Ed Batista

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.

James Baldwin on the Ugly Side of Life

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

- James Baldwin

My colleague Trina Roach tweeted this quote the other day, and it caught my attention.  (And I'm not alone--a search for the line turns up 30,000 hits.  No one seems to know exactly where Baldwin wrote or said it, but it certainly sounds like him, so I'm going to trust the attribution.)

While Baldwin was surely inspired by the specific challenges he faced pursuing his own calling as a writer, I'd extend his sentiment beyond professions to include any institution, from nations to organizations to families.  And I suspect that Baldwin--a gay Black man born in 1924 and driven abroad by ferocious bigotry--would agree.

Someone included this line in a list of "cynical quotes," but that's a misinterpretation; there's a big difference between soul-sucking cynicism and clear-eyed realism.  I'm not a cynic, although occasionally I play one at dinner parties, and I love darkly sardonic humor.  As a coach I believe deeply in the power of the positive--an attitude supported not only by my empirical experience with clients and students, but also by everything we're learning about neuroscience and how our brains respond to threats and rewards.

But emphasizing and harnessing the power of the positive doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the negative, ignoring ugliness and celebrating this best of all possible worlds.  It means accepting that there is ugliness in this world, in innumerable forms, and choosing how to respond to it.

Consider Baldwin's quote in context: He was obviously intimately acquainted with the ugly side of life, and yet he wrote 24 books, the last one published the year he died of stomach cancer.  He didn't shrink from or ignore ugliness, but he didn't let it prevent him from pursuing his calling; I'd argue that he used it to help fuel his genius.

Acknowledging the ugliness that exists while also staying focused on and making use of the positive isn't easy--at times it can be the toughest challenge we face.  But to me that's the definition of maturity, and striving to maintain that balance has been an important process in my own growth and development.  I fail regularly, but hopefully less often as the years go by.

Photo of James Baldwin by Mottke Weissman, accompanying "Freeing James Baldwin" by Dwight Garner of the New York Times.

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.

Crying at Work

Is it OK to cry at work?

Bret Simmons had a great post yesterday on crying in the office which prompted some further reflection.  I've had many clients, students and colleagues cry with me in my work as an executive coach, and I've cried myself, many times.  I think it's important to create a working environment and working relationships in which it's acceptable for people to acknowledge stress, frustration, grief and the wide range of other emotions that can lead to tears.  In my experience tears are almost always cathartic, and when they're expressed people feel better afterward as long as they're not stigmatized for doing so.

Bret's post critiques a video from Howdini on "How to deal with crying in the office" that Bret and I both take issue with.  An author interviewed in the video states that "work is about facts, not feelings."  That's a dangerously naive view of how we operate, even (especially) in the workplace, and the suggestion that we can (and should) simply repress any negative emotions we feel at work strikes me as outdated and unhelpful.

That said, the video features two women and seems to be aimed at women, with a reference to running mascara, and I think it's important to acknowledge that women can pay a greater price than men for crying at work, particularly in certain organizations and industries where crying is stigmatized, and especially in fields where women are underrepresented.

In my role as a coach, I typically encourage people to acknowledge and express their emotions more freely in ways that will support their goals.  I firmly believe that the ability to do so allows us to be more effective, more influential and healthier to boot.  And I'd like to support the development of a business world in which people can cry as freely as they do in my coaching practice or in my classes with graduate students.

But I also know that my clients and students need to succeed in the world as it exists today, and that includes organizations and industries where people who express emotion, particularly tears, pay a price.  So with any individual client or student, I believe that it's essential to understand the context in which they work and whether they will pay a price for expressing their emotions.  That doesn't mean they shouldn't cry, of course, but it does allow us to fully assess the implications of doing so, to weigh the costs and benefits, and to strike the right balance between (at one extreme) passive acceptance of an environment in which emotional expressions are taboo and (at the other extreme) a quixotic effort to resist a culture that's not going to change.

I'm reminded that in December 2006, the tears of former President George H. W. Bush made news.  Bush was addressing legislators and state workers at the final leadership forum convened by his son Jeb, who was soon to leave office after two terms as governor of Florida.  It was the sort of routine political function that would ordinarily be ignored by everyone except those in attendance, but Bush's tears turned it into a national story.

Bush was describing how Jeb handled his defeat in the 1994 governor's race when he broke down.   As he struggled with his emotions, he stopped speaking for a moment, and the audience burst into applause.  Jeb rushed to his father's side, as shown above, comforted him with an arm around his shoulder, and handed him a bottle of water before Bush continued.

Interviewed after the forum, Bush said, "I'm the emotional one... I don't enjoy breaking up, but when you talk about somebody you love, when you get older, you do it more."  So as a powerful figure, as someone discussing his son, and as an older person, Bush had the freedom to cry without fearing the repercussions--and hopefully his doing so made it more acceptable for those of us who lack his advantages.

On Growth and Renewal: An Update

How do we invest in our own growth and development?  What do we do to renew and revitalize ourselves?

These questions have been on my mind today.  Last April Eric Lapp sent me the photo on the left of a tree in his neighborhood that refused to die, an image that struck both of us as a powerful symbol of growth and renewal.  Eric just sent me the updated photo at right, and I'm thrilled to see it thriving--it obviously had a good growth spurt this Summer.  So what have I done over the past few months to support my own growth and renewal?

Being A Better Coach Means Getting Better Coaching

In a sense, coaches are always being coached.  Coaching is an approach to interacting with others--at its simplest, I'd say it's an awareness that I don't have "The Answer" coupled with an ability to ask thought-provoking questions--that we bring to relationships with colleagues as well as to engagements with clients.  So my discussions with the other coaches here at Stanford and with my colleagues in the larger executive coaching community often have a certain "coaching feel" to them that can be very helpful.  But despite this dynamic there's something uniquely powerful about being in a formal relationship with a coach--which is why my colleagues and I exist in the first place.

So this Summer I began working again with Mary Ann Huckabay, a coach and therapist who recently retired from the Stanford faculty.  Mary Ann not only was my prof in the GSB's "Interpersonal Dynamics" course 10 years ago (!), but she also served as my coach in my first Executive Director position after my graduation from business school.  I initially approached Mary Ann because I wanted to be better prepared to support students coping with mental illness, particularly depression, but our conversations have extended into a range of other topics related to my effectiveness as a coach, not only with students but also with my private clients.  It's been incredibly stimulating and challenging and a lot of fun, and it's certainly the best investment I've made in my own development this year.

Reading, Writing, Reflecting...and Unplugging

I spent a good amount of time in the first half of the Summer reviewing the work I've done here over the past 5 years and reflecting on the themes that emerged.  This process resulted in the creation of six Self-Coaching Guides, edited compilations of posts on the topics of Change, Communication, Happiness, Leadership, Learning and Motivation.  I didn't select these topics in advance--they seemed to grow naturally out of my writing--and further reflection led me to see them as elements in a larger framework that I'm calling an Operator's Manual for understanding and addressing our professional challenges.

It felt great to have gained this perspective on my work.  I understood myself and my approach to coaching more deeply, I felt better prepared to assist my clients and next year's students, and I had a conceptual framework to support continued thinking along these lines.  And then I really needed to take a break, which at first was easier said than done.  I worried about whether I should be more "productive" over the Summer, and I wondered whether I'd be able to get my momentum back in the Fall.  But eventually I realized that I needed to listen to the deeper voice advising me to slow down for a bit, and to let go of the anxieties that were keeping me from doing it.

So in the second half of the Summer, I did a little professional reading--but I read a lot more John O'Hara (my current fave.)  Aside from my work with my coach, I had some very rewarding conversations with colleagues--but I spent a lot more time just hanging out with Amy, enjoying her company.  I'm looking forward to reading more deeply and writing more frequently again, but simply unplugging for a while has been very invigorating and a great investment in my long-term growth.

The Continued Pursuit of Happiness

Although I dialed back my work here a bit, I've stayed very active in a number of ways, in keeping with the happiness strategies I adopted last Winter: "Taking Care of Your Body," "Increasing Flow Experiences," "Practicing Acts of Kindness" and "Expressing Gratitude."  I've certainly been physically active, exercising 70 days in June, July and August.  (I've also eaten quite well this Summer, so all that activity hasn't translated into a slimmer profile.)  And I've maintained a keen sense of gratitude over the past few months--grateful for the most important people in my life, grateful for the wisdom of David Foster Wallace, grateful even for just a little perspective on a bad day.

I haven't been as successful at cultivating (non-athletic) flow experiences, or at performing (non-trivial) acts of kindness, so I have plenty of room for improvement.  But given that I was somewhat down and frustrated a few weeks ago, I feel that my commitment to these practices has helped me develop a more resilient, deeper happiness that allows me to bounce back more readily--and that feels like an important area of growth.

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None of this is to say that I feel a sense of complacency about myself or my development--I'm acutely aware of my shortcomings as a person, a husband, a coach, a friend.  But that awareness of my shortcomings is, in part, what's inspired my focus on growth and renewal.  And it's because I know that I can do better, in so many ways, that it's so gratifying to look back over the past few months and think, "Hey, not bad!"

Which brings me back to the questions I asked above, and I pose them to you:

How are you investing in your own growth and development?  What are you doing to renew and revitalize yourself?

Bad Leader! Stifling Dissent

In short order Bret Simmons of the University of Nevada, Reno, has become one of my favorite thinkers on management; he's in Bob Sutton's class as an academic who clearly gets the web, and his blog is a lively and informative read.

Today Bret has a great post on how bad leaders stifle dissent:

1) Your people never see you say no.  You never disagree or challenge the people you work for, so your people never learn from you how to do this with purpose.  You send the very clear message that “no” is not acceptable around here.

2) People that have told you no are gone.  You have systematically removed from your inner circle everyone that disagreed or challenged your policies and decisions.  But that’s ok, because everyone knows they were not team players, or were disloyal or disrespectful.  This is the rhetoric of conformity and exclusion.

I'd add a third behavior to this list: Failing to accept differences of opinion and pushing beyond a reasonable point to obtain uniform public agreement.  Your people don't feel free to voice disagreement because you hound them until they change their mind (or at least that's what they appear to be doing.)

There will always be times when leaders need to override their team members--and making that decision wisely is a key element of effective leadership.  When a leader makes that choice, it's usually advisable to devote some time to discussion to see if common ground can be found and/or to persuade the team.

But if common ground can't be found, and persuasion's not effective, and the leader still believes that overriding the team is the right way to go, they need to accept their team's right to disagree and trust that the team can still deliver on their mandate.  Pushing further to extract (superficial) agreement demonstrates a lack of trust (in them and in your own authority), leads to intractable arguments and/or hypocrisy, and insures that you'll hear fewer honest opinions in the future.

(And if you don't recognize Humprey Bogart as Captain Queeg, get The Caine Mutiny on your Netflix queue ASAP.)

On Change: Inclination, Motivation, Action

UPDATE: With some time to reflect further on the graphic above and the essay below, I have a few clarifying thoughts on its purpose:

1) This model describes the conditions that support sustainable change.

2) The questions that accompany each of the model's components--inclination, motivation, and action--allow us to determine whether the conditions are right for change and to understand how we might influence those conditions.

3) And if we define sustainable change as "influencing ourselves," there's a clear parallel between this model and the Influence Pyramid--food for future thought.  (Must be something about yellow triangles.)

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How do we make change happen in our lives?  What supports our efforts?  And what gets in our way?

This post seeks to illustrate a universal topic--the process of change--using as a vehicle a very particular story about the role of exercise in my life.  It's a work-in-progress on a theme, so I hope you'll bear with me if it feels rough in spots.  I've written before about how I use Don't Break the Chain as a tool to help me exercise on a regular basis.  It's an extremely simple website that allows you to create "chains" consisting of days on a calendar that you fill in after completing an activity on a given day.  There's something compelling about the site's simplicity--you click on a day to fill it in, and that's all you can do.  There's also the visceral impact of an increasingly color-filled calendar when you successfully keep a chain alive (and, conversely, the impact of a long stretch of blank, white days when you've failed to complete your chosen task.)  Here's a (regrettably grainy) screenshot of my exercise calendar to date this year:

I was on a roll until March, when my wife and I both came down with a terrible cold, and between our recovery, helping Amy through her subsequent shoulder surgery, and an insanely busy Spring Quarter at Stanford, it took three months to really find my stride again.  But I'm kicking ass in July--yay me.

Reflecting on this experience has made me think about how and why I've been able to stay active--or, more accurately, to return to a fulfilling level of activity, over and over again, even when daily life gets in my way.  And that process led me to think at a more abstract level about the process of change.

I was an athlete in high school, and I stayed active throughout college, but once I began working full-time I found it difficult to exercise regularly on a sustainable basis.  Throughout my 20s and 30s I'd work out daily for a few months, and then I'd stop and not do a damn thing for weeks on end.  And then I'd start up again, and the cycle would repeat itself.  I was generally pretty fit and could sustain this process physically, but it was psychologically draining.  I wanted to change and to break this cycle but was perpetually unsuccessful.

But last year, after turning 40 in mid-2007, my body began telling me in no uncertain terms that being inactive for lengthy periods and then suddenly launching into a fitness regime was no longer an option.  If I wanted to be active at all, I was going to have to get active and stay active, permanently.  Just as importantly, this year I came to understand that physical activity is an essential element in my happiness; I can't be sustainably happy unless I'm sustainably active.

And so over the last two years I've suddenly found it possible to break this two-decade-long cycle and to make a sustainable commitment to my physical fitness.  Have I been 100% successful?  No, of course not--just look at some of those long white stretches in the calendar above.  But also notice how quickly I got back in the saddle, so to speak.  In the past, the cumulative effect of an illness, and caregiving for Amy, and a hectic period at work would have been months of inactivity.  But this year the longest I've gone without exercising was 15 days.

So what changed?  What factors contributed to my ability to make this change happen?  I believe that our actions rest on a foundation of inclination and motivation, as shown in the graphic at the top of this post.  Here's what I mean by those terms in the context of a proposed change:

Inclination

• Am likely to change?
• Am I inclined or not to make this change?
• How does it align with my life and my preferences?
• Why might this process be easy or difficult for me?

Motivation

• What are my goals?
• What motivates me to make this change?
• What optimal results do I expect?
• What minimal results will I accept?

Action

• What steps will result in forward motion?
• What will encourage me to act?
• How do I move from reflection to action?
• And what will keep me moving ahead?

Here's a graphic representation:

This model certainly applies to the case of my newly discovered ability to exercise sustainably.  In years past none of the actions I took led to lasting change because there was no foundation in place: I possessed neither the inclination nor the motivation to make that commitment.

But my changing (read: aging) body and intimations of mortality, as well as the realization that exercise isn't just enjoyable but is actually central to my happiness profoundly altered the context for this process.  My actions now had a solid foundation to support them--and this is why a simple little tool like Don't Break the Chain has been so useful.  The action of building a chain day by day and coloring in my calendar now builds upon an altered inclination to change and an enhanced motivation to change--so that action, and every other step I take to pursue this goal, has a much more profound impact than it would have had in the past.

I've had such success with changing my approach to exercise that I've recently decided to try changing my approach to sleep.  I often read or write or just goof off late into the night, resulting in a fairly irregular sleep pattern.  I've wanted to change this habit for years, but I've never been able to break it.  But in the past few months I've felt the effects of insufficient sleep more acutely, and I've been hearing about a growing body of medical research that suggests that regular sleep is important for long-term physical and mental health.  In other words, my inclination to change and my motivation to change have themselves changed--and I suspect that I'll be able to build on this foundation successfully going forward.  Don't Break the Chain allows you to create multiple chains for different activities, and here's mine for a good night's sleep, which I started 2 days ago:

So far, so good.

(Here's a 4-slide PowerPoint file [57 KB] of the graphics above.)

Photo by quinn.anya. 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.

Operator's Manual

A few weeks ago I posted six Self-Coaching Guides, compilations of edited posts on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.  Those six topics--listed here in the order they were written--emerged from a review of my work on this site over the past 5 years.  As I sifted through more than 600 posts, I found that the ones with lasting relevance to my work as a coach sorted themselves into these topics.

I've continued to reflect on these topics and feel that they cover the full range of issues that come up with my coaching clients and students while also providing a useful overview of my perspective on effectiveness and fulfillment.

Three topics--Communication, Leadership and Change--address our effectiveness relative to our external environment:

• How do we communicate with others?  How can we express ourselves more effectively?
• How do we lead and manage?  How can we direct subordinates, influence peers and "manage up" more effectively?
• How do we deal with change?  How do we make change happen?  How can we adapt to--and create--dynamic circumstances more effectively?

The remaining three topics--Happiness, Motivation and Learning--address our sense of fulfillment relative to our internal world:

• What makes us happy?  Are we both professionally and personally fulfilled?
• What motivates us to achieve our fullest potential?  Are those drives contributing to our fulfillment?  And how do we respond when we feel demotivated?
• How do we learn?  How do we maximize our fulfillment as learners to insure that our skills keep pace with our challenges?

Rolling this all up into the graphic above creates an Operator's Manual for professional and personal development.  We need to look out and assess our effectiveness as communicators, as leaders and as change agents, and we need to look in and determine whether we're truly happy, truly motivated, truly learning--in short, whether we're fulfilled.

There's something meaningful here for me, and I'm considering making this framework the foundation for some ongoing work.  If you have any input, I'd love to hear it.

Time Horizons

When we assess our lives--our fulfillment, our effectiveness, what's working, what's not working--how far ahead do we look?  How far ahead should we look?  Is that time horizon a good fit for the issues under consideration?  And what issues are most relevant to us in a given time horizon?

The 10 time horizons above are the ones that I find most useful.  They're each sufficiently distinct to provide a different perspective and raise a new set of issues, but they flow continuously from this immediate moment to my very last breath.  That's not to say that I have a clear plan for each horizon--hardly.  (I'm a searcher, not a planner.)

But when looking ahead it's helpful to realize that I've moved from one horizon into the next.  It prompts me to ask: Am I in the right timeframe?  Should I take a step back--or jump even further ahead?  Should my approach change?  Am I still asking the right questions?  Are the same issues in play?

I chose these specific horizons deliberately: Once I look beyond "Today" my next natural horizon is "This Week," and once I look past Friday the next signpost is a month-and-a-half out.  And the "18 Month" horizon fits with Peter Drucker's belief that clear and specific plans can't cover any more time than that.  You might choose a different set of horizons--perhaps "This Month" makes more sense to you than "6 Weeks."  Or perhaps 10 horizons is too many, and it's more useful to think in broader strokes.  For example:

The precise number and scope of the horizons is up to you--choose the ones that best meet your needs.  But my larger point is that sometimes we're looking too far ahead when focusing closer in would be more useful, and sometimes we're staring down at our shoes when we really should lift our gaze.

(Here's a 2-slide PowerPoint version [111 KB] of this post.)