Ed Batista

Practical Romance

"We come from the stars; we're not made of microchips." -Erica Peng

We all require some degree of what I'll call romance in our lives. I'm not necessarily referring to romantic love for another person, although some relationships certainly qualify. I'm talking more broadly about any passionate yearning for someone, someplace, something, some way of being that fulfills us in a way that's hard to understand, let alone explain to others. Some romances may be logical on a certain level, but ultimately they are their own justification.

But as uniquely fulfilling as romance can be, it's also insufficient. We have to balance the romantic with its converse, the practical. Because romances justify themselves, they can consume vast amounts of resources as we pursue them, but practical things must meet a different standard. They must be justified by the returns they generate in exchange for our investment of resources (e.g. time, money, effort, attention). And as in any healthy market, these exchanges are a sign of value creation on both sides, and, at their best, a source of meaning and purpose.

When our lives are too airily romantic, we may be free to choose our path, but we lose traction and fail to make any actual progress. But when our lives are too stolidly practical, we carve out ruts that become impossible to escape, and although we're making steady progress we can't change course even when we're headed in the wrong direction.

There's no balance that's right for everyone; we all have to find our own level. But it's important to be aware of the internal and external forces in our lives--formative experiences, mental models of what's desirable or necessary, obligations and commitments (both real and imagined)--that might pull us away from our optimal balance in one direction or another.

My dad likes to joke that I've "tacked my way through life," and (although I can't stand being in a boat) it's an apt metaphor. I've pursued some major romances--leaving college to go to art school, following a girl to New England, packing three careers into 16 years, and eventually leaving management to launch a coaching practice. And at alternate intervals I've made some very practical decisions--leaving art school to go back to college, going into management to gain hands-on experience, getting an MBA, and returning to Stanford to join the business school's coaching staff. (I also married the girl, which was both romantic and practical.)

I haven't taken any daunting leaps in a while, and I certainly don't feel that I'm in a rut, so it's possible that in my 40s I've found my optimal balance. (Not that I've been in a hurry--as Seneca wrote, "It takes the whole of life to learn how to live.") I know I'm unusually privileged in that my work as a coach is both a romantic passion--a true vocation, a life's work, not a job--and a practical profession that pays the bills. But I don't take anything in the present for granted, because we all continue to change even when we think we're done. For now, I'm just going to enjoy this feeling of practical romance.

Update: That last line strikes me as too pat. I am privileged to enjoy a certain balance in my work as a coach--it fulfills my romantic desires to make a difference in the world, to connect with people and to feel a sense of meaning and purpose, while also meeting my primary practical needs. And yet I don't feel quite at peace, either. I'm restless by nature--I tend to "repot" myself every seven years, and it's not lost on me that I'm in my seventh year back at Stanford. I know I'm not in a rut--at least not the sort of rut that's prompted me to take those major leaps noted above--because coaching does feel like my life's work. It occurs to me that I don't want anything different--and in that sense I have found the right balance between the practical and the romantic--but I do want more. Of what, I'm in the process of discovering.

The coach in me can't help but ask: Where are you in all this? What are your romantic yearnings? How are you fulfilling them? How are you neglecting them? What are your practical needs? And how are you fulfilling (or neglecting) them? How does the current balance between the two feel? If you could change something, what would it be? What's holding you back?

Thanks to my friend and colleague Erica Peng for the conversation that led to this post.

Photo by Bill Mill. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

On the Shortness of Life

I'm not well-read in the classics, but a few pieces have been important sources of meaning to me over the years--most notably Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. There are a number of concepts in Stoic philosophy that I find relevant in my work as a coach--and in my personal life: acceptance of limitations and failure, resilience in overcoming challenges, humility in success.

In my ramblings I've come across a number of references to Seneca's essay, On the Shortness of Life, and the other day I decided to finally look it up and read the whole thing.

Damn--talk about a wake-up call. It really stirred me up, and while it's too early to say just what impact it'll have on my life, it's safe to say I'll be re-reading it. A few of the passages I found most striking are below, and you can find the complete text at the Forum Romanum. (Also, here's a longer series of excerpts [PDF].)

“On the Shortness of Life,” Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Translated by John W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library, London: William Heinemann, 1932

1. The majority of mortals, Paulinus[1], complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live... It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it...

3. ...No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal... What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last... You will hear many men saying: "After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties." And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!...

7. ...[E]verybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is busied with many things...since the mind, when its interests are divided, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn... It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die...

8. I am often filled with wonder when I see some men demanding the time of others and those from whom they ask it most indulgent. Both of them fix their eyes on the object of the request for time, neither of them on the time itself; just as if what is asked were nothing, what is given, nothing. Men trifle with the most precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is an incorporeal thing, because it does not come beneath the sight of the eyes, and for this reason it is counted a very cheap thing—nay, of almost no value at all...

9. Can anything be sillier than the point of view of...those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes today… All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightaway!...

20. And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name[2]... Meantime, while they rob and are being robbed, while they break up each other's repose, while they make each other wretched, their life is without profit, without pleasure, without any improvement of the mind. No one keeps death in view, no one refrains from far-reaching hopes; some men, indeed, even arrange for things that lie beyond life—huge masses of tombs and dedications of public works and...ostentatious funerals. But, in very truth, the funerals of such men ought to be conducted by the light of torches and wax tapers,[3] as though they had lived but the tiniest span.

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[1] When this essay was written—around A.D. 49—Paulinus was praefectus annonae, the official who managed Rome’s grain supply, and an important civic figure. He is believed to have been a close relative of Seneca's wife.

[2] The Roman year was dated by the names of the two annual consuls.

[3] i.e., as if they were children, whose funerals took place by night

Photo by kris krüg. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Self-Coaching Session at Flixster

Yesterday I had the chance to give a talk on self-coaching to a group at Flixster, and a modified version of my slide deck is above. Thanks to the awesome Hannah Knapp and her colleagues for a great experience--I really enjoyed it.

I Love Myself (Self-Coaching and Acceptance)

I love myself.

Three words that couldn't be simpler to understand and more difficult to express. An MBA student at Stanford said this in a small group in our Interpersonal Dynamics class (aka Touchy Feely) a few years ago, and hearing him say this had a profound impact on the rest of us.

He didn't say this in a self-aggrandizing or boastful way, nor was he comparing himself to anyone else. And he certainly wasn't saying that he was perfect or no longer needed to grow and change. He was merely saying, in the most straightforward way possible, that he deeply appreciated his good qualities, he forgave himself for his shortcomings, and even while he aspired to improve he also fundamentally accepted himself.

The ability to accept ourselves, to feel compassion for ourselves, to love ourselves is ultimately one of the most important skills to cultivate in self-coaching. The decision to seek coaching, whether from a personal coach or in a structured self-coaching process, grows out of a desire for change. We want something to be different, and while we may initially be focused on some external aspect of our lives, we typically come to realize that meaningful change will require us to change as well.

An inability to accept the need to change ourselves severely limits our ability to change our experience in the world. And yet at the same time, an inability to accept and love ourselves--right now, as we are, with all our flaws and foibles intact--condemns us to an endless cycle of dissatisfaction. The most profound coaching imaginable can't overcome this obstacle; we need to validate ourselves.

But the paradox is that those of us who are most open to change and theoretically capable of self-coaching may eventually struggle with the process because we find it so difficult to love and accept ourselves. We're quick to find fault with ourselves, eager to identify opportunities for growth, and ready to change--but we can't stop, and the process goes on and on. We're never done.

By emphasizing the need to validate ourselves, I'm not suggesting that the self is the only source of validation. Any number of external factors contribute to this desired outcome, from healthy relationships to sufficient social status and material rewards, and in their absence the work of accepting ourselves will be more difficult.

But it's important to recognize that no amount of external validation will ever be enough until we're able to accept and love ourselves. No amount of love and care from others, recognition or status, accomplishments or money will ever suffice on their own. They may serve as useful building blocks in the process, but self-acceptance is the mortar that binds them all together and holds the others in place when one of them is diminished or lost.

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This is the last of 8 recent posts outlining a framework for a structured self-coaching process. I'm currently writing more comprehensive chapters on each topic, which will include additional information on self-coaching exercises and activities, the role that people in our lives can play in our self-coaching efforts, and the implications of recent neuroscience research for self-coaching.

For an overview of my self-coaching framework, see A Self-Coaching Guide for Leaders at All Levels.

For all my posts on this topic, see my Self-Coaching category.

Photo by Gideon Tsang. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons

The way you are now is the way you are loved

A little gem of a poem, hidden away in one of Cary Tennis's answers in his advice column for Salon:

The way you are now is the way you are loved. Those who love you do not love this other person you wish you were. They do not even know who that person is. The way you are now is the way you are loved.

There is only one person who can be loved as you and it is your job to keep being that person.

You are here to do the one job no one else can do and that job is to fulfill the destiny written on your skin in a place you cannot read without turning inside out. Take several deep breaths. Stop what you are doing.

What is the source of your sadness?

I'm struck by how moved I am by this passage, and how uncomfortable it makes me to think about hitting "Publish," allowing anyone to see just how much it moves me. I know I'm a deeply sentimental person, at times almost overwhelmed by feelings of tenderness, affection and love. And yet despite all the work I've done over the years recognizing that aspect of myself and becoming more comfortable sharing more of it with more people in more settings, it's still a struggle.

It's a struggle in part because at times it feels safer to hide that aspect of my self, and in part because I'm not only a tender, affectionate, loving person--I'm also a snarky, competitive hard-ass. Less so as the years pass and I become more comfortable with my softer side, but still, both dimensions are important to me, and I don't see them as mutually exclusive. And yet I find it difficult to integrate them, and I know that I can gravitate toward one side or another in certain roles or relationships.

As I mentioned while expressing my thanks to the GSB's Class of 2012, I'm proud of my ability to simultaneously support and challenge others, and while I'll never "master" that crucial coaching skill, I believe I've made meaningful progress because I identified it as a personal goal, told people I was working on it, and asked for feedback on how to improve. This past year I've also been working on expressing more of my tenderness and my snarkiness, but perhaps it's time to up the ante.

<Publish>

Thanks, Amy. Photo by Candida Performa. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Thank You, Stanford GSB Class of 2012 (A Year In Review)

I've been back at Stanford since January 2007, so the current graduates are the fifth class of MBAs I've had the privilege of working with as a Leadership Coach. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to get to know 35 people in particular--11 Leadership Fellows and 24 members of two T-groups in the school's Interpersonal Dynamics course, aka Touchy Feely. To all of you, I can't thank you enough for the experiences we had together this year.

Any fifth anniversary is a milestone, of course, and yet on a personal level the past year has been particularly meaningful for me. The passage of another year has eased the pain of losing Richard Wright, my father-in-law, and Roanak Desai, a former student, both of whom died in 2010. I'll always miss them, but I've made peace with their passing.

I'm also truly proud of the work that's been done over the past year by the Leadership Fellows I worked with and by my colleagues on Stanford's coaching staff and faculty to revamp the school's Leadership Labs and the Fellows program itself. The effort wasn't as daunting as the process of launching these courses back in 2007, but it was close. I was pushed to be a better coach and a better colleague, and although I stumbled constantly, someone was always there to help me up. And while I'm very grateful for everything I got out of the process personally, what's just as meaningful to me is the sense that we all made a long-term contribution to the school's ability to help students become better leaders.

Finally, facilitating T-groups in Touchy Feely is always uniquely rewarding, and I learn something new every time. This year I was gratified to see how effective I can be at simultaneously supporting and challenging others, and I was challenged myself to be more vulnerable and to worry less about "making mistakes." I came a long way in my understanding of diversity and my ability to work with people across many dimensions of difference, and I realized how much work I have yet to do in this area.  And I was very lucky to be paired with two amazing partners, Erica Peng and Michael Terrell, who pushed me and allowed me to push back.

Despite--or because of--all of this ferment, the past school year was a tremendously productive time for me on this site, where I strive to share what I know (and continue to learn) about coaching not only with my students and clients, but also with anyone who might not have access to a personal coach or a graduate program in management. Below are links to 33 posts written from September 2011 through June 2012, all of which grew at least in part out of my work with those 35 members of the GSB's Class of 2012: Again, thank you all.

T-Groups, Feelings and Management Theory (September 2011)
It's important to better understand, express and manage our emotions. This doesn't mean just expressing "warm fuzzies"; it means taking some risks.

 

Phil Stutz on Taking Risks (September 2011)
What holds us back at the edge of the cliff?  What might happen if we took that leap?

 

Experiential Learning Revisited (September 2011)
Experiential learning remains central to my work as a coach and implicit in everything I do with students and clients.

 

Taming My Perfectionism (October 2011)
I had metaphorically envisioned my perfectionism as a snarling dog, threatening me, keeping me cowering in the corner, practically paralyzed.  And that's not sustainable--it's stressful and boring.

 

Five Leadership Lessons (October 2011)
Some reflections on what I've learned over the last five years about leading groups, with an emphasis on leader as coach and guide rather than as directive authority figure.

 

Don't Build a Castle; Put Up 1,000 Tents (October 2011)
Don't over-invest your resources (time, money, attention) in a single, grandiose enterprise. Instead, experiment across a portfolio of possibilities, and double down quickly on the ones that show promise.

 

The Air Mask Principle (October 2011)
Knowing that I can't help others effectively unless I'm taking care of myself helps me put my needs first when necessary without feeling that I'm letting others down.

 

Learning from Mistakes (October 2011)
What is a mistake? When we make a mistake, what do we think that says about us? And how does that framing affect what we learn from the experience?

 

Significance Junkies (October 2011)
It hurts like hell to admit our insignificance, and we find consolation in endlessly inventive delusions of relevance.

 

Corn Mazes and Mental Models (December 2011)
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.

 

Hammering Screws (Bad Coaching (December 2011)
If good coaching feels like a trip in a tandem kayak...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.

 

Coaching Is A Journey (December 2011)
I find myself returning to the metaphor of coaching as a journey at sea...

 

Setbacks, Mindset and the Fundamental Attribution Error (January 2012)
Thinking about some recent setbacks has led me to reflect on two topics that often come up in my coaching practice: mindset and the fundamental attribution error.

 

The Meaning of Mindset (January 2012)
Just what do we mean by 'mindset'? Here are 4 inter-related definitions to help us make effective use of the central concept.

 

Comfort Struggle (January 2012)
Observe Exellence! Honor Attempt! Comfort Struggle!

 

Why I (Keep Trying To) Meditate (January 2012)
I find meditation difficult, I regularly avoid doing it, and yet I persist in the practice. Why?

 

Resistance and Self-Sabotage (January 2012)
"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.'"

 

Human Velcro (Hooks and Loops) (January 2012)
What hooks am I putting out there?  How effectively am I bidding to connect with this particular person?  Just as important, what loops am I putting out there?  How effectively am I perceiving and responding to their bids?

 

Blocking and Tackling (Fundamentals of Change) (January 2012)
No matter how lofty or ambitious the goal, the path to its achievement will be paved with countless small, humble steps.

 

Make the Right Decision...Or Make the Decision Right? (January 2012)
"It's important to make good decisions. But I spend much less time and energy worrying about "making the right decision" and much more time and energy ensuring that any decision I make turns out right."

 

Investment vs. Attachment (January 2012)
We invest in people, and being invested in someone means we care about them and want them to succeed. But if we invest in people, we're attached to outcomes. 

 

One Stone At A Time (Building Boundaries) (February 2012)
The key is recognizing that boundaries aren't static features of a landscape, but dynamic aspects of our relationships, our personal lives and our organizations.

 

Measuring the Infinite (February 2012)
An infinite distance lies between nothing--the unsaid comment, the unwritten letter, the undone act--and something, no matter how much room for improvement remains.

 

Suspension of Belief (February 2012)
Without reaching any final conclusions regarding the validity of a given belief, we can temporarily suspend it, and "act as if" it we didn't hold it, or as if it had no hold on us.

 

Skin in the Game (February 2012)
While having skin in the game allows us to do our best work, it also exposes us to risk. When we succeed it's all the more gratifying, and when we struggle, it's all the more disheartening

 

Taking the Plunge (Safety, Risk, Learning and Growth (February 2012)
The safer and more trusting we feel, the more risks we can take, the more we learn and grow. And safety and trust are even more useful when we push (and extend) their limits.

 

Tiny Gestures (and Emotional Bids) (February 2012)
Safety and trust are established over a series of interactions through countless tiny gestures that take the form of an emotional bid.

 

In Defense of Normal (A Coaching Manifesto) (February 2012)
For coaching and other interventions to achieve their goals they must be perceived as normal, but too often coaching and related services are perceived as special.

 

Dan Oestreich Interviews Me (March 2012)
My role as a coach is both necessary and modest. Necessary in the sense of helping clients know how to get started. And modest in the sense that the goal is for clients to be able to coach themselves after I leave.

 

The Work and The Job (May 2012)
We can change jobs readily; we change our work only with great effort. In the end our jobs are lines on a resume, while our work is our legacy, our epitaph.

 

I Am The 1% (Why Self-Coaching Matters) (May 2012)
Effective self-coaching is the key to meaningful growth and development, whether you're working with an executive coach like me or simply reading websites like this in your spare time.

 

Brass Rings and Railroad Tracks (On Self-Validation) (June 2012)
The challenge before us is to rely less upon extrinsic rewards for validation and instead put greater faith in our own intrinsic worth and validate ourselves.

 

Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up) (June 2012)
This defense of speaking up shouldn't be read as a simplistic manifesto to just "speak our minds." If we want to influence others and affect the outcome of the discussion, we must speak up skillfully.

 

Brass Rings and Railroad Tracks (On Self-Validation)

What do we do when extrinsic motivators lose their power? Where do we go when there's no obvious path ahead of us?

A theme I see in many of my clients and even more of my MBA students at Stanford (not to mention within myself) is a need for achievement that relies on extrinsic rewards and inevitably shapes our professional paths and personal destinies. We're driven to succeed, to reach for and grasp the brass ring in one form or another--good grades and academic awards, important positions with prestigious organizations, titles and promotions and other status badges.

And our success often--not always, but in many cases--leads us down a path in which each step seems to logically follow the previous one: Those good grades open the door to a budding career in which strong performance leads to graduate study, which opens the next door. This isn't to say that we simply glide along from one stage to the next--we're hard workers and usually our own toughest critics. But at each transition we consider our options and find our choices heavily influenced by extrinsic factors--so we choose the most selective school, the most glamorous industry, the most high-profile firm, the best-paying job, etc.

This process works just fine--until it doesn't. The value of those extrinsic rewards always has a shelf life; they never satisfy indefinitely. As Sonja Lyubomirsky writes in The How of Happiness, "Although we may achieve temporary boosts in well-being by moving to new parts of the country, securing raises, or changing our appearances, such boosts are unlikely to be long-lasting. The primary reason...is that people readily and rapidly adapt to positive circumstantial changes."

Sometimes we refuse to believe that the brass rings have lost their luster--we just need higher-quality rings! We'll get another degree at an even better school, and a more demanding job at an even more competitive firm with an even bigger compensation package! And sometimes this works, for a while. But never forever. At some point we realize that we may have amassed a truly impressive collection of brass rings, but A) we're making ourselves miserable in the process, and/or B) brass rings don't provide meaning or purpose or love, and/or C) we really are mortal, and at some point in the rapidly approaching future all the brass rings in the world won't be worth a goddamn thing.

And whenever this moment occurs in our lives, at that point the well-trodden path we've been following suddenly disappears. The tracks that have eased our progress toward a better future no longer reach to the horizon but bog down in a tangled thicket we can't even see through. We're on our own, and we're going to have blaze a trail from here on out.

As stressful as that experience can be, I also believe it's an incredible opportunity. At that moment, whether we're 21 or 25 or 44 or 99, the challenge before us is to rely less upon extrinsic rewards for validation and instead put greater faith in our own intrinsic worth and validate ourselves.

For Amy, whose courage in finding her own path gave me the courage to find mine.

Photos: Brass ring by nosha. Railroad tracks by Bill Benzon. Yay Creative Commons and Flickr.

The Work and The Job

We often talk about "my work" and "my job" as if they're interchangeable concepts, but it's important to distinguish between them. I define "work" as a vocation--a calling or a personal mission that provides us with an intrinsic sense of meaning and purpose. A "job," in contrast, is a set of responsibilities we fulfill in exchange for various forms of compensation. We get paid to do the job, but the work is its own reward. On the job we ultimately answer to someone--customers, superiors, board members, investors; in our work we ultimately answer to our own consciences. We can change jobs readily; we change our work only with great effort. In the end our jobs are lines on a resume, while our work is our legacy, our epitaph.

I'm well aware that for many people there's no meaningful difference between their work and their job, and I've had plenty of experience from that perspective. In high school and college I was a houseboy in a hotel, a laborer on a construction crew, an assistant in a copy shop, a delivery truck driver, a sandwich-maker, a window-washer and a doorman at a campus bar. All decent, honest jobs--but my only motivation for doing the work was the paycheck, and if you'd asked me to distinguish between "my work" and "my job" I wouldn't even have understood the question.

This started to change in my senior year of college when I was promoted from doorman to head bartender on the Monday night shift (a lucrative spot in American campus bars thanks to Monday Night Football.) After football season was over I came up with the idea of a "Mixed Media Night" on Mondays, an evening of music, film, comedy and performance art. I recruited the performers and served as host and MC in addition to heading up the bar, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. It also kept the bar full, which meant good tips and a happy staff--but I soon realized that while I appreciated the money, what truly motivated me was the opportunity to provide artists with a stage and an audience. I loved that part of it so much I would have done it for free--but there were plenty of other duties that weren't quite so intrinsically rewarding, like hauling beer kegs and cleaning up at the end of the night, and I began to see that "my work" wasn't the same thing as "my job." The work that I loved was being responsible for creating a small but meaningful community each week, a role that overlapped with--but was distinct from--my job as head bartender.

While these two concepts always overlap for those of us who define ourselves as professionals, they also always diverge, sometimes quite substantially, no matter how happy or fulfilled we are in our professional lives. For example, if I define my work as "coaching" and my job as "Leadership Coach at Stanford" or "executive coach in private practice," the overlap between the two is, of course, significant. I spend the bulk of my time at Stanford and almost all of the time I dedicate to my practice working directly with students and clients in a coaching capacity, which is work that I find deeply, intrinsically rewarding. That said, I spend plenty of time at Stanford and in my practice on tasks that are only marginally related to the work but critical to the job. This is the red crescent on the right in the graphic above: meetings, coordination, logistics, etc.

But because I'm intrinsically motivated by my work, I dedicate plenty of time and energy to efforts that have nothing to do with my job at Stanford or a coaching engagement with any given client. This is the blue crescent on the left in the graphic above: research and writing (like this blog post), learning from colleagues, receiving coaching myself--basically anything I can do to develop myself as a professional.

The point isn't that these two spheres should overlap perfectly--I don't think that's realistic or even desirable. But I think this model encourages us to recognize the fundamental distinction between our work and our job and allows us to see that even when these concepts overlap substantially they fulfill different sets of needs. In addition, this model highlights the discrepancies that do exist between these two concepts, which hopefully invite our curiosity. Where do my work and my job overlap? Where (and why) do they diverge? What do I see when I begin to look at my life through this lens? Am I happy with the balance--or do I want something to change?

Skin in the Game

Work that's truly rewarding requires that we that we commit ourselves fully to the endeavor. We have "skin in the game," you might say, like an investor who's putting his own capital on the line. In this sense, coaching my clients and students isn't just (or even) a job, it's a highly personal experience in which I take real risks in the service of meaningful gains. And I suspect the same is true for you and your work, in one way or another.

But while having skin in the game allows us to do our best work, it also exposes us to risk. When we succeed it's all the more gratifying, and when we struggle, it's all the more disheartening. And I've had some challenges over the past week that have led me to reflect both on how I manage my response in the moment and on how I recover from setbacks over time. While I've written before about learning from mistakes and continue to apply those lessons, I've also found myself relying on the following simple guidelines:

1) Own Up To It

I'm not afraid of making mistakes; I've learned that perfection is damning evidence that I'm playing it safe, aiming too low and doing a disservice to my clients and students. But I still feel the sting of embarrassment and shame when I do make a mistake, and my first impulse in response to those emotions is to reject them and distract attention from their source. And yet I've also learned that I need to resist that impulse, not only to walk my talk as a coach, but also simply to grow as a person.

I've seen and experienced this dynamic over and over again: When we screw up as leaders (or in any differentiated authority role), the most important step we can take is to acknowledge reality, to admit our mistake, to own up to it. No matter what else we want to say, no matter what other factors influenced our actions, everything starts with that acknowledgment--and no real progress will be made until it occurs.

This week I became impatient during a group exercise and forcefully interrupted a student, who felt angry and hurt as a result. Thankfully, she felt enough trust in me to express those emotions, and I was able to hear her and express my embarrassment, which allowed her to hear why I had become impatient in the first place. It wasn't my most skillful moment as a coach, but it was a successful repair that allowed the two of us to move forward.

2) Ask For What You Need

I'm used to being a source of support and guidance for other people--it's probably the fundamental quality that led me into coaching. But while that role is deeply fulfilling to me, it's also a potential trap. Getting stuck in a support role can make it hard to understand internally and to communicate to others just what I need when I'm struggling myself. But this makes it all the more important to slow down, look inside, and articulate what I need.

I know I'm no exception in this regard. The best leaders and mentors I've known are people who put others' needs before their own, who make sure their troops are fed before they sit down to eat. But the very best of them are also able to step out of that pattern and to ask for help. I'm not particuarly good at this, but I'm learning.

Tonight Amy asked me if there was anything she could do to help me cope with the dark mood that had descended upon me, and initially my mind was blank. "No," I said, "I can't think of anything." But I kept at it and realized that I didn't want her to do anything--I didn't want encouragement or problem-solving. I just wanted empathy--I just wanted her to say, "I'm sorry; that sounds really shitty." I don't need to hear that often, or for long--but when I need it, I really need it, and it's really helpful.

3) Take Care of Yourself

This is deceptively easy in principle, and damn hard in practice--by definition people with skin in the game thrive on challenges, and when things get tough we get excited.  That attitude helps me overcome obstacles, but it also leads me down some blind alleys. The paradox with coaching--and, I believe, with any meaningful work that's intellectually and emotionally challenging--is that it doesn't necessarily yield to sheer effort. When I'm struggling as a professional I can't just muscle through it, and sometimes I need to do just the opposite--ease up, lower my stress levels, take care of myself.

I've learned from people like Bill George, who's "meditated regularly for thirty years, not as a religious or spiritual practice, but as a personal discipline to relieve stress." I've also learned from hard experience that when I let work push exercise off the my daily schedule--once a regular response in times of struggle--I condemn myself to a cycle of overstress and underperformance. I'm also (finally) listening to recent research on the importance of sleep, not only for effective performance but also for long-term health.

The past few days I've been unusually tired, and rather than push myself beyond that limit, I've listened to my body and have gone for walks rather than hitting the gym, or have simply meditated instead. I've also prioritized sleep over work--like leaving this post undone last night and coming back to it this morning. Finally, I have allowed work to push regular sessions with my own coach off the calendar, a situation that'll be rectified this week.

4) Keep Calm and Carry On

I'm only half-joking--I deeply believe in the power of mindset to shape our reality and, subsequently, our performance. Having skin in the game means that we're subject to high highs and low lows, and it's important to keep those experiences in perspective. In part that ability is a function of life experience--I first read this quote from David Bradford 6 years ago, and it's stuck with me:

If you live long enough, you realize that you can fall off the horse and get back on again... Failure is inevitable, and what's important is how you handle it, not how you avoid it.

But "life experience" is in a way just shorthand for mindset--having failed, and struggled, and simply made mistakes for many years now, I'm no longer up-ended when this occurs. I may be responsible for these events, and I expect to hold myself accountable for them, but I don't view them as intrinsic character flaws.

This isn't to say I'm not subject to grey moods and feelings of frustration or even despair, and when those feelings strike I think it's healthy to acknowledge them. But where I once might have gotten stuck in those moods for longer than was useful, I now find it possible to feel them and let them go, a process that's supported by all the steps mentioned above and also by writing posts like this.

Photo by gingerpig2000. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

One Stone At A Time (Building Boundaries)

The concept of boundaries comes up regularly in my work with clients and students, and in my own life as well. A client resents feeling obligated to respond to emails after a certain hour in the evening. A student wants to insure that family activities don't overwhelm her plans for graduation. And I often need to decompress quietly for 20 minutes after getting home before engaging in conversation. At the heart of all of these issues is a boundary, in one form or another.

As I've written before, my former colleague Michael Gilbert has had a big influence on how I view the concept of boundaries, and here's a passage from his 2008 post Good Fences that I refer to often:

In regard to this exploration of "work-life balance," what's clear in our discussion is that we have been using the word "balance" when what we really seem to mean is "boundaries." Boundaries keep things in their place. Balance suggests the same amount of two things on either side of a scale. Boundaries keep one of those things from oozing past the edge of its platter and taking over the other side...

Boundaries and integration go together. Maybe it's just the biologist in me, but it seems that good boundaries are what make integration work. Just as functional membranes (letting the right things through and keeping the wrong things out) facilitate the healthy interaction of the cells of our bodies, so do functional personal boundaries facilitate the healthy interaction of the various parts of our lives. Bad boundaries lead to either being overwhelmed or withdrawal. Good boundaries lead to wholeness and synergy.

But it's essential to realize that boundaries don't simply spring into existence fully formed. They emerge, they evolve, they erode--they're dynamic features of our lives that we build up and maintain piece by piece, through countless small steps and interactions. In my work with clients and students over the years and in my own efforts to create boundaries that support fulfillment and effectiveness, I've come to see 4 key steps in this process:

1) Identify

The very first step is identifying the need for a boundary (or a better boundary) in the first place, and this can be a lot harder than it sounds. The very act of identifying the need for a boundary can raise all sorts of anxieties, self-judgments and other complex feelings: What does it say about me that I want a boundary here? What will it cost me? How will it affect the other people involved? But as difficult as this step might be, nothing else can happen until we take it.

2) Accept

Once we've identified the need for a boundary at a conceptual level, we have to truly accept it at a deeper emotional level. We have to acknowledge and deal with all those feelings that are generated by the idea of the boundary; we have to answer the questions above (and any others that arise along similar lines) and come to terms with our responses. More often than not, this involves challenging the mental models and assumptions that cause us to question or resist our desire for a boundary.

3) Establish

Having fully accepted the boundary, we need to take action and establish it effectively by communicating it to others in a manner that will A) maximize the likelihood of winning their support and B) overcome resistance when that support isn't forthcoming. This step probably feels the riskiest--it's certainly the point at which we can derail the process both by holding back and by coming on too strong. Here's where good communication skills are critical (and I've also found Susan Scott's "Mineral Rights" framework extremely helpful.)

4) Maintain

Finally, note that all boundaries are subject to erosion over time and must be actively maintained. We don't establish them once; we re-establish them over and over, in ways that adjust to our changing needs and circumstances. This may involve having similar conversations with multiple people--or it may involve having the same conversation several times with one person to insure that it truly sinks in and sticks. The key is recognizing that boundaries aren't static features of a landscape, but dynamic aspects of our relationships, our personal lives and our organizations.

Photo by Ryan McDonald. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.