Ed Batista

Investment vs. Attachment

It's essential for me as a coach--and, I'd argue, for all of us when we're in any position of influence, particularly a leadership role--to distinguish between investment and attachment. It's a distinction that has a significant impact on our relationships in those roles, our mutual feelings of autonomy and independence, and our ability to support and lead others effectively.

We invest in people, and being invested in someone means we care about them and want them to succeed. We convey our investment in ways large and small, from being available to being vulnerable, from providing support and consolation to stepping into challenges and pushing back when necessary.

But if we invest in people, we're attached to outcomes. We want something specific to happen, and the successful accomplishment of that goal can be an important source of meaning and fulfillment to us, so we'll expend a lot of energy and exert a lot of pressure to insure that it's achieved.

As a coach, I need to be invested in my clients' or students' success without becoming attached to any particular definition of success. As they progress toward (or away from) certain outcomes, I pay careful attention to how I respond. If a client or student is succeeding in accomplishing a given goal, do I feel good because I'm invested in them as a person, or do I feel good because I'm attached to their accomplishment of that goal for some reason, perhaps because it would make me feel more effective as a coach? Whatever the cause, when my investment turns to attachment, it's a clear sign of bad coaching, and an invitation to explore 1) why I'm attached to that particular outcome, 2) how I might relinquish my attachment, and 3) how I might increase my investment in the person.

The calculus for a leader is different, of course. In almost all leadership roles, we have to balance our investment in people and our attachment to outcomes. If we care only about the people and are indifferent to the goals, it's either a very unusual leadership situation...or we're coaching and not actually leading. But if we don't sufficiently invest in our people while remaining deeply attached to achieving our goals, that unbalanced emphasis inevitably has a pernicious effect on engagement, commitment and retention. People sense that they're valued solely as means to an end, and if they can find equivalent compensation elsewhere while feeling valued as individuals, they'll pursue those options.

So while coaches have to be careful to avoid becoming unduly attached to outcomes, leaders must as well. We all draw the line in different places depending on our role, the context, the urgency of our goals and the relationships we have with our people, but we all have to find the right balance.

Postscript

A vivid example of this dynamic is an aspect of my role as a Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). I work with 11 Leadership Fellows, second-year students who've been accepted into a competitive program in which they each work with a total of 9 first-year students in small groups and one-on-one to help the first-years develop their leadership and interpersonal skills.

I'm intensely attached to the goal of insuring that the 99 first-years who are being served by my 11 Fellows have a meaningful learning experience. That's an outcome that matters a great deal to me, and not only because it's a function of my role, but also because I believe deeply in the value of this curriculum, and as a GSB alumnus I want the school to do the best job possible of developing better leaders and managers.

But at the same time I work very closely with those 11 Leadership Fellows, in small groups and one-on-one, a process that involves not only (or even primarily) my managing their work with their first-year students, but also coaching them on a wide range of professional and personal issues during the course of the 8 months we spend together. It's impossible for me not to become deeply invested in my Fellows as individuals because of this level of engagement.

Admittedly, it's an unusual situation because 1) every year the Fellows I'm privileged to work with are an incredibly dedicated group of people, 2) my goals as a Leadership Coach are tightly aligned with my Fellows' goals, and 3) the Fellows' primary relationship to their students is as a coach, so even when I'm coaching them on issues unrelated to their work, they have an opportunity to learn work-related skills.

But even in this context I have to bear in mind the balance between investment and attachment. I do have to insure that we collectively deliver on our commitment to support those 99 first-years, and I'm firmly attached to that outcome. At the same time it's essential that my 11 Fellows know how deeply invested I am in them as individuals and how committed I am to their own growth and development. If I were to view my Fellows as means to an end, it would compromise my values and undermine my ability to work with them effectively. And yet if we were to lose sight of that end, it would essentially turn our 99 first-years into lab rats--highly complex rats, to be sure, but the subjects of an experiment all the same.

Photo by nosha. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Blocking And Tackling (Fundamentals of Change)

I don't use that many sports metaphors, but there's something about "blocking and tackling" that perfectly describes my approach to change, whether it's with a coaching client or student, or in my own life.

The phrase reflects the fact that flashy, dramatic plays in American football--like Steve Young's game-winning 49-yard scramble for the 49ers against the Vikings in 1988--are the result of a series of profoundly un-flashy, un-dramatic efforts that make big gains possible. And this is exactly how I think about any desired change--no matter how lofty or ambitious the goal, the path to its achievement will be paved with countless small, humble steps.

So what does blocking and tackling look like in this context?  I see the 5 strategies below as the fundamental tools at our disposal when when we're seeking to make a change--there are plenty of others, to be sure, but in my experience these 5 tend to provide significant leverage:

1) Break down large goals into smaller components.

By definition, people seeking help accomplishing a goal, whether in a 1:1 coaching engagement or as part of a larger organizational transition, are grappling with a challenge that's too big or complex to address all at once. If that were possible, they'd simply do it and move on.

This is understandable: We slap labels on a huge array of related activities in order to give us a conceptual handle on the overarching goal. But once we move beyond the conceptual realm into action, the labels start getting in our way. They obscure the distinctions between separate-but-related activities, they fail to acknowledge inter-relationships and dependencies, and they're useless at helping us prioritize.

For example, in early 2008 I decided that I wanted to "be healthier," which was certainly a laudable goal, and even a motivational one in theory. But what the hell did that actually mean in practice? "Being healthy" was way too abstract for me to translate into action, and (after a number of experiments), I ultimately broke it down into five smaller, daily goals: 1) exercise, 2) meditate, 3) get enough sleep, 4) eat and drink moderately, 5) work on my intellectual/professional development.

This framework allows me not only to get a clearer picture of my "health" by assessing each of these smaller goals individually, but also to see the inter-dependencies among them and to prioritize accordingly. I've noticed that sleep and my intellectual/professional development can be inversely correlated--which usually means I'm doing a lot of late-night study. Sometimes this is OK--but at other times it's not, and then I need to re-balance, prioritize sleep and trust that the work will get done. 

2) Build enthusiasm and momentum by celebrating small victories.

Success feeds on itself, and a benefit of breaking large goals down into smaller components is that it gives us many more opportunities to feel successful and reap the rewards. The smaller goals I outline above are all daily activities--so every single day I have an opportunity to succeed on each dimension. In this case, I track each of the goals mentioned above using Don't Break the Chain, a lightweight productivity tool that's so powerful because it's so simple: Set up a daily calendar, and every day you accomplish your goal just click on the date to add a "link" to the "chain." (My exercise calendar for this month--as of January 18th--is above.)

A significant consequence of this approach is that I experience a small (but noticeable) thrill each time I get to click on a date and "add a link"--classic reward-driven behavior that's undoubtedly related to a tiny surge of dopamine in my brain each time I click: Press the lever, get the cookie! Equally significant is the small (but noticeable) feeling of absence that occurs when I fail to fulfill a daily goal and as a result am denied the reward.

I can also celebrate milestones by looking at stretches of time on my calendars, from 4 weeks to 4 months to an entire year, and feel a sense of accomplishment and agency. Each of my daily successes over the course of a month, a quarter, a year add up to something bigger than I realized in the moment. (Conversely, when I consistently fail to accomplish a goal, the growing stretch of white space on the calendar can motivate me to get back on track, and in retrospect I can correlate that data with whatever was going on in my life at that time to better understand what happened and why.)

3) Identify assumptions and mental models; then create experiments to generate new data.

We often embark upon an effort to change with a commitment to re-assess our goals, values and strategies and judge them by their results. But a limitation of this approach is that so many of those very same goals, values and strategies are rooted in underlying assumptions and mental models that go untested because we view them as universal truths or because we're not even fully aware of their existence.

We need to step back and expand our analytical frame to identify the assumptions and mental models that underlie the goals, values and strategies we're testing in the first place. This process is best described as double-loop learning, a term first coined by Harvard Business School professor Chris Argyris:

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The key tasks here are A) identifying our closely-held beliefs as assumptions and mental models rather than "truths," B) developing experiments that will generate data allowing us to test the veracity and utility of those assumptions and models, and C) being willing to revise and update our assumptions and models on the basis of that new data.

In my case, a mental model deriving from my athletic training as a kid was the idea that exercising meant grueling, full-on workouts.  Anything less was insufficient and "didn't count."  But as a result of this belief, if I didn't have time to "do it right," then I wouldn't do it at all--I let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Even worse, I failed to take into account the fact that as I entered middle age, it was no longer possible for me to do everything that I did when I was in high school and college--I'm no slouch, but I'm also not 18 anymore (thankfully.)  I had to let go of the model of a "training regimen" designed for a young, competitive athlete and embrace the alternative concept of an "active life" designed for an old(er) guy who just wanted to feel better.

At first, this new approach didn't feel right at all--my mental model told me I was slacking.  But eventually I realized that being easier on myself (both physically and mentally) made it possible to be more active more consistently--which was actually my ultimate goal.  New mental model, different strategy, better results.

4) Avoid obstacles by taking alternative or parallel paths.

This approach to change relies upon a sense of dynamism and fluidity.  Breaking down large goals into smaller steps means more opportunities to celebrate little victories as well as more opportunities to test assumptions and mental models.

But when we hit an obstacle--often in the form of our own resistance--everything grinds to a halt.  So it's important to keep moving forward, in one way or another.  And rather than overcome the obstacle or fight the resistance, it's often more effective to simply find another path toward the goal.

This can take many forms--in my case breaking down the large goal of "being healthy" into five components gave me five paths to follow simultaneously.  And while my intention is to pursue them all every day, that's not necessarily feasible--as shown in the occasional inverse correlation between sleep and work.  But having multiple paths at my disposal allows me to continue to make progress on at least one of them every day.  (It's pretty rare that I go "5 for 5" on a given day, but I don't think I've ever gone "0 for 5" either.)

Another version of this strategy involves looking for experiences that parallel the goal we're pursuing in other aspects of life.  My practice as a coach focuses on helping people be more effective and fulfilled in their professional lives, but in many cases my clients and students find the work-related issues they're addressing a little too daunting to tackle head-on.  In that case, an option is to look for parallels in their personal lives, where there's often more support for change and where the risks of change can seem lower.

5) Start small and scale up as needed. 

Implicit in all of the strategies above is the idea that it becomes easier to make big changes when we're already experiencing success at a smaller scale.  (Just note how many times I use the word "small" above.)

Tackling smaller changes not only allows us to feel the reward and sense of efficacy that comes with accomplishment, but also helps us learn some important things about ourselves, such as our assumptions and mental models, other sources of resistance, how we respond to setbacks and what support we find most helpful.  We learn best when we're slightly stressed but not overwhelmed, and changing at a smaller scale first allows us to have as much information as possible as our disposal when the stakes are higher.

Successful small changes may also reduce the need for large-scale change.  Change is often driven by a desire to be happier, but research shows that we exercise control over our sense of happiness and fulfillment most effectively through small-scale, consistent intentional activities, not through large-scale changes in our life circumstances.

Finally, changing successfully at a smaller scale allows us to shift our mindset.  We may think of ourselves as people who don't--or can't--change, and we may think of change as something alien or frightening.  A running joke of mine with my wife is "I hate change"--and at one level that simply means that I enjoy ritual and routine; for example, I love returning to familiar restaurants, because I like re-connecting with the people we come to know through repeated visits.  But at another level, I'm also saying that "Change is scary," and it's the successful efforts to change at a smaller scale that allow me to feel calmer and more courageous when the scale increases.  I'm not sure what changes are in store for me at the moment, but the shift in mindset I've experienced by changing in small ways over the last 4 years will undoubtedly serve me well when I decide to take on something bigger.

Photo courtesy of the United States Sports Academy.

Resistance and Self-Sabotage

My last post on Why I (Keep Trying To) Meditate included the following passage:

I know that my resistance to meditation is an indicator that it's a healthy practice for me, and the fact that it's difficult for me to do it daily is one of the primary reasons I keep at it.  I'm not saying I should force myself to do all the things I resist doing.  Helping people deconstruct a rule like that--a powerful mental model, by the way--is something I do in my coaching practice, and I strive to do the same in my own life.

Rather, I'm saying that there are some specific steps that occur in the meditation process that are valuable for me to experience precisely because of my resistance to the practice.

Which prompted Richard Winters to note that it reminded him of Steven Pressfield's War of Art.  I wasn't familar with Pressfield, so I looked him up.  He's an accomplished writer of historical fiction probably best known for golfing tale The Legend of Bagger Vance, but he also served as a Marine in the 1960s and has worked "as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital."  What a life!

And I was deeply struck by the power of this quote on his About page:

My writing philosophy is a kind of warrior code—internal rather than external—in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that I call "Resistance" with a capital R (in The War of Art). The technique for combating these foes can be described as "turning pro."

I don't know what Pressfield means by "turning pro," but I completely resonate with the idea that our greatest enemy lies within and that we hold ourselves back primarily through self-sabotage.  I'm reminded that in my work as a coach it's essential to meet any form of resistance--especially my own--with curiosity.  Just digging in and pushing back harder generates a lot of heat but rarely results in actual motion.

 Photo by Bailey Weaver.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Comfort Struggle

I recently bought these smiley-face stickers, which are produced by a company called Teacher Created Resources, and this message on the back of the package caught my attention:

Imagine the great things you can do with these fantastic stickers!

Reward Success!

Encourage Progress!

Notice Accomplishment!

Restore Confidence!

Compliment Effort!

Decorate Completion!

Recognize Good Conduct!

Observe Exellence!

Honor Attempt!

Comfort Struggle!

While it's slightly exhausting to read--so many! exclamation points!--I also find it inspiring.  I'm reminded of the many wonderful teachers I've had, and I recall with gratitude the many ways in which they expressed not only their commitment to my learning but also their investment in me as a person.  I hope I have a similar impact on my own clients and students, and while I trust in my abilities as a coach, I'm also prompted to wonder how I could do an even better job.  It's important to me to go the extra mile, just like a teacher who might pay for these stickers out of their own pocket to augment their limited classroom supplies.

Finally, I see a clear parallel between the impact of a smiley face sticker on a child and the many small ways in which we can convey our support and caring to each other as adults.  Research shows that activities such as expressing gratitude or practicing acts of kindness have a surprisingly large impact on our happiness.  This research reinforces what I see in my work as a coach every day--the little things really do matter, and it's important to look for and step into opportunities to encourage progress, restore confidence, comfort struggle.

Coaching Is A Journey

Recent reflections on bad coaching have prompted some further thoughts on good coaching, and I find myself returning to the metaphor of coaching as a journey at sea, a concept I first discussed last year after the loss of Roanak Desai, one of my students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  Although I'm a confirmed landlubber and don't enjoy the literal experience of being out on a small craft, it's a compelling metaphor for several reasons:

It's Not My Boat

Coaching inevitably involves helping a client reach a destination, and as a coach it can be easy to fall prey to the illusion that it's my boat, I've invited the client on board, and after we've reached our destination they'll step ashore.  But that gets things exactly backwards: it's the client's boat, they've invited me on board, and after our work is done I'll go ashore while they continue on to the next leg of the voyage.

This framing helps me view both the coaching relationship and my role in it from the most useful perspective.  I'm no mere passenger along for the ride, but I'm not the captain or even the navigator.  I don't choose the destination or chart the course--that's up to the client.  I do ask a lot of questions on those topics and occasionally offer advice and feedback, but responsibility for decision-making rests firmly in the client's hands.

Tradewinds and Currents

The tradewinds and currents that surround us make it easier to follow certain courses, and knowing where they lead allows us to make informed decisions about whether to follow or resist them.  This is particularly important at sea, where there are no predetermined routes and we must ultimately select a course to make progress--unless we decide to drift along, which is also a valid option.

This dynamic exists both within a single coaching conversation and over the arc of the coaching relationship.  The client and I both bring to the process a set of experiences and preferences that will influence our choices.  In addition, our work is taking place within the context of our respective professional and personal lives, which will further influence our shared experience.  Everything in a coaching relationship is affected by these factors, from the issues a client seeks to address to our responses in any given moment.  The more we know about these factors, the better we'll be able to understand their effect on the coaching process and harness them to further our progress rather than be driven off course.

Deeper Waters

All journeys begin in the shallow confines of a safe harbor, and some are destined to skirt the coast, staying within sight of the shore and never going too far out to sea.  This is fine if we don't have far to go, or if we're content to take a long time to get there.  But in some cases we need to venture out over deeper waters, which ultimately requires taking some risks.

Like all relationships, coaching relationships are built on a foundation of safety and trust.  A client can feel vulnerable simply sitting down with me, particularly if they haven't worked with a coach before, and this can be true even with my students at Stanford, where coaching is commonplace.  As a coach I have to attune myself to the client's perspective and earn their trust, and this is a highly variable process.  A certain level of trust is established within minutes, but it may take days, weeks or even months to progress to deeper levels.

While safety and trust are being established, coaching conversations will proceed in ways that involve less risk for both the client and myself, and this is both natural and desirable--we're just starting our journey together.  Only after we feel a sufficient sense of safety and trust can we venture into discussions that are more emotionally intimate or touch on more challenging topics.  As a coach it's important to avoid steering for these deeper waters to prove my effectiveness--that's a form of bad coaching--but it's equally important to help the client feel safe enough to travel them with me and to let them know that we can go there when and if they choose.

Photo by Jule Berlin.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Please Don't Validate Me

A friend sent me a link to the 2006 short film Validation, a 16-minute parable that wraps a conventional boy-meets-girl story around a novel idea: A parking lot attendant re-interprets his job description and rather than just stamp customers' tickets he truly validates them with heartfelt positive feedback.  People respond so avidly that the line for validation stretches out of the parking lot.  The attendant embarks on a global effort to spread the love, and widespread happiness ensues...except in his own life, because he can't win over the (improbably beautiful) driver's license photographer at the local DMV.  He tries, fails, eventually succeeds.  The End.

"Validation" did make me smile, as expected, and it also made me think.  Validation is central to my work as a coach, and what the film gets right is how hungry we all are for it.  But what the film gets wrong is that, despite this hunger, validation makes most of us feel very uncomfortable.  We don't stand in line to get it--we run away from it.  These two responses are interrelated, of course: We resist validation so much precisely because we want it so badly.  The depth of that desire makes us incredibly vulnerable--so much so that we're willing to avoid any validation in order to insure that we're never embarrassed by our hunger for it or--even worse--by falling prey to inauthentic validation from manipulators or phonies.  When we say we want candid feedback, we typically expect that it's going to be hard to hear criticism--and it can be--but it can be even harder to hear (and truly acknowledge) real praise.

I belong to a group of 12 people that meets for an evening once each month.  We're all current or former facilitators in Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics class (aka "Touchy Feely"), and most of us are professionally involved in helping people grow and develop in one way or another.  We began last month's session with an exercise that involved one person volunteering, and then the rest of the group speaking up and sharing affirmative words or phrases that came to mind as we reflected on that person.  In the abstract it sounds so simple and easy as to be meaningless--but in person it was surprisingly difficult.

I found the idea stimulating, and I volunteered to go second.  And it was rewarding, at first.  People said things like "direct," "genuine," "savvy," "loving," and "loyal," and that felt great to hear.  But I soon grew so uncomfortable my palms began to sweat, and I actually felt embarrassed.  Bear in mind that I was sitting comfortably with a handful of people I know well and trust implicitly.  I honestly appreciated everything they said, and the whole process probably took less than 2 minutes.  But even in those circumstances, I almost couldn't bear to be validated; it's no wonder that we usually find the experience practically traumatic.

I don't have a pat answer to this dilemma--it's been nearly 5 years since I first wrote about The Problem with Positive Feedback, and it's still an issue I wrestle with, both personally and in my work with clients and students.  But I have learned that our refusal to accept validation, like all resistance, should invite our curiosity, not our collusion.

It's also noteworthy to me that had I asked the group to stop when I began to feel uncomfortable, I would have missed out on the most meaningful piece of feedback I got: One of the very last things someone said to describe me was "walks the talk."  I can't think of any higher praise than that, and I feel a little surge of pride just remembering it.  I also feel myself pulling back from sharing it here, as though I were boasting--but I'm not going to collude with that feeling.  I do try to walk my talk, and while I certainly don't always succeed, it means a lot to know that I succeed often enough that people take notice.

Postscript: My friend and colleague Inbal Demri-Shaham, who led the exercise described above, was thoughtful enough to write down the list of words and phrases the group shared with each person.  I brought my list home and put it up on the fridge, like a kid's report card.  And, like a kid, I felt both proud and sheepish showing it to my wife the next morning.  She enjoyed reading it, until she came to "savvy," which she mis-read as "sexy."  "Sexy?  What the hell???"

Hammering Screws (Bad Coaching)

If good coaching feels like a trip in a tandem kayak, or a belay on a tough climb or even a trapeze catch--all meaningful experiences shared with a trusted partner--then bad coaching feels like hammering screws--a solo effort on the part of the coach that can make a lot of noise but accomplishes very little.

As a coach it's been my privilege to take plenty of kayak rides with my clients and students, but over the years I've done my share of hammering screws as well, and I've realized that bad coaching typically results from underlying needs of my own, particularly a need for the client to experience progress or to achieve some sense of closure.  This may sound paradoxical.  Don't coaches want our clients to experience progress?  Isn't closure a desirable outcome of the coaching process?  Generally, yes...but there are some important caveats.

My interest in my clients' progress is usually aligned with my desire to an effective coach.  And my interest in achieving closure--whether that means resolving a particular issue or ultimately concluding the coaching relationship--usually supports both my clients' progress and, more importantly, their independence and self-sufficiency.  To be clear, while these interests primarily serve my clients' needs, they also allow me to feel a sense of fulfillment and efficacy, and I believe that having this personal stake in the coaching process actually makes me a better coach because I'm not a disinterested bystander--I care deeply about my clients, and I'm invested in their success.

But it's important for me to monitor these interests and to gauge their intensity; if I'm feeling a sense of urgency around them, it may be that my need to be seen as effective or another personal motive has kicked into overdrive, and it's masquerading as support for my client.  The telltale evidence that this dynamic is at play is my client sensing that I'm pushing a solution on them, relying on a single framework or strategy in my approach, or simply rushing toward closure before they're ready to move on.

It's worth noting that bad coaching can happen within the context of a good coaching relationship--or even in the middle of an otherwise good coaching conversation.  I've been privileged to work with people who trust me enough to tell me when we've gotten off-track, when our coaching relationship no longer feels like a true partnership.  This feedback has been essential in allowing me to understand these dynamics and to see how my legitimate needs as a person usually support my effectiveness as a coach--and occasionally get in the way of my client's needs and the coaching process.  I haven't mastered any of this (and don't expect to anytime soon), but I'm grateful for the many opportunities I've had to keep working on it.

Thanks to Cathy Carmody and Coert Visser, whose thoughtful response and thought-provoking question prompted me to dig deeper and mine a couple of tweets for some more meaningful learning.

Photo by Justin Baeder.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Corn Mazes and Mental Models

A few weeks ago a family became lost in a corn maze in Massachusetts and called 911 in a panic.  Police rushed to the scene and found them, unharmed, just 25 feet from the entrance to the maze.  A brief flurry of media coverage resulted, in which the family were generally portrayed as dimwits lacking common sense.  But mocking these people obscures the fact that we've all had similar experiences; their predicament was just an unusually literal example of being trapped by a mental model.

Many commenters wondered why the family didn't simply walk through the corn to escape the maze.  They could have easily pushed aside the cornstalks, headed for the exterior and rescued themselves.  But they didn't think they were in a cornfield; they thought they were in a maze, and while their failure to recognize the difference says something about their crisis management skills, it also says something about the power of mental models.  They couldn't simply walk through the corn, because that would involve walking through walls, and that's impossible.

We habitually view the world through a series of mental models that shape our understanding of our circumstances, our relationships and ourselves.  And while these mental models are essential tools in allowing us to navigate through life, they can easily lead us astray.  Philosopher Alford Korzybski said "A map is not the territory it represents," and a mental model is not the reality it seeks to depict.  But we can easily mistake our mental models for reality and apply them inappropriately.

We construct our mental models out of the meaning we extract from experience, and there's inevitably a loss of fidelity as we focus on certain aspects of an experience (while ignoring others), interpret that data, and then conceptualize it as a general principle.  And the gap that exists between our mental models and reality will continually increase over time unless we compel ourselves to test our assumptions, gather new data and update our models--which requires consistent effort.

A mental model I held about myself for years was that I was a poor public speaker.  I'd get nervous before a presentation or speech, I interpreted my sweaty palms and the pit in my stomach as evidence of my ineffectiveness, and my expectation that I would perform poorly became a self-fulfilling prophecy which, of course, reinforced my mental model.

But while I was getting my MBA I took a public speaking course at Stanford's School of Engineering.  The rationale for the course was that engineers are often brilliant technical thinkers whose poor communication skills prevents them from promoting their ideas more effectively, and the methodology was utterly simple: Prepare a short speech or presentation and deliver it to the class each week for ten weeks.

I quickly came to realize that it's easy to improve as a public speaker if you do it often enough, and that I had trapped myself in my own mental model: believing I was a poor speaker led me to avoid speaking opportunities, which prevented me from ever improving.  Today I still get nervous before a speech or presentation, but I view that response simply as a manifestation of my desire to do well, not as damning evidence of my ineffectiveness.  And I still make plenty of missteps as a speaker, but I view them as correctible mistakes, not as character flaws.

I don't mean to suggest that all our limitations derive from our mental models; we're surrounded by any number of real constraints that can't be altered merely by viewing them from a different perspective.  But even in those cases our mental models often amplify those constraints and make them seem more daunting and more powerful than they truly are.  And in many other aspects of life the limits we place on ourselves derive from outdated or inappropriately applied mental models.  We see solid walls instead of flimsy cornstalks, and we allow ourselves to feel trapped instead of simply walking through the corn.

Photo by Carmelo Speltino.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Learning from Mistakes

What is a mistake?  When we make a mistake, what do we think that says about us?  How do we feel about ourselves?  And how does that framing affect what we learn from the experience?

In a recent article for Wired Jonah Lehrer discussed a soon-to-be-published study by Michigan State's Jason Moser that provides a neurological basis for understanding why some of us learn from mistakes more effectively than others:

[T]here are two distinct [neurological] reactions to mistakes… The first reaction is called error-related negativity (ERN). It appears about 50 milliseconds after a screw-up and is…mostly involuntary, the inevitable response to any [mistake].

The second signal, which is known as error positivity (Pe), arrives anywhere between 100-500 milliseconds after the mistake and is associated with awareness. It occurs when we pay attention to the error, dwelling on the disappointing result. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that subjects learn more effectively when their brains demonstrate two properties: 1) a larger ERN signal, suggesting a bigger initial response to the mistake and 2) a more consistent Pe signal, which means that they are probably paying attention to the error, and thus trying to learn from it.

[The Moser study] applied a dichotomy first proposed by Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford. …Dweck distinguishes between people with a fixed mindset--they tend to agree with statements such as "You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it"--and those with a growth mindset, who believe that we can get better at almost anything, provided we invest the necessary time and energy. While people with a fixed mindset see mistakes as a dismal failure--a sign that we aren't talented enough for the task in question--those with a growth mindset see mistakes as an essential precursor of knowledge, the engine of education...

It turned out that those subjects with a growth mindset were significantly better at learning from their mistakes… Most interesting, though, was the EEG data, which demonstrated that those with a growth mindset generated a much larger Pe signal, indicating increased attention to their mistakes… What’s more, this increased Pe signal was nicely correlated with improvement after error, implying that the extra awareness was paying dividends in performance. Because the subjects were thinking about what they got wrong, they learned how to get it right...

...[U]nless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong--that surge of Pe activity a few hundred milliseconds after the error, directing our attention to the very thing we’d like to ignore--the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence.

What I find most interesting and useful about Lehrer's analysis of this research is the connection it allows me to make between (on the one hand) the neurological evidence that people who devote more attention to their mistakes learn from them more effectively and (on the other hand) my own empirical experience as a coach that fixating on mistakes can be demotivating and lead to feelings of worthlessness, while focusing on successes can stimulate feelings of optimism and resilience, even (especially) in light of recent struggles.

Carol Dweck's research provides me with the missing link; the essential factor isn't the relative amounts of attention we devote to our mistakes and successes, but whether we're holding a fixed mindset or a growth mindset about ourselves and our capabilities.  In the former case, we view mistakes as manifestations of our intrinsic character, as de facto evidence of our unworthiness--and so focusing on our mistakes generates feelings of shame and embarrassment and undermines our self-confidence.  We go to great lengths to avoid these feelings under the best of circumstances, so it's no surprise that when we make a mistake while holding a fixed mindset, the very last thing we want to do is devote more attention to it--and so we lose the opportunity to learn from it.

But in the latter case, we view mistakes as external events, as unfortunate things that have happened.  This isn't to say that we're avoiding responsibility for our mistakes, or that we don't feel bad as a result.  As Lehrer notes, those of us who learn best from our mistakes actually have a bigger neurological response to a mistake.  But we don't view mistakes as personal defects, and they don't carry such a negative emotional charge.  I'd suggest that those of us who hold a growth mindset are able to forgive ourselves for mistakes and let go of (or at least mitigate) any feelings of shame or humiliation.  This forgiveness allows us to continue to focus on the mistake that much more intently, without losing confidence in ourselves, and as a result to learn from it more effectively.

The underlying question then becomes: What can we do to cultivate a growth mindset that will allow us to focus on our mistakes without feeling shame or losing confidence?  Many of my experiences with clients and students (and myself!) suggest that the first step is simply acknowledging any shame and embarrassment we do feel in the aftermath of a mistake, both to ourselves and to those around us.  At the very least, getting those uncomfortable feelings out in the open tends to diminish their power and allows us to choose what to do with them, rather than feeling driven in some way to escape their covert influence.

I know that particularly when I'm in a leadership role two of the most important things I can do are 1) quickly admit a mistake once I've made one, and 2) own up to my resulting feelings of shame or  embarrassment.  This makes it much safer for those around me to do the same, and the group's potential to support learning increases dramatically.  (And it's one reason why I encourage leaders to embrace mistakes, failure and surprises.)  That's not to say I find this easy, even though I get plenty of opportunities to practice--but it is a value I try to uphold.

For a discussion of specific steps that support the process of learning from mistakes, see my 2009 post on the same topic, based on Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein's The Power of Resilience.

Thanks to @DanielCoyle for the initial reference to Lehrer's article.

Photo by Alex E. Proimos.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

The Air Mask Principle

We've heard it over and over (and over) again:

In the event of an emergency, secure your own air mask first before helping others.

This applies on the ground as well, and the greater our desire to be of service, the more important it is to take care of ourselves in order to be able help others most effectively.

It's a simple principle to grasp, but the challenge is knowing just what this looks like in practice, both over time and at  any given moment.

So what's your equivalent of an air mask?  What activities and practices are essential to your health, well-being and effectiveness?  What steps are you taking to insure that they get on your calendar and stay there?  And how do you create and maintain boundaries that insulate these activities from the demands made on your time by other pressing tasks?  (A job made harder by the fact that these activities are usually important but not urgent.)

For example, I've learned that daily physical activity helps me reduce stress, clear my head, and stay mentally sharp.  When I'm active on a regular basis I'm a much better coach and a much happier person, and the two are related.  I use Don't Break the Chain to track how often I'm active, and here's what my exercise calendar looks from July 1st through October 14th:

That's about 65% over a 100-day period--not bad.  But that long blank stretch from September 21st through October 9th jumps out at me--what happened?  Initially I was just knocked out of my routine for a few days--no big deal.  But that carried over into the beginning of Fall Quarter at Stanford, which was a particularly busy time for me this year.  And then I caught a cold that was going around campus--always a sure sign that I'm working too hard and not taking care of myself.

While I believe I've done some good work with my students and clients over the last four weeks, I've also done some work that could have been better--and some of it was more stressful and less enjoyable than usual.  Knowing what I need to do to take care of myself and tracking my efforts on that front via Don't Break the Chain ultimately helped me get back on track, but I still needed to make some difficult in-the-moment decisions to prioritize my personal needs over other responsibilities.

And it's at those moments that I find the air mask principle useful.  There's always more work to do, there are always people I'd like to support in some way, and I can always find a reason to put others' needs ahead of my own.  But if I do that indefinitely, I'll burn out--or pass out.  No air mask, no oxygen.  Bearing in mind that I can't help others effectively unless I'm taking care of myself helps me choose to put my needs first when necessary without feeling that I'm letting others down or failing to honor my commitments.