work together on Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.  (The HBR article is freely available, or you can purchase and download a PDF from HBR or Amazon.)

Collins and Porras's article was originally aimed at organizational leaders and intended to highlight the value of a corporate vision, but I've found in my coaching practice that their principles apply equally to individuals and can be readily adapted to help a person define their own professional vision.  (For example, I've substituted "professionals" for "companies in the passage above, and coaching clients of mine have found this quote personally meaningful to them.  I suspect that the transferability of Collins and Porras's ideas from organizations to individuals derives in part from Porras's study of systems theory and the many parallels between organizations and individuals from a systems theory perspective.)

Please note: The concepts and language below are derived from Collins and Porras's original work, which I've merely adapted and modified for use by individuals.  For a fuller exploration of Collins and Porras's ideas, I highly encourage you to read Building Your Company's Vision and Built to Last in full.

---

Developing Your Professional Vision

A professional vision consists of two interrelated elements:

• Your CORE IDEOLOGY: What you stand for and why you exist as a professional, lasting qualities that in some cases will never change over the course of your lifetime.

• An ENVISIONED FUTURE: What you aspire to become, achieve, or create--a vividly described goal that will change only at long-term intervals.

Let's discuss each of these elements and their constituent components:

Your CORE IDEOLOGY

Your core ideology defines what you stand for and aspire to achieve as a professional.  It consists of 1. Your Core Values and 2. Your Core Purpose.  Be aware that you can't create your core ideology; you discover it.  You won't deduce it by observing anything in your external environment; you understand it by looking within yourself.  Your core ideology must be authentic and genuine.  It is not relevant to consider what core values you should have or what your core purpose ought to be.   Aspirations may be part of your long-term envisioned future or your short-term strategies, but they're not elements of your core ideology.  (You may identify authentic core values that have weakened over time, but you should also acknowledge the great effort that will likely be required to revitalize them.)

This emphasis on authenticity is important because the purpose of your core ideology is to guide and inspire you, not to differentiate yourself from anyone else.  Other people may readily share your core values or purpose.  What will distinguish you is the consistency with which you live by your core ideology, not its content.

1. Your Core Values

Your core values are your essential and enduring tenets.  These guiding principles require no external justification and have intrinsic value, meaning and relevance to your conduct as a professional.  You will not alter your core values in response to changes in your circumstances or external environment; rather, you will change jobs or even professions in order to remain true to your core values.

You'll have to push with relentless honesty to define the values that are truly central for you.  After drafting a preliminary list of potential core values, ask yourself the following five questions about each item:

• If for any reason this value became a disadvantage and you were somehow penalized for maintaining it, would you continue to live by it?
• If you were advising your children about their core values, how important should this value be in their professional lives?
• If you were independently wealthy, how significantly would this value continue to affect your dealings with other people?
• If you were to launch a new career in an entirely different profession, how important would this value be to you?
• Do you expect this value to be equally valid for you a year from now?  Ten years from now?  Twenty-five years from now?

Aim to narrow down your list to three, four or (at most) five items.  If more than five values remain on your list after asking these questions, consider whether you're confusing values (which rarely change, if ever) with strategies (which should change as often as necessary).

2. Your Core Purpose

Your core purpose is your professional reason for being.  It reflects your idealistic motivations for working.  Your core purpose is a concept that should have meaning and relevance throughout your entire career, and it shouldn't be confused with professional goals, which may change frequently during your lifetime.

Your core purpose is like a compass heading: it defines a course for you to follow, but it is not a destination that you can reach.  But even though your core purpose doesn't change, it will inspire change.  The fact that your core purpose can't be entirely fulfilled should drive you forward.

You can begin to understand your core purpose through a "Five Whys" exercise.  First, state what you do as a professional in clear and simple language.  Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?"  Answer the question as clearly and simply as possible, and use your answer to redefine what you do as a professional.  Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?" again, and repeat the process four more times.  Each cycle should help you define your professional purpose at a deeper and more fundamental level.  It may take fewer than five "Whys?" or it may take more, but at a certain point you will have a sense that this is your core purpose.

Another approach is to ask yourself, "If I woke up tomorrow independently wealthy, what would keep me working in my current job?  What deeper sense of purpose would motivate me to dedicate my valuable energies to this career, if there were no need for financial rewards?"

The point of these exercises is not to create a perfectly crafted list of core values and definition of core purpose.  The point is to gain a deep understanding of your values and purpose, to enable you to live and express these concepts in a consistent way throughout your career.

Don't confuse core ideology with core competencies.  The latter define "What you're good at," while the former defines "What you stand for and why you exist."  Your ideology and competencies should be aligned and are often related, but they're still different concepts, with different implications for guiding your career.

Finally, once you've defined your core ideology, be aware that you are now fully free to change anything that's not part of the core.  If it's not core, you can change it!  Which brings us to...

YOUR ENVISIONED FUTURE

Like your core ideology, your envisioned future also consists of two parts: 1. An Audacious Goal and 2. A Vivid Description of what it would be like to accomplish that goal.

1. An Audacious Goal

Ordinary goals are, well, ordinary.  Audacious goals...

• Look beyond your current capabilities and environment.
• Are clear and tangible, requiring little or no explanation.
• Are compelling, energizing and engaging.
• Focus your efforts on their fulfillment.
• Have a defined finish line.

By definition, an audacious goal may have a modest chance of success, but it also compels you to believe that you can--and you will--achieve it.

Take care not to confuse your audacious goal with your core purpose.  You will one day achieve your audacious goal and move on to new ones, but you will never fulfill your core purpose.  If your audacious goal is a mountain to climb, your core purpose is a guiding star on the horizon.

2. A Vivid Description

This is a vibrant, engaging and specific description of what it would be like to achieve your audacious goal.  It may be useful to think of it not only in linguistic terms but also in images, as if it were a picture you could carry around with you to instantly communicate your audacious goal to others and to remind yourself of what success would feel like.

Passion, emotion and conviction are essential elements of a truly vivid description.  You can't just describe it; you have to feel it.

If identifying your core ideology is a process of discovery, determining your envisioned future is an act of creativity.  You may find it tempting to "analyze" your way into the future, but this approach may not yield success.  If you're having difficulty identifying your audacious goal, it may be more effective to start from a vivid description of what success would feel like (by any definition of "success" that is relevant to you).  This involves asking questions like the following:

• Where do you see yourself in ten or even 25 years?
• If a journalist in the future were to write an article about you and your success, what would the article be about?  What topics would it cover?
• What limits have you set for yourself as a professional?  And what would it look like if you exceeded those limits?

Note that there is no "right" envisioned future.  Your vision is the vision that you find exciting and stimulating.  Don't measure it using other people's yardsticks.

Ultimately, your vision is not a text that exists separate from your career; your vision will be defined by the actions that you take as a professional.  An outside observer should be able to infer your vision by watching what you do without ever reading it on paper.  So...what's your professional vision?

---

Appendix: Developing Your Professional Vision Exercises

Here's a streamlined version of the steps described above, which is also available as a set of PowerPoint slides (148 KB):

CORE IDEOLOGY

1. Core Values

List your values, ask the following questions about each one, and narrow down your list to three, four or (at most) five core values:

• If for any reason this value became a disadvantage and you were somehow penalized for maintaining it, would you continue to live by it?
• If you were advising your children about their core values, how important should this value be in their professional lives?
• If you were independently wealthy, how significantly would this value continue to affect your dealings with other people?
• If you were to launch a new career in an entirely different profession, how important would this value be to you?
• Do you expect this value to be equally valid for you a year from now?  Ten years from now?  Twenty-five years from now?

2. Core Purpose

("Five Whys")  State what you do as a professional in clear and simple language.  Then ask yourself, "Why is this important?"  Use your answer to redefine what you do as a professional, and then ask, "Why is this important?" again, and repeat the process four more times.  It may take fewer than five "Whys?" or it may take more, but at a certain point you will have a sense that this is your core purpose.

ENVISIONED FUTURE

1. Audacious Goal

Identify an audacious goal that...

• Looks beyond your current capabilities and environment.
• Is clear and tangible, requiring little or no explanation.
• Is compelling, energizing and engaging.
• Focuses your efforts on its fulfillment.
• Has a defined finish line.

2. Vivid Description

Describe what it would be like to achieve your audacious goal.  Think not only in linguistic terms but also in images, as if it were a picture you could carry around with you.  Start from a vivid description of what success would feel like.  Ask yourself:

• Where do you see yourself in ten or even 25 years?
• If a journalist in the future were to write an article about you and your success, what would the article be about?  What topics would it cover?
• What limits have you set for yourself as a professional?  And what would it look like if you exceeded those limits?

---

Many thanks to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras for their groundbreaking work in Building Your Company's Vision and Built to Last.

Gear image courtesy of Icons Etc.

Grant McCracken on Brainstorming as Intellectual Improv

Following up on my recent recommendation of Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer (as well as my appreciation for Grant's acknowledgment of the strategic importance of empathy), I wanted to highlight one more thought-provoking concept in the book: Brainstorming as Intellectual Impure.  Grant describes a brainstorming session convened by Denise Fonseca, who is currently director of global business and consumer insights for Coca-Cola:

[pp 135-137] Fonseca has assembled people with various kinds of expertise.  Most were from the academic world.  They do not play well with others.  They object, cavil, quibble, carp and niggle.

Fonseca gave us fair warning.  She said something like,

There is one rule in this room: No no's.  You may not contradict, dispute, or disagree with the things you hear here.  I am going to enforce the "no no's" rule with my M&M's.  When I hear you contradict, dispute or disagree, I am going to pelt you with an M&M.  Or several M&M's, depending on the severity of your offense.

I listened with interest.  And I tried my best.  But years of academic training got the better of me.  I caviled, quibbled and disputed several times.  The first M&M struck me in the lapel.  The second bounced off the notes in front of me.  The last one was a direct hit, caroming off my noggin.  (Nice shot, Fonseca!)

The "no no's" rule comes as a surprise to a lot of people.  It seems like a recipe for chaos.  Isn't caviling the very method of quality control?  Actually, it isn't always.  Too often it's the way academics jam the airwaves against new ideas.  But the point of this undertaking is not quality control, it's idea generation.  When what we are looking for is a sheer profusion of possibilities, no no's is the path to riches.

Good brainstorming is an act of intellectual improv.  A group of people agree to break the normal rules and reservations of interaction and "go for it."  Their objective: to go places they could not get on their own...

But how are we to separate the good from the bad ideas?  The good news is that, in good groups, bad ideas go away by themselves.  No one picks them up.  No one remains their champion...

One of the conditions of brainstorming is a "nonproprietary" approach from the participants.  The moment an idea escapes our lips, it belongs to the group...  We have to learn to say goodbye.  We get credit in general for our performance...but otherwise ideas end up belonging to everyone.  This is sometimes the hardest lesson for academics to learn...

Once we learn to say no to no, we have to learn to say yes to yes... Brainstorming works best when we commit heart and soul.  It works best when we engage in a kind of improv.  The first positive rule of brainstorming is just what it is in improv: Take up every pretext and run with it.

---

Further Thoughts on Group Process

While I do find Grant's belief in the power of brainstorming compelling (and have said so before), this counterpoint from Johnnie Moore is worth bearing in mind:

Personally, I like methods that allow...people a flexibility to work at different paces and [use] different ways of interacting. I tend not to use the word "brainstorming" as for me it's too suggestive of a relentless fast-pace. With more time for reflection, people sometimes generate ideas that are somewhere in the fascinating gaps between one point of view and another. And I like rules-of-thumb more than absolute instructions for how we might all choose to play together.

Ultimately I think it's most important to be mindful of the overall group dynamic.  For example, do we tend to "object, cavil, quibble, carp and niggle," like Grant's academics?  Then a formal set of brainstorming parameters, such as a hard-and-fast "No No's" rule, might give ideas time to breathe before they're suffocated.

It's also worth considering where the group is in the decision-making process.  Do we need to begin eliminating options in order to reach closure?  Then the time for brainstorming is over, and we need to transition into an entirely different process--but until we reach that point, perhaps we need a set of agreements that will help us stay in idea-generation mode.  Sam Kaner's framework for decision-making is a simple but very useful tool in this regard:

Finally, I'm reminded of Grant's elements of reinvention, an extraordinarily thoughtful list of the dynamics that characterize change.  Put all these concepts together, and they comprise a great set of tools for stimulating idea generation, reinvention, and change while also helping a group ultimately move forward and reach closure.

The Strategic Importance of Empathy

In my work as a coach, empathy--defined by Merriam-Webster as "understanding and vicariously experiencing the feelings and thoughts of another"--is a foundational skill, and my effectiveness is inextricably tied to my capacity to empathize (which is why I seek to understand and transcend my limitations.)

So it's gratifying when someone other than a coach talks about the importance of empathy, particularly in a business context.  Last week I recommended Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer, and in addition to supporting his advocacy for that new profession, I want to call attention to his case for empathy as an essential capability in business:

[pp 128-129] 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.

The news has reached even the Harvard Business School.  When faculty members Srikant Datar and David Garvin consulted the b-school world, they were told that MBAs needed more "self-awareness and the capacity for introspection and empathy."  This is good news, but I am a little puzzled why they continue to call these "soft skills."  In fact, empathy is frequently the blade that finds the right insight, extracts from it the real strategic and tactical opportunity, and crafts it into a final, compelling form.  Is this really a "soft" skill?  (And what does it say about the b-school community that it uses this patronizing language?)...

The CEO of Delta Air Lines, Richard Anderson was recently asked how business school should change... As he told the New York Times, "We measure, study, quantify, analyze every single piece of our business.  Business schools in the United States have done a phenomenal job of creating the capability.  But then you've got to be able to take all that data and information and transform it into change in the organization and improvement in the organization and the formulation of the business strategy."

We may think of empathy as the ability to see the bigger picture that will transform the corporation inside and out.

In my role as a Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, I'm directly involved in the effort to help MBAs develop more "self-awareness and the capacity for introspection and empathy," and something the GSB gets right--partly by design, partly by accident--is the rich array of opportunities for our students to cultivate these qualities.

The designed aspect is a function not only of the GSB's "new curriculum" and its emphasis on leadership and communication skills, but also of the school's decades-long commitment to its Interpersonal Dynamics course, a transformative experience for the majority of the student body (including me, way back in 1999.)  That said, the accidental aspect derives from my sense that, despite all the progress that's been made, some of our most important work in these areas still happens on the margins of the institution, in happenstance conversations and relationships, and, to Grant's point above, all of this work is still easily dismissed by some as mere "soft skills."

I'm reminded of a November 2007 post by Tom Peters (which he actually wrote in ALL CAPS to signify his passion):

BOB WATERMAN AND I, IN 1980, DEVELOPED A MANTRA IN THOSE DAYS OF YORE WHEN "STRATEGY [STRATEGIC PLANS] WAS EVERYTHING." WE SAID:

HARD IS SOFT.
SOFT IS HARD.

THE READILY-MANIPULABLE NUMBERS ARE THE TRUE "SOFT STUFF."

THE RELATIONSHIPS-LEADERSHIP-"CULTURE"-"ACTION BIAS" [OR NOT] ARE THE TRUE "HARD STUFF."

I'd readily add "self-awareness and the capacity for introspection and empathy" to that last list--none of them are easy to develop.  I'm also reminded of Charlie Rose's 2007 interview with Bill George:

Charlie Rose: [Leadership] can be taught and learned?

Bill George: Learned. I teach now, and I don't think you can teach leadership, I think you can learn about it.  I think you can learn about yourself.  It comes from within, from who are you inside and what makes you tick, and what are those tapes playing in your head about what you want to be and what your limitations are.

(later in the interview)

Bill George: In this century, leadership has changed.  Leadership is not about getting people to follow you, the "Great Man theory," follow you over the hill General George Patton style.  That idea is out.  To me, the great leaders today are able to align people around a sense of purpose and values and get that consistency all around the globe, and then empower other people to step up and lead.  And I've found that in organizations that are really effective at generating leaders, there are thousands of leaders because people empower them to step up and lead.

And just how do we develop leaders who can "go within," who can "align people around a sense of purpose," who can "empower other[s]"?  By helping them to cultivate their self-awareness, their capacity for introspection, their ability to empathize.

Peter Drucker on Excellence, Careers and Planning

Most of my clients and students are seeking to be more effective and fulfilled as professionals or are in the midst of a career transition--or both.  A resource to which I've referred people for years is Peter Drucker's brilliant essay Managing Oneself, and it's time to do so again.  Here are a few key excerpts and the questions that they inspire in me:

On Excellence

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.  It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.  And yet most people--especially most teachers and most organizations--concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones.  Energy, resources, and time should go instead into making a competent person into a star performer.

So ask yourself, What are my strengths?  Where could I improve from first-rate performance to excellence?  Where should I be focusing my energy, resources and time?  Just as important, where am I wasting effort trying to improve from incompetence to mediocrity?  (I'm reminded of the value of Seth Godin's concept of strategic quitting.)

On Careers

[M]ost people, especially highly gifted 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?  And then they can and should decide where they belong.

Or rather, they should be able to decide where they do not belong...

Equally important, knowing the answers to these questions enables a person to say to an opportunity, an offer, or an assignment, "Yes, I will do that.  But this is the way I should be doing it.  This is the way it should be structured.  This is the way the relationships should be.  These are the kind of results you should expect from me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am."

Having assessed your strengths, the next questions to ask are: Under what conditions do I do my best work?  What do I require in a work environment to perform at my best?  What structures, what relationships, what expectations allow me to deliver excellence?  Conversely, what conditions make it more difficult for me to deliver excellence?  (I find David Rock's SCARF model a very helpful tool in understanding why some conditions support my own ability to deliver excellence while others have the opposite effect.)

Continuing with Drucker's framework, the logical next question is: What are my values?  But what do we really mean by that?  The definition of any given "value" is inherently subjective--and even if we arrive at one that works for us, what does it mean to put that value into practice?  Here's a process to reach an actionable definition of your values in this context:

• Draw up a list of terms that you define as "values."
• Specify the meaning of each value by telling a story that demonstrates that value in action, preferably an actual event from your own or an observed experience.
• Having illustrated each value this way, ask yourself:

What intrinsic rewards are the result of this value?  In what ways does it fulfill me?

What extrinsic rewards--what forms of status or compensation--am I willing to sacrifice on behalf of this value?

How important is this value to my self-identity?  How different would my life have to be for me to abandon this value?

• Use the answers to these questions to narrow your original list of terms down to no more than five--and preferably three.  The results are your core values.

On Planning

Successful careers are not planned.  They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values...

A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific.  So the question in most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?  The answer must balance several things.  First, the results should be hard to achieve--they should require "stretching," to use the current buzzword.  But also, they should be within reach.  To aim at results that cannot be achieved--or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances--is not being ambitious, it is being foolish.  Second, the results should be meaningful.  They should make a difference.  Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable.  From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.

The answers to your questions above don't constitute a plan, but they're certainly an important form of preparation.  Even if don't yet know what you want to do or what opportunities you'll say "Yes" to, these answers should help you begin closing doors and should allow you to start saying "No" to opportunities that aren't aligned with your strengths, your methods of working, or your values.

So now, whether you're seeking to make a transition or simply to be more effective or fulfilled in your current field, look out over the next 18 months, and ask yourself: What can I accomplish in that timeframe?  Will these goals require me to truly stretch?  Will they truly make a difference?  And how will my results be visible and measurable?

As always when it comes to planning, I find comfort in the (reputed) wisdom of Gen. George Patton: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan next week."

Acknowledgments

I encourage you to read Managing Oneself in its entirety, available as a PDF from Harvard Business Review or as the closing chapter in Drucker's Management Challenges for the 21st Century.

Thanks to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras's Building Your Company's Vision for their essential framework on identifying core values.

Thanks to Thaler Pekar for her thoughts on The Trouble with Values and the importance of stories.

Chief Culture Officer

For the past few months I've wanted to recommend Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer, a terrific book that came out last December, although I had to wait until I began writing again a few weeks ago.  (Full disclosure: I consider Grant a friendly colleague, and his publisher sent me a review copy of the book.)  In a feat of imagination, Grant has willed into being an entirely new profession--the CCO--and is now tackling the daunting task of telling the business world how to fill a void it didn't even know existed.

So just what is a CCO?  I'll let Grant describe it in his own words (I've added headings for clarity):

The Professional CCO

[pp 14-15] In [many] cases, someone can act as a CCO not because he has studied contemporary culture but because he comes from that culture.  He knows it in his bones.

The problem with this approach is the "best by" date stamped on knowledge.  Our community carries on without us.  In the early days, we can update our knowledge without much effort, but eventually our knowledge wears out.  We have lost our "seal" with culture.

The other problem is that we must finally transcend the community from which we come... Eventually every CCO has to know about the whole of culture, and not just the part of it he or she knows from personal experience.

This is, finally, an issue of professionalism, of systemizing our knowledge, of getting organized, of going beyond our own preferences and comfort zone.  Unofficial CCOs may rely on particular knowledge, on "hunches."  They may feel things "in the gut," as if culture were a probiotic enterprise, after all.  But the professional CCO has a breadth and depth of knowledge.  The CCO has to know the whole of the waterfront, not just his or her favorite patch or point of origin...

Standards, knowledge, continual learning, the ability to process massive bodies of data and possibility, the ability to spot the crucial development in a perfect storm of possibilities--this, and not intuition, is the work of the CCO.

The CCO and the Consumer

[p 30] [The role of the CCO is] to dolly back far enough to see the consumer in her life, in her culture.

Actually, CCOs move in two directions.  The go inward toward the consumer more than anyone else in the C-suite.  They come to know what these lives feel like.  But CCOs also move outward to capture the bigger picture.  Dolly up.  Dolly back.

The CCO and "Homeyness"

[p 46] It is topics like homeyness that separate the CCOs who are moved by genuine curiosity about their culture from those who are merely in it for the really stylish eyewear.  There is nothing in homeyness that will make you look hipper to your friends.  There is nothing here you can drop into conversation at a party.  There is no knowledge here that really works as social capital.  No, the CCO wants to know about homeyness because it is part of American culture, and that's his job.

The CCO, Marketing and Smart Culture

[pp 92-93] The world of marketing is changing at light speed.  And this is another reason to hire a CCO.  If the corporation is now going to talk to consumers, instead of shout, or lie, it needs to know how to start and sustain the conversation... It needs to proceed with a new order of intelligence.  As Steven Johnson says in Everything Bad is Good for You, "For decades we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the 'masses' want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies want to give the masses what they want.  But in fact, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less."  To live in this culture, to profit in this new marketplace, a CCO is called for.

This may require a complete replacement of the marketing team.  In the meantime, it will require the presence of the CCO, someone who knows the culture well enough to engage with it, to talk about it, to contribute to it.

The CCO and Profitability

[p 107] There are two ways the CCO pursues profit.  The first is in the workaday business of making the C-suite's decisions better informed of the opportunities and the risks that come from culture.  The second is by acting like an internal entrepreneur, an innovation agent inside the corporation.

The CCO and Corporate Respiration

[p 119] Things are more complicated now.  Now the corporation is not just an economic actor, it is also a social and a cultural one... Instead of the interest-seeking automaton, the corporation looks more organic, like something living and breathing.  A key part of its respiration now is the movement of culture in and culture out.  Only a CCO in the C-suite and only a very smart person serving as CCO can manage this respiration.

Paying particular attention to A) Grant's reference to Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You (another great book) and the idea that our culture is actually getting smarter all the time, and B) the concept of "corporate respiration," the process by which corporations absorb and (in turn) influence the culture at large, I'm reminded of the first three theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto (surely no accident on Grant's part):

1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

Grant's convincing case that a CCO is now a necessary function ultimately derives much of its power from the fact that the world now looks a lot like the Cluetrain visionaries said it would.  Old-school marketing wasn't a conversation, it was a broadcast, or, at best, a one-way feedback loop informed by the findings of focus groups and (gag) "cool-hunters."  That system never really worked well--e.g. John Wanamaker's "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."--and its shortcomings explain why we now need a new profession to augment the position formerly occupied by the CMO.  Marketers know how to broadcast to demographic sectors, but they don't necessarily know how to hold a conversation with other human beings (in their professional capacity, that is--I certainly know plenty of marketers who are a joy to talk with :-)

This highlights one shortcoming of Chief Cultural Officer: any newfangled CCO will face a huge challenge in navigating the complex relationship with their conventional marketing colleagues, and I wish Grant had explored that topic further.  In a section entitled "Playing Well with Others: The Rest of the C-Suite," Grant rightly emphasizes how important it will be for CCOs to never "play the cool card" or be "hipper than thou," and to collaborate with their colleagues by making themselves useful.  But I suspect that while this will be easier said than done, this is actually where CCOs will need to focus a great deal of energy to be most effective.  Even companies that buy into the concept of a CCO will likely continue to maintain a separate marketing function under the direction of a CMO or the equivalent, and the CCO's ability to help the organization make best use of those resources will depend on the strength of the collaborative relationships they build with their marketing peers.

As Grant continues to proselytize on behalf of this fledgling profession, I suspect he'll use lessons learned from the field to fill in this gap.  And this quibble aside, I do highly recommend the book--it's a thoughtful read from a skillful writer and provocative thinker.

(FYI, two other concepts by Grant have had a big influence on me: the Swift Self, and the Elements of Reinvention.)

David Rock on Neuroscience, Coaching and Leadership

My interest in neuroscience and its implications for executive coaching, leadership development and other processes that involve behavioral change led me to a talk by David Rock at Oracle last week, sponsored by the South Bay Organizational Development Network (SBODN).

I first came across Rock in mid-2006, when he and Jeffrey Schwartz co-authored "The Neuroscience of Leadership" (free registration required), which, as I wrote in response, "builds on recent findings in brain research to explain why much of the conventional wisdom in the organizational development field is wrong and to suggest alternative approaches that are better suited to how our brains actually work."  I found Rock and Schwartz's vision compelling, although I took issue with their assertion that "humanism is overrated":

This is the one section of Rock and Schwartz's otherwise outstanding article that rings false for me.  It's not an effective critique of humanism, although it is a highly effective critique of various misunderstandings and poorly implemented management practices.

I'd be less critical if Rock and Schwartz had said, "Humanism is difficult to execute, can't be faked, and sometimes devolves into thinly veiled and patronizing efforts at persuasion," or, more concisely, "Pseudo-humanism is overrated."

In fact, I actually associate many of Rock and Schwartz's other recommendations to managers with a range of humanistic disciplines, from coaching to positive psychology:

• Be aware that change is difficult because it causes pain.
• Recognize that people in different functions process in different ways.
• Cultivate "moments of insight" to facilitate change.
• Leave "problem behaviors in the past; focus on identifying and creating new behaviors."

I'm fully convinced by Rock and Schwartz's overall thesis--a better understanding of how our brains function will allow organizations to embrace change and tackle new initiatives much more effectively.

Over the past three years Rock has continued to build upon this thesis in a series of books and articles with a particular focus on executive coaching and the process of personal development.  In 2006 he also published A Brain Based Approach to Coaching (PDF) and Quiet Leadership.  And this year he published Coaching with the Brain in Mind, aimed at coaches and consultants, and Your Brain at Work and Managing with the Brain in Mind (free registration required), both aimed at a general business readership.

Rock's talk at Oracle last week was a stop on his book tour for "Your Brain at Work" and provided a high-level overview of his thinking on neuroscience, coaching and leadership.  I'm not going to attempt a comprehensive assessment of Rock's work here, although I make some more general comments in the Note below.  Rather, these are simply the key points that jumped out at me and seemed most relevant to my own work with coaching corporate clients and MBA students at Stanford (much as I did in my recent review of "The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness."  (A note on quotes: I took hand-written notes during Rock's talk, but didn't make an audio recording.  Where I'm confident that my notes captured his language accurately, I quote the relevant passage, but where I'm not, I paraphrase and cite passages from his written work to convey my understanding of his intent.)

Why Neuroscience?

Rock began coaching in 1996 with no prior exposure to neuroscience.  As his coaching practice grew, he encountered prospective clients who wanted to know more about how and why the process worked.  He found that he could cobble together an explanation by drawing upon such disciplines as positive psychology, cognitive therapy, and various theories of change, learning and systems development, but this patchwork was ultimately unsatisfying (to Rock and presumably to his questioning clients as well.)

But in the early 2000s Rock found that contemporary neuroscience offered a more coherent and useful explanation for the efficacy of the coaching process.  As he wrote in A Brain Based Approach to Coaching (PDF) in 2006...

In 2003, together with a colleague, Elizabeth Guilday, I began helping New York University build a series of certificate programs in coaching. As educators, we both had explored all the underpinning theories of coaching, running classes that covered change theory, systems theory, learning theory, positive psychology, philosophy and other fields. Every time we explored the scientific foundations of coaching, recent findings in neuroscience kept jumping out like a flashing red light to me and to many of my students. Neuroscience was helping me make sense of coaching and opening up great possibilities for research. This inspired me to rethink my whole approach to coaching and explore the neuroscience of the field...

Rock believes that relying upon a neuroscience-based understanding of coaching has several key benefits.  First, "neuroscience gives leaders a language they're comfortable using to understand their experience," and that level of comfort may itself have a neurological basis; Rock notes that tangible concepts (such as the heightened understanding of brain function provided by neuroscience) are actually easier and faster for the brain to recall than intangible concepts.  Another aspect of this dynamic is that neuroscience is a conceptually convenient way for us to understand ourselves; Rock says that "neuroscience provides a data-processing frame for self-awareness," a bit of jargon I find quite catchy.

Second, coupling new skills (such as those developed by coaching clients) with a theory that helps the client understand how and why they're developing those skills makes the skill-development process itself more effective.  According to Rock, the union of skill and theory taps into "a richer brain network to help people understand" the process they're immersed in.

Finally, Rock recognizes that "people pay attention" when we use "hard science" to help explain "soft skills," and his work has obviously capitalized on this dynamic quite effectively.  (For a lengthy but important digression on this point, see the Note below.)

Four Big Surprises

Rock's central thesis is that neuroscience research has revealed four big (and surprising) truths with implications for coaching and personal development:

1) How limited our attention is.
2) How wrong we get emotions.
3) How important the social world is.
4) How attention changes the brain.

In order to better explain these concepts, Rock drew a very simple diagram of the brain showing three key elements:

- The prefrontal cortex, a small region over the forehead.
- The limbic system, a relatively large region in the center of the brain.
- The basal ganglia, a smaller region below the limbic system.

In his talk Rock assumed that his audience understood the primary functions of these brain regions.  To provide a little more context for readers here, the prefrontal cortex...

...has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior.  The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.

The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes).

And the basal ganglia...

...are associated with a variety of functions, including motor control and learning. Currently popular theories implicate the basal ganglia primarily in action selection, that is, the decision of which of several possible behaviors to execute at a given time.

But note that although neuroscience has advanced substantially in recent years, there's still controversy about basic brain structures and their function.  Thus the limbic system can be described at an elemental level as...

...a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex, which support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction.

But anything more specific seems to be speculative.  That said, it's sufficient for my purposes here to view the limbic system as a constellation of related brain features that collectively affect our emotions, particularly our responses to perceived threats and rewards.

Rock noted that if we define the capacity of the prefrontal cortex as equivalent to a single cubic foot, the rest of the brain's capacity would be the equivalent of the Milky Way galaxy.  I have questions about the science that underpins this assertion--Is it simply a matter of counting neurons?--but I accept the larger point Rock is making with the metaphor: The portion of our brain that we believe to be responsible for such functions as complex thought, decision-making, moderating social behavior and other aspects of executive function is quite small relative to the rest of the brain, and that has significant implications for how we interact with others.

To emphasize that point, Rock quoted Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister: "We have limited resources for activities like decision-making and impulse control, and when we use these up we have less available for the next activity."  (An important implication of the resource constraint referred to by Baumeister is that we resist mental effort around decision-making and impulse control because we're preserving resources in case we need them more urgently in the next moment.)

First Surprise: How limited our attention is.

Our attention is a finite resource.  Rock stated that people typically average just 1-2 hours of focused attention per day because the prefrontal cortex tires easily.  (Rock asked us what we would do differently, knowing that our attention is so limited.  I realized that I generally fail to appreciate the value of focused attention time, and thus fail to acknowledge the dangers posed by distractions.  Things that sap our attention or cause us to lose focus aren't merely annoyances--they're serious productivity-killers, and I could certainly act more decisively to resist them and keep them at bay.)

Rock also noted that our ability to learn is affected by the levels of certain brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters.  Specifically, relatively high levels of dopamine and sufficient levels of norepinephrine are required for optimal learning conditions.  Difficulty in learning--which could be characterized as insufficient attention--can be eased by increasing the levels of dopamine, which will increase our ability to focus.  One way to accomplish this is by doing something novel, which typically raises dopamine levels significantly.  For example, we can experience humor as novel, particularly when it's unexpected, and thus when teachers use humor effectively it can often enhance their students' ability to pay attention and allow them to learn more.

An important aspect of brain chemistry is that it's relatively hard to raise dopamine levels and relatively easy to raise levels of brain chemicals triggered by a threat response--specifically adrenaline and cortisol.  And increasing the amount of adrenaline in the brain actually serves to decrease the amount of dopamine, further hampering the learning process--thus the importance of minimizing and/or reassessing threat responses when learning is the goal.

An implication of the limits of our attention (and, more specifically, the capacity of our prefrontal cortex) relates to the Cubic Foot/Milky Way metaphor discussed above.  Rock noted that complex problems are rarely solved via working memory in the prefrontal cortex; studies indicate that we solve 60% of the problems we face without knowing how we solved them, i.e. "the answer simply occurred to me."  This is particularly important when we're trying to innovate.  Intense, active cognitive thought involves focusing the prefrontal cortex--the Cubic Foot--but this can often cause us to "prime" our brain with the wrong answer, according to Rock.  The solution is to "deprime" the brain in order to solve the problem.  In Rock's words, "Use the Milky Way and not the Cubic Foot... Innovation happens when you shut the heck up and stop trying to solve the problems and let your unconscious [i.e. the Milky Way] solve it."  (As Steve Jobs has said, "Sometimes when you're almost asleep, you realize something you wouldn't otherwise have noted.")

Another point Rock sought to make in this discussion was the importance of metacognition, thinking about thinking.  This occurs not only at a cognitive, conceptual level--how do I think?--but also at a more visceral, immediate level--what am I thinking (and feeling) at this moment, and is it useful, or would I be better served by thinking (and feeling) differently?  As Rock said, "the more metacognition you do, the more adaptive you are."

Rock concluded this section of his talk with a discussion of the ways in which our limited attention can be diverted by less useful types of brain activity.  Intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions activate relatively few neurons and generate small amounts of electrical activity in the brain.  In contrast, cognitive thought activates large numbers of neurons and generates more electrical activity, and a threat response activates even more neurons and generates even more electrical activity.  But, as noted above, intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions play an important role in complex problem-solving and innovation, so at times when we're focused on those tasks, it's important to be able to lower the level of electrical activity in the brain--not only by avoiding threat responses, but also by avoiding getting trapped in intense (yet unproductive) conscious thought--in order for us to notice and act upon those intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions.  Paradoxically, the ability to stop or minimize active conscious thinking and "quiet our minds" is an important problem-solving skill.  (Rock didn't touch on practices to develop this skill, but I suspect that that meditation and activities that generate "flow states" would be useful here.)

Second Surprise: How wrong we get emotions.

Negative emotions are extremely powerful, and according to Rock, we move away from threats much more quickly and vigorously than we move toward rewards.  Strong negative emotions also significantly reduce prefrontal cortex function, so a threat response diminishes our problem-solving abilities and other executive functions governed by that region of the brain.

Many factors in the workplace create a threat response--a topic Rock explores in greater depth in "Your Brain at Work"--which means that we often experience strong negative emotions there (and far more frequently than we realize.)  But our typical response to negative emotions in that context is to suppress them, because they're "not appropriate" for the workplace, according to many organizational cultures (and our own training.)  Unfortunately, suppressing negative emotions has a number of undesirable consequences, from reducing memory function to raising the blood pressure of other people around us (presumably via "mirror neurons", which fire when we observe behaviors in others.)

A useful alternative to suppressing negative emotions is to simply talk about them.  As I've discussed before, research by Matt Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberger et al has "demonstrated that linguistic processing of the emotional aspects of an emotional image produces less amygdala activity than perceptual processing of the emotional aspects of the same image."  In lay terms, talking about negative emotions helps us manage them more effectively than merely thinking about them.

This process, known as affect labeling, is part of a larger dynamic related to how we respond to negative emotions.  We can't control the negative emotions we feel, but we can exert more control over how we respond to them, and perhaps the most significant distinction is whether we suppress or reappraise negative emotions.  Here Rock cited the work of James Gross, a Stanford professor of psychology known as "the father of emotional regulation," and Kevin Ochsner, who directs the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Columbia.  Studies have shown a substantial difference in a number of quality-of-life and effectiveness indicators based on our tendency to suppress or reappraise negative emotions, and reappraisal inevitably leads to better outcomes.  In response to a question of mine, Rock said that there is some evidence that we can retrain ourselves to reappraise rather than suppress negative emotions, but given the importance of this factor for so many forms of personal development and behavioral change, I'll be looking into Gross's and Ochsner's research further in the coming weeks, and I hope to meet with Gross at Stanford next month.

If we think of the strong emotions and other responses generated by the limbic system as the brain's "accelerator," then we might think of the opposing forces that cause us to reappraise a situation before a full-blown threat response kicks in, which are generated by the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, as the brain's "braking system."  A dilemma related to the Cubic Foot/Milky Way metaphor discussed above is that the resources available for acceleration, i.e. the capacity of the limbic system, are far greater than the resources available for braking, i.e. the capacity of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.  Accordingly, we have very little time--something on the order of 1/3 of a second--to "put on the brakes" and intervene to reappraise a situation and our response to it.

At this point in his talk Rock noted that we have two ways of experiencing the world around us that tap into two separate neural networks in the brain: 1) A "narrative circuit," consisting of the limbic system and the thinking/planning regions of the prefrontal cortex, in which active, conscious thought allows us to make meaning of the world in an ongoing, logical narrative, and 2) "direct experience," a state of mindfulness in which we're not engaged in conscious thought but rather activating our sensory systems and taking in increased amounts of sensory data which we don't consciously analyze but simply experience.  (I'm reminded of Jill Bolte Taylor's discussion [video] of her experience as a brain researcher in the midst of having a stroke, which allowed her to access these two ways of being in sharp and vivid contrast.)  Rock added that the networks these systems make use of actually switch each other off, so when we focus on one, activity in the other diminishes.  Unsurprisingly, we tend to focus on the "narrative circuit," which switches off the "direct experience" network, reducing the amount of sensory data available and increasing the amount of conscious thought, which, as noted above, increases the level of electrical activity in the brain and potentially "drowns out" intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions.

Given the limited time and resources available for us to make use of the brain's "braking system," Rock believes it's essential to enhance our ability to operate in "direct experience" mode, increasing the available sensory data and allowing us greater access to intuitive feelings and low-level cognitions that might otherwise be ignored.  To be clear, this doesn't mean being mindful all the time, but rather being more adaptive, so we can choose to be more mindful, activating the direct experience network and increasing the flow of sensory data when it would be useful to do so.

Third Surprise: The deeply social brain.

Returning to the idea that we move away from threats more powerfully than we move toward rewards, Rock noted that there are five social dimensions within which we can perceive threats and rewards: Status, our position relative to others; Certainty, our ability to predict future outcomes; Autonomy, the feeling that we have choices and are in control; Relatedness, the feeling that we are connected to others; and Fairness, the sense that people will act ethically and justly.

Our brain responds to social threats in these dimensions just as it does to the threat of physical pain, a finding that has substantial implications for leadership practices.  The power of our threat response means that leaders can use social threats--those related to Status, Certainly, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness--to dramatic effect.  I'm reminded of a recent Stanford Daily article on the research of university biologist and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, which noted that our threat response evolved in a very specific context:

In the wild, 99 percent of stress responses never exceed three minutes, after which Sapolsky said, "either it's over with or you're over with."  In humans, the response is often mounted in anticipation of an assault on homeostasis rather than an actual perturbation.  "We’re having these anticipatory psychological stressors, [and] we turn on the exact same stress response as every other beast out there, and we use it for all the wrong reasons," said Sapolsky. "If you do it chronically, you’re going to get sick, because that’s not what the stress response evolved for."

So leaders who rely on threat responses may see results in the short term, but they and their colleagues will likely pay a substantial price in the long term.  Rock believes that it's more sustainable and ultimately more effective for leaders to rely on social rewards rather than threats.  I agree, but Rock's own assertion that the reward response is weaker and slower to develop than the threat response implies that it will take more skill, effort and possibly restraint on the part of a leader to emphasize rewards rather than threats.

(A additional comment on Relatedness: Rock said that at a fundamental level our brains see the world as populated by an In-Group, to which we're connected, and an Out-Group, to which we're not--Friends and Foes, in other words.  Strangers are automatically classified by our brains as Foes until we share some sort of bonding experience with them that generates oxytocin, which allows our brains to re-classify them as Friends.)

Fourth Surprise: How attention changes the brain

The good news is that Rock was quick to respond to questions from the audience throughout his talk; the bad news is that this left us short of time, and he wasn't able to address the fourth point of his thesis in detail.  Based on my understanding of his work, I assume he would have discussed the concept of neuroplasticity, which I touch on briefly below.

Rock closed with a short list of resources where his work is available (in addition to the books and articles I cite above):
- Blog at Psychology Today
- Neuroleadership Institute
- Neuroleadership Summit in Boston, October 2010
- Results Coaching Systems, Rock's coaches training firm

In summary, I learned a great deal and found Rock's interpretation of current neuroscience research compelling.  I even bought a copy of "Your Mind at Work," which I've skimmed in the course of writing this review, and I expect to dig more deeply into his work going forward.

A Note on Credibility

Rock's role as a populizer of complex and experimental scientific research has exposed him to criticism, such as a thorough (but unfortunately anonymous) critical review of "Quiet Leadership" on Amazon that calls the book "psuedo-scientific mumbo-jumbo."  Rock has clearly made an effort to associate himself with reputable scientists, many from UCLA's School of Medicine, including Daniel Siegel, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry who wrote the foreward to "Your Brain at Work," and numerous speakers at the Neuroleadership Summit (which Rock founded and organizes), including Matt Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberg, clinical neuroscientists at UCLA whose work I've cited before.  So despite any shortcomings in specific passages of Rock's work, I trust that he's engaged in a good faith effort to understand the science and represent it accurately for a lay audience.  That said, I have two caveats.

First, in addition to the many neuroscientists speaking at the 2009 Neuroleadership Summit, Werner Erhard spoke on "How Language Shapes the World."  Erhard, who founded est and the Forum, and whose work formed the basis of the subsequent Landmark Forum programs, clearly has a unique perspective on personal growth and development.  And I know people who've attended and benefited from Landmark seminars (and I'm aware that some well-known management thinkers have been associated with Landmark over the years, including Warren Bennis--another 2009 Neuroleadership Summit speaker--and Michael Jansen.)  But I've also read a number of articles that raise serious concerns about est and Landmark, particularly related to methods that participants experienced as coercive and the pressure placed on participants to sign up for additional workshops and to recruit their family and friends.  So while I'm sure Erhard is a compelling and thought-provoking speaker, his credibility is diminished by those criticisms.

Second, while much of Rock's work with Jeffrey Schwartz is grounded in neuroscience that seems amply documented (at least to a layperson such as myself), in at least one instance they stray far into experimental territory and reach conclusions that seem unsupported by research.  For example, in "A Brain-Based Approach to Coaching," Rock and Schwartz assert that the brain is a "quantum environment," by which they mean that it changes in response to observation, just as particles do in quantum physics (in contrast to the more predictable and invariable movements of particles in conventional Newtonian physics.)  The implication, according to Schwartz, is "what has been termed self-directed neuroplasticity, or the ability of an individual to alter his or her own brain activity through the active practice of focusing attention in constructive ways."  This is a complex concept, but it's certainly one that I find credible, and describing the brain as a quantum environment helps me to understand it.

But asked by Rock to explain this process how and why this process occurs, Schwartz takes a big (and problematic) leap:

An important and well-verified law in quantum mechanics called the Quantum Zeno Effect turns out to be the key to understanding how focused attention can systematically re-wire the brain. Quantum Zeno Effect was first described nearly 30 years ago and has been extensively studied many times since then. One classic example of it is the fact that rapidly repeated observation of a molecule will hold the molecule in a stable state. It does this by markedly slowing the rate of fluctuation the molecule demonstrates when not observed in a repetitive fashion. This is a basic principle of quantum physics -- the rate of observation has marked measurable effects on the phenomenon being observed. The Quantum Zeno Effect for neuroscience application states that the mental act of focusing attention holds in place brain circuits associated with what is being focused on. If you pay enough attention to a certain set of brain connections, it keeps this relevant circuitry stable, open and dynamically alive, enabling it to eventually becoming a part of the brain’s hard wiring. [My emphasis]

The problem is that the existence of a "Quantum Zeno Effect for neuroscience research" appears to be theoretical.  In 2004 Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State, published a paper titled "Does quantum mechanics play a non-trivial role in life?" (PDF), and his conclusion was essentially "We don't know":

The case for quantum biology remains one of "not proven." There are many suggestive experiments and lines of argument indicating that some biological functions operate close to, or within, the quantum regime, but as yet no clear-cut example has been presented of non-trivial quantum effects at work in a key biological process.

This suggests to me that while Schwartz may be accurately describing an aspect of brain function that we can observe empirically through fMRI images and other neuroscientific tools (i.e. that "focusing attention holds in place brain circuits associated with what is being focused on"), the idea that this process is caused by a "Quantum Zeno effect for neuroscience application" is unproven.  It might be a great metaphor and a useful teaching tool, and it might fit well with other aspects of Schwartz's or Rock's thought, but asserting it as a proven fact seems to undermine, rather than bolster, the scientific credibility of Rock's work.

As I mention above, I do trust Rock's interpretation of current neuroscience research, and I believe his application of its findings to coaching offers a compelling explanation for how and why the coaching process actually works.  At the same time, it's clear that the field of neuroscience attracts thinkers from a wide range of backgrounds and extends into highly experimental territory.  Coaches with an interest in applying the principles of neuroscience would do well to maintain an open mind while also remaining skeptical of purported experts and of any far-reaching conclusions that don't seem to be fully supported by research.

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

My interest in neuroscience and its implications for executive coaching, personal development and professional effectiveness led me to have lunch recently with Alvaro Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of SharpBrains, a market research firm that focuses on the application of neuroscience in healthcare, education and related fields.  I was sufficiently inspired by my conversation with Alvaro that I went on to read The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness, which he co-authored with Dr. Elkhonen Goldberg, his SharpBrains co-founder.  (Full disclosure: I know Alvaro personally from business school, and he loaned me a copy of his book.)

The Guide, published earlier this year, is a great overview of current neuroscience research, with nearly 20 interviews with scientists, physicians, educators and others working in the field.  A few key points that caught my attention:

1) Cognitive Training Can Lead to Behavioral Change

Dr. Judith Beck, author of Cognitive Therapy (an outstanding overview of this system of psychotherapy's principles and application), has been highly successful at helping people achieve and maintain weight loss, which she found was a secondary goal of many of her patients suffering from depression and anxiety.  As Fernandez and Goldberg write in the Guide:

Cognitive therapy (CT)...is based on the idea that the way people perceive their experience influences their behaviors and emotions.  The therapist teaches the patient cognitive and behavioral skills to modify his or her dysfunctional thinking and actions.

CT aims at improving specific traits, behaviors or cognitive skills, such as planning and flexibility, which are executive functions...

According to Dr. Beck, the main message of CT and its application in the diet world is that problems losing weight...reflect the lack of skills that can be acquired through training.  What skills is Dr. Beck talking about?  Mostly executive functions: the skills to plan in advance, motivate oneself, to monitor one's behavior, etc.

Dr. Beck is also interviewed in the Guide:

I found that many of the same cognitive and behavioral techniques that helped [my patients] overcome their other problems could also help them lose weight--and keep it off.

I became particularly interested in the problem of being overweight and was able to identify specific mindsets or cognitions about food, eating, hunger, craving, perfectionism, helplessness, self-image, unfairness, deprivation and others that needed to be targeted to help them reach their goal.

Although cognitive therapy's efficacy as a methodology extends well beyond its effectiveness in supporting weight loss, as a coach I find the connection compelling.  Many of my clients and students wrestle with issues unrelated to mental health but nevertheless rooted in mindsets similar to the ones Beck lists above, particularly perfectionism.  And while I am not a therapist and do not employ CT techniques per se, much of my work as a coach involves more general cognitive training intended to support and maintain behavioral change.  At the most basic level, simply helping a client reframe an experience or situation by viewing it from an alternative perspective can allow them to feel quite  differently as a result--and then to act in ways that better support their goals.

2) Experiential Learning Has a Neurological Basis

I've written before about the importance of experiential learning in my work as a coach and consultant.  David Kolb (and his colleague Roger Fry) first developed the experiential learning model in the 1970s, and today Dr. James Zull, a biologist and biochemist at Case Western Reserve, believes that activity in different regions of the brain corresponds with the four stages of this model:

SharpBrains: How does learning happen?

Zull: There are 4 stages in the "Learning Cycle."  Stage One: We have a concrete experience.  Stage Two: We develop reflective observations and connections.  Stage Three: We generate abstract hypotheses.  Stage Four: Then we actively test these hypotheses.

In the fourth stage, we have a new concrete learning experience, and a new Learning Cycle ensues.  In other words, we get information (activating the sensory cortex), make meaning of that information (in the back integrative cortex), create new ideas from these meanings (in the front integrative cortex), and act on those ideas (using the motor cortex.)  From this, I propose that there are four pillars of learning: gathering, analyzing, creating and acting.  This is how we learn.

On a tangential note, I'm also struck by the fact that Zull goes on to say that, "Learning in this way requires effort and getting out of our comfort zones.  A key condition for learning is self-driven motivation, a sense of ownership.  To feel in control, to feel that one is making progress, is necessary for this Learning Cycle."  Executive coaching is rarely successful unless the client is willing to stretch beyond their comfort zone, and it's never successful unless the client feels a sense of ownership over the process.

3) Structured Learning Supports Peak Performance

Dr. Brett Steenbarger is a professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, as well as a financial trader with over 30 years of experience in the markets.  His current area of research is "how to enhance cognitive and emotional development among traders to help them become more successful."  Steenbarger is interviewed in the Guide:

SharpBrains: What is the premise of your new book, "Enhancing Trader Performance"?

Steenbarger: The premise is that elite performers in highly competitive fields share common traits... The elite performers are most distinguished by the structure of their learning process... Traders typically devote little time to practice and a structured learning process.  I want to encourage them to see that "learning on the job" is not a substitute for breaking down skills into components, drilling these, receiving feedback about performance, and making continuous modifications and improvements.

In every field, elite performers devote more time to practice than to the actual performance.  To perform at the highest level, you need to protect and optimize practice and learning time.

Specifically, Steenbarger recommends that traders who seek to improve their performance make use of 1) simulation and biofeedback tools, 2) reflection and regular feedback, and 3) mentors and coaches.  I'm struck by the parallel with the Leadership Labs we run for first-year MBA students at Stanford.  In a series of classes in their first Quarter in school, small groups of 8 students each go through simulations and role-plays that evoke how they respond in challenging situations, give each other feedback on their effectiveness, and work with a second-year "Leadership Fellow" who serves as a facilitator and mentor to the group.  (As a "Leadership Coach," I, in turn, work with groups of the second-year Fellows to help guide them through the experience.)

Of course, perhaps it's no surprise that a coach recommends an expert who recommends coaching!  But at least I try to walk the talk--I support my own professional development through such structured learning experiences as having my own coach (who I see every few weeks), joining 3 other coaches for monthly conference calls (a new practice I just started), and being a member of a monthly group that meets in person to support each other, provide feedback and work on our interpersonal skills (although this Fall evening classes have conflicted with my group time :-P )

But the key finding for me is the inherent value in rigorous, structured learning, whatever form it takes.  If that inspires you to go out and retain a coach, great--but if it inspires you to keep a notebook on your bedside table and jot down a few lines before turning out the light, that's great, too.

4) Cognitive Training Enhances Attention

"Attention" is obviously a key cognitive skill, but we typically apply the term somewhat loosely to three distinct processes, as described by Dr. Michael Posner, an emeritus professor of neuroscience from the University of Oregon and a leading expert in cognitive neuroscience:

SharpBrains: Can you explain the brain basis for what we usually call "attention"?

Posner: One of our major findings, thanks to neuroimaging, is that there is not one single "attention," but three separate functions of attention with three separate underlying brain networks... 1) Alerting: Helps us maintain an alert state.  2) Orienting: Focuses our senses on the information we want... 3) Executive attention: Regulates a variety of networks, such as emotional responses and sensory information... Executive attention is...the ability to manage attention towards [goal-oriented executive functions], towards planning... [Later in the interview, Posner stresses that "it is clear that executive attention...(is)...critical for success in school..."]

SharpBrains: Tell us now about your recent research on attention training.

Posner: Several training programs have been successful in improving attention in normal adults and in patients suffering from different pathologies...

Let me add that we have found no ceiling for abilities such as attention, including among adults.  The more training, even with normal people, the higher the results.

The topic of attention is also prominent in the Guide's interview with Dr. Daniel Gopher, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Technion, a scientist who's worked on cognitive performance programs with the Israeli military and the NBA:

SharpBrains: Please summarize your research findings...

Gopher: In short, I'd summarize by saying that cognitive performance can be substantially improved with proper training.  It is not rigidly constrained by innate, fixed abilities.  Cognitive task analysis enables us to extract major cognitive skills in any task.  Attention control and attention allocation strategies are critical determinants in performing at top level in complex, real-time decision environments.  Those skills, and other associated ones, can be improved through training.  Research shows that stand-alone, inexpensive PC-based training is effective to transfer and generalize performance.

In other words: 1) Attention is a complex phenomenon comprised of 3 distinct processes; 2) The specific process of executive attention and the sub-tasks of attention allocation and control are critical to success in cognitively demanding environments, and 3) Inexpensive computer training has been shown to improve attention-related cognitive performance.

So should we all be using these cognitive training tools?  And if so, which ones?  Well, those are the questions that SharpBrains is trying to answer, and I encourage you to check out their research.  The $20 Guide is aimed at laypeople like me with a general interest in neuroscience's implications for our own fields, and their $1,300 Market Report is aimed at analysts and others with a professional interest in the "brain fitness software market" (and bigger budgets.)

Again, full disclosure: I know Alvaro Fernandez personally from business school, and he loaned me a copy of the Guide.  That said, there's no way I'd ever promote a company unless I truly found their products useful, and the Guide is the best high-level overview of the "brain fitness" field I've seen.

Teaching Leadership with Stanford's Leadership Fellows

Can leadership be taught?  More specifically, can it be taught by peers?  (And what does William James have to do with it?)

At Stanford I work closely with the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program, in which a cadre of second-year students leads the first-year class through a series of small-group workshops known as the Leadership Labs.  Both the Leadership Fellows program and the Leadership Labs themselves are examples of experiential learning, where conceptual theories provide a frame for hands-on, face-to-face activities.

Last year I did some thinking about experiential learning after reading Robert Richardson's William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism:

In the book's penultimate chapter, Richardson quotes from James's Some Problems of Philosophy:

The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substituting a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.

The profound meaning of this quote for me is rooted in the fact that my work hinges upon the unique ability of experiential learning to expand both our self-awareness and our behavioral repertoire, and (by extension) upon the inability of conventional modes of instruction to achieve the same results.  Richardson continues:

For this aspect of his later thinking, James has been called anti-intellectual.  A better description of his real position would be anti-abstraction; best would be to recognize it as the culmination of a lifelong protest on behalf of experience.  This is not a new position for James, of course.  It is the same clear opposition to Plato, who denigrates perceptual knowledge as mere sense impressions, and contrasts them with ideas, which are true and eternal.  Jame's life work had been to reverse this polarity, to answer Plato...

[But the Platonic] model is much less useful in a field where there are few (if any) universal truths, which is the case in my areas of expertise: executive coaching, leadership development and group facilitation.  I can't tell anyone anything and have confidence that real learning will occur.  I can disclose my own sense-impressions, but the choice to view them as relevant and meaningful remains in the hands of the learner.  Ultimately all I can do as an instructor is act on hunches, ask questions, and make observations, and hope they register with the learner as lasting sense-impressions and that the learner infuses them with meaning.  And that meaning must be created out of their own, personal experiences as a leader or in a group.

So back to the question at hand: Can students teach leadership to their peers?  Absolutely--but I'd highlight 3 important issues:

1) Leadership Is Learned, Not Taught

Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and currently a professor of management at Harvard Business School, has said:

I don't think you can teach leadership, I think you can learn about it.  I think you can learn about yourself.  It comes from within, from who are you inside and what makes you tick, and what are those tapes playing in your head about what you want to be and what your limitations are...

What we can do [in leadership development classes] is cause people to come together and learn about themselves through dialogue... You learn about who you are, and if you go inside yourself, you find out, "What are my passions?"...

Do you seek out honest feedback from people about who you are?  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.

This is exactly what we seek to do with the Leadership Fellows, and what we train them to do with their peers: Provide experiences that will allow them to understand themselves better--their strengths, their passions and their limitations--and engage in discussions that will expand their self-awareness through candid feedback.

2) Peers Are Guides and Facilitators, Not Teachers

If leadership is learned rather than taught, then it stands to reason that our Leadership Fellows aren't teaching, even though their students are learning.  The Fellows do present some conceptual material to their peers to frame the exercises in the Labs, on topics such as active listening, emotional intelligence, or the stages of group development.

But the real value provided by the Fellows in the leadership development process comes not from their mastery of abstract concepts but from their ability to guide a small group of their peers through a series of experiences, ranging from highly structured exercises to open-ended role-plays based on business scenarios, and to facilitate discussions in which the participants get candid feedback on their effectiveness and reflect on their performance.

Having a highly differentiated authority figure--i.e. a teacher--leading an experiential learning process can actually inhibit learning, because the students will aim for the "right" answer and seek to win the teacher's approval, which can distort their authentic reactions to the experience.  But there's rarely (if ever) one right answer when it comes to effective leadership, and if students aren't acting authentically in an experiential process, whatever they learn isn't going to stick.  In contrast, a peer guide/facilitator, like one of our Leadership Fellows, has just enough authority and expertise to provide some structure, but not so much that it distorts their peers' response.

3) Leadership Is Everywhere, Not Just at the Top

Leadership isn't derived from titles or status, and being in a leadership position doesn't automatically make you a leader.  (You may be able to use positional power to enforce your will, but I wouldn't call that leading.)  Conversely, the lack of a formal position doesn't mean you lack opportunities to lead.  Organizations need leaders at every level, not merely among the ranks of senior management.  (David Bradford has noted that the idea of "middle management" gets all the attention when "middle leadership" is arguably far more important--although not as catchy.)

Our Leadership Fellows exemplify this type of "middle leadership"--they're in a differentiated role, and at the beginning of the Labs they have some authority on the basis of that role, but within a few weeks that differentiation erodes and their students come to see them more as peers than as authority figures.  So their ability to lead rests not on their positional power but on their success at motivating and influencing--in other words, actual leadership.

And I'd argue that the experience of having a peer as a leader and seeing "middle leadership" in action may be one of the most important aspects of the Leadership Labs--because our first-year students realize that even in the relative absence of positional power, even when you don't have years of experience, you can still be a leader.  Are all our Fellows equally successful at this?  No, and that's why experienced coaches like me are here--to be a backstop, a safety net, to help them through the rough spots.  Can the program be improved?  Yes, and that's something we focus on every year.  But I'm confident that every one of the Fellows I've worked with personally over the past 3 years has helped his or her students develop their leadership potential in some new and unexpected ways.

Photo of William James by Psychology Pictures.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Stanford's Synthesis Seminar Bibliography

One of my most rewarding experiences this year was participating on a team assembled by Prof. Carole Robin to design classes on "Fulfillment and Meaning," "Failure and Resilience," and "Transitions and Renewal" for Stanford's Synthesis Seminar, a new course for second-year students at the Business School.  The rationale for addressing these topics--in this order--was our team's belief in an underlying cycle of personal development:

1. Finding more fulfillment and meaning in life increases our resilience and prepares us to handle failure more effectively.
2. Greater resilience and an enhanced ability to handle failure prepares us to manage transitions more effectively.
3. Greater comfort with transition allows us to regularly engage in self-renewal.
4. A commitment to continued renewal allows us to find fulfillment and meaning in new ways over time.

And one of the greatest resources to come out of the Synthesis Seminar is the class's extensive bibliography, created by GSB librarians Daphne Chang and Nora Richardson, which compiles all the resources we used in the course (and more) on a single web page, with book synopses, author notes, and videos.  (Unfortunately, most of article links go to Stanford databases that require a university affiliation to access, but I assume most of them are available elsewhere.)

I continue to use this bibliography as a resource in my coaching practice, and I find something new and useful there on a regular basis.  Thanks to Carole and my colleagues on the design team, and thanks to Daphne and Nora!

Photo by Kris Cohen.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

David Foster Wallace on the Meaning of Life

Tonight I learned that a writer whose work I admired from a distance but hadn't read in a few years died of cancer in 2007.  She wasn't a public figure on a large scale, so none of my family or friends knew of her death or even that I was a fan of her work, and I'd never been in touch with her.  But the illusory sense that a reader has of "knowing" an author gave her passing a personal dimension for me, perhaps in part because it was such a surprise.

And this reminded me of another recent and surprising writer's death, the suicide of David Foster Wallace on September 12, 2008.  I lacked the patience for Wallace's sprawling, endlessly footnoted novels--a flaw in me, not in his work--but I found those same qualities compelling in his stories and nonfiction.  I knew little about him personally, but the persona that emerged from his work, particularly his essays--which covered every topic imaginable, sometimes in a single piece--was wise and humane, all too aware of our culture's flaws but also aware that each day flawed individuals were doing their best to make it better.

Shortly after Wallace's death, the Wall Street Journal published an essay adapted from a commencement address he gave at Kenyon College in 2005.  I encourage you to read it all, but these two paragraphs near the end convey his message clearly:

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.  There is no such thing as not worshipping.  Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.  And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.  If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough.  Never feel you have enough.  It's the truth.  Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.  On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story.  The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.  Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.  Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious.  They are default-settings.  They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.  And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self.  Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom.  The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.  This kind of freedom has much to recommend it.  But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.  That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

It is hard to take advice on how to live a good life from a man who chose to end his, and I don't simply mean that it's difficult--I mean that it's painful, because these words strike me as so true, so fundamentally right that I can't believe that they lacked the power to save the life of the man who wrote them.

I've read this essay many times, and each time I still feel a unique sense of grief and anger and terror and hope.  The grief is for Wallace, and the anger is for the fate that left such a talented man so tormented.  The terror and hope are for me; I'm terrified that I'll never transcend my own petty gods, the unworthy objects of my worship--and I'm hopeful that I will, that I'll find freedom in attention and awareness and discipline and effort, in caring and sacrifice for others, in consciousness.

Photo © Outline/Corbis.  All rights reserved.