Ed Batista

Connect and Control (Managing Difficult Relationships)

Almost all of us have to grapple with important professional relationships in which 1) the lines of authority are complex and tangled, 2) the emotional signals and other interpersonal cues are hard to decipher, and 3) there's an interdependence between the two parties that can generate both excitement and resentment, depending on the circumstances.

One process that I've found useful in helping my coaching clients decide how best to manage these difficult relationships is clarifying how they might both connect with the other person and, in contrast, control the other person. I'm not suggesting that it's a 50/50 alternative: In my experience as a coach and certainly in the annals of management literature (cf. Daniel Goleman's Leadership that Gets Results, just as one starting point) connecting with other people is a far more productive and sustainable approach. That said, the ability to control others effectively is a critical managerial and interpersonal skill, particularly in a crisis.

I'm also not suggesting that we face a binary choice: We typically need to make use of both approaches in any given relationship to meet our goals (and a failure to meet those goals may suggest that we're relying on one approach at the expense of the other.)

There's a temporal dimension to these choices as well. Sometimes we're faced with an opportunity to act in-the-moment, and we need to be prepared to quickly employ a range of tactics suited to the situation. And no matter what the present situation, we should also take the long view, considering what strategies to apply over time during the course of the relationship.

The 2x2 grid above is an admittedly oversimplified depiction of this interpersonal landscape ("A map is not the territory it represents"), but I find it a helpful way to convey these concepts quickly. The examples in each category above aren't intended to be definitive or exhaustive; they're simply ones that come up frequently in my discussions with clients and students.

So when considering how to improve a difficult relationship, we might start by asking ourselves...

• What steps could I take to connect with this person?
• What could I do in-the-moment in a given interaction that might develop or strengthen the connection between us?
• What long term strategies might I apply over time that would create further opportunities for connection?

But it's also important to ask ourselves...

• If need be, what steps could I take to control this person?
• If need be, what could I do in-the-moment in a given interaction that might tilt the balance of power between us?
• If need be, what long terms strategies might I apply over time that would create further opportunities to do so?

I want to re-iterate that this isn't a 50/50 alternative--in most relationships, most of the time, we'll be most effective at achieving our interpersonal goals through connection. But it's magical thinking to believe that all difficulties can be resolved that way, and we put ourselves at a serious disadvantage if we can't exert control when necessary. It's also magical thinking to believe that control will yield sustainable success--with the requisite power, authority, oversight and time, we can extract compliance from anyone, but it'll last only as long as our stores of those precious resources.

So it may also be worth asking...

• Which approach feels more comfortable or natural to me? How do I feel about the alternative approach?
• Do I feel capable of switching between approaches as needed, or do I overuse one or the other?
• If I tend to rely on connecting strategies and avoid controlling ones, am I failing to step into my authority, make use of my power and assert control when needed?
• If I tend to rely on controlling strategies, am I failing to acknowledge my vulnerability, build trust and connect with others when needed?

Our ultimate goal should be not only the ability to draw upon both approaches, but also the ability to do so dynamically, so that we're not stuck in one mode or the other in a given interaction (or in the relationship as a whole) but can shift as needed, adjusting to changing circumstances.

The Accumulation of Cultural Debt

Invest in the culture you want, or get the culture you deserve. And if you think your organization doesn't have a culture, don't fool yourself--you have one--and the accumulated cultural debt will eventually come due.

For the last two years I've done quarterly workshops on interpersonal feedback with employees at a San Francisco technology company. The workshop is a half-day event, similar to the session on communication skills that I did with the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab in January, and it represents a significant commitment of company resources. I estimate that they've dedicated more than 500 person-hours to this training alone.

I end every workshop by asking each person to say something to the group, and at the conclusion of the most recent session last week a number of people referenced the company's culture and its positive effect on their work experience. They talked about the sense of trust that exists among employees, and about how they've grown from the feedback they've received from their colleagues. They also talked about how much less stressful it is to work there than at other companies and about the feeling they have of being valued by management.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that this company is some sort of magical fairy-land; it's a business, and they pay people to do their jobs like everyplace else. Nor am I suggesting that my workshops are the primary factor supporting their culture; I think I've played a helpful role, but far more important are all the interactions employees have with each other on the 361 days of the year I'm not there.

After last week's session had ended I was talking with two of the participants about their experiences at the company, and one of them, a technical manager, noted the cumulative impact of management's investments in their organizational culture using a metaphor that was new to me: "It's like the 'accumulation of technical debt' in software development. With these trainings and everything else we're doing, we're avoiding the accumulation of cultural debt."

The concept of "technical debt" was originated by Ward Cunningham, who developed the first wiki. Cunningham realized that compromises in the software development process have implications that build up over time, and failing to address those compromises is like steadily accumulating debt while making no payments on the principal. As Cunningham noted,

[P]eople would rush software out the door and learn things but never put that learning back into the program, and that by analogy was borrowing money thinking that you never had to pay it back. Of course, if you do that...with your credit card, eventually all your income goes to interest and your purchasing power goes to zero.

In 2007 Steve McConnell expanded on the metaphor in a post about the two primary types of technical debt:

The first kind of technical debt is the kind that is incurred unintentionally. For example, a design approach just turns out to be error-prone or a junior programmer just writes bad code. This technical debt is the non-strategic result of doing a poor job...

The second kind of technical debt is the kind that is incurred intentionally. This commonly occurs when an organization makes a conscious decision to optimize for the present rather than for the future.

McConnell's perspective on "technical debt" clarifies the concept of "cultural debt" for me, and I see so many parallels in the process of building an organizational culture. Cultural debt can be incurred unintentionally when we simply do a poor job of implementation; for example, we can deliver critical feedback to a colleague in a way that leaves them feeling defensive or demotivated. Mistakes like this have consequences, to be sure, but even failed attempts suggest that 1) we're trying, 2) we'll learn from our mistakes, and 3) we'll get it right eventually. 

What's more troubling is the cultural debt that we incur intentionally when we decide to "optimize for the present rather than for the future." We hire the "B" candidate who's not a great fit because we're understaffed and we need someone now. We don't take the time to connect personally with colleagues because our to-do list is just too pressing. Our meeting agendas are always jam-packed, so it's impossible to step back and reflect on what actually happened in any given meeting. And we assume that smart people will figure out how to work together effectively, so we don't invest in soft-skills training and other culture-building efforts whose ROI is unclear at best.

But while we're taking these expedient measures the cultural debt accumulates, and eventually the bill comes due. That "B" hire isn't bad enough to fire, but they're just bad enough to slow down the rest of the team. Our colleagues are engaged and motivated when things are going well, but when the shit hits the fan we find ourselves alone. We sprint through our meeting agendas while everyone multi-tasks furiously, and at the end no one's really sure what was discussed--or why they needed to be there in the first place. And all around us well-meaning people make the same interpersonal mistakes over and over again, wasting countless hours because A) they're too blunt, and they leave a trail of hurt and angry colleagues in their wake, or B) they're too meek or indirect, and they fail to exert influence and effect real change when it's needed.

At times we have to act expediently in organizational life, just as software developers sometimes ship code they know will need to be cleaned up later. But let's be mindful of the cultural debt we're accumulating when we take these shortcuts and look for opportunities to pay it down as soon as we can.

Photo by walknboston. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

On Zynga and Greater Fools

From James Temple in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

In early April, Zynga Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus dumped 15 percent of his shares for about $198 million, in an unusual secondary stock offering that came almost two months before the official selling lockup for insiders ended. It turned out to be spectacular timing--at least for Pincus and other executives and early investors. They unloaded big portions of their holdings for $12 per share. By the end of July, after the social gaming company whiffed on second-quarter analyst expectations and sliced forecasts for the year roughly in half, the stock had dipped below $3...

Rank-and-file Zynga employees also feel they've missed out on riches. On the question-and-answer site Quora, anonymous users who said they were Zynga workers vented their frustrations over working long hours for years only to wind up with restricted stock that tumbled in value before their lock-up period ended.

"I worked 100 hour weeks," one wrote. "Week, after week, after week. I hated the management. I hated the culture, but we all knew the IPO was right around the corner, and once it came, as long as the s----- [sic] organization could keep it together for the lockout period, I'd have made bank, and in some way, that would have made my three and something miserable years there worth it."

As someone who's lived and worked in San Francisco for over two decades--including nearly six years as a Leadership Coach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business--I certainly know people who've spent untold hours at jobs they don't particularly enjoy in the hopes of realizing a big payday from an IPO or acquisition. That's not a choice I'd make, and it's not a life I'd want to live, but I realize that people may make that choice for any number of reasons, and I empathize with those who've followed that path only to find their hopes dashed.

But in some cases employees seem to be praying that they make it into the castle with early investors before the drawbridge is pulled up--while counting on acquirers or public investors to be the greater fools. Temple notes that shareholders have sued Zynga, claiming that the secondary offering constitutes insider trading and citing the "colossal losses" experienced by both non-executive employees and other public shareholders.

I'm appalled (although, sadly, not surprised) by the actions taken by Zynga's executives and early investors, but I can't quite bring myself to see all of the employees as victims here. At least some of them hated management, hated the culture, thought it was a shitty organization and were just hanging on until the IPO, when public investors--who knew even less about the company than the employees did--would unknowingly take the fall for everyone else. (You didn't even need to be an employee to have a dim view of the company: over the past year or so several of my MBA students at Stanford mentioned what they perceived as an unhealthy working environment at Zynga.)

I'm not suggesting that Zynga employees were seeking to mislead public investors, but I'm less empathetic than I might be otherwise. As Joseph Sternberg wrote just last week in the Wall Street Journal, "The [greater-fool theory of investing] is more than a little dangerous, and plenty of people have lost a lot of money when they discovered they were the fool at the end of the chain."

Photo © Paul Sakuma, Associated Press.

Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups

I was recently asked by some second-year MBAs at Stanford to help them launch a peer group that would serve as a source of learning and support after graduation out in "the real world." All of the group's members had taken Interpersonal Dynamics, aka Touchy Feely, and they each brought a high level of emotional intelligence to the group as individuals, but they weren't yet an emotionally intelligent group.

Before our launch session I asked them to read my posts on Safety, Trust, Intimacy and Safety, Risk, Learning and Growth, and at the beginning of the session I conducted a short improv exercise, not only to get them thinking a little more creatively, but also (and even more importantly) to create a shared sense of fun, silliness and vulnerability--all of which was intended to heighten their emotional investment in the group experience.

During the session itself I guided them through two exercises, each with an explicit emotional focus. The first--which I learned from my esteemed colleague Inbal Demri-Shaham--involved having the group focus on one member for several minutes, during which the other members would share any positive attributions that came to mind as they reflected on this person. I took notes, creating a list of words and phrases for each person, which I emailed to the group, and then we talked about how it felt to make those comments and to receive them.

The second exercise involved having each member share a personal story with the group that brought up some feeling of embarrassment or shame. Each person had just 2 minutes to relate their story, and I asked them to focus less on the details and more on their feelings; then the group had 2 minutes to share any responses to the story. I went first, talking about my 1995 Volvo and 1) my embarrassment at having such a nerdy car, 2) my embarrassment at having such an old car, and 3) my embarrassment at my embarrassment :-)

The specific point of the former exercise was begin to accustom the group's members to expressing appreciation with each other, and the specific point of the latter was to increase their level of comfort with admitting embarrassment and shame. I see these two factors as particularly important steps in a group's development, but I could have chosen any number of exercises to achieve these goals. The overall purpose was simply to allow the group's members to have an emotional experience together, which would trigger a sense of investment in the group.

We had an intellectually stimulating experience as well. We concluded the session with an extensive discussion about various practices that would support their goals, and throughout the session we debriefed each exercise, and I talked about my reasons for selecting them. But that conversation was much more meaningful because of the emotional experiences that had preceded it--and while I couldn't have predicted precisely how the session would go, I was gratified to hear the group members express how useful it had been in helping them get started. All in all, a really fun two hours that felt like time well spent.

---

I relate this experience at length as a way to introduce Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups, an article by Vanessa Druskat and Steven Wolff from the March 2001 issue of the Harvard Business Review, that strikes me as both practical and thought-provoking more than a decade later:

Study after study has shown that teams are more creative and productive when they can achieve high levels of participation, cooperation, and collaboration among members. But interactive behaviors like these aren't easy to legislate. Our work shows that three basic conditions need to be present before such behaviors can occur: mutual trust among members, a sense of group identity (a feeling among members that they belong to a unique and worthwhile group), and a sense of group efficacy (the belief that the team can perform well and that group members are more effective working together than apart)...

At the heart of these three conditions are emotions. [emphasis mine] Trust, a sense of identity, and a feeling of efficacy arise in environments where emotion is well handled, so groups stand to benefit by building their emotional intelligence. Group emotional intelligence isn't a question of dealing with a necessary evil--catching emotions as they bubble up and promptly suppressing them. Far from it. It's about bringing emotions deliberately to the surface and understanding how they affect the team's work. It's also about behaving in ways that build relationships both inside and outside the team and that strengthen the team’s ability to face challenges. [p 83]

As noted above, I've written before about my belief in the critical importance of safety, trust and intimacy as foundations for a group's ability to support learning and change, and Druskat and Wolff's research strongly confirms this perspective. Much of my work with groups at Stanford and in my consulting practice involves helping group members establish precisely the conditions highlighted by Druskat and Wolff--mutual trust, group identity and group efficacy--even when that's not the group's explicit goal. The nascent peer support group I describe above is still in the process of determining their fundamental purpose and their basic activities--and yet I fully trust that the work we did in our launch session will help them be more effective no matter what they ultimately decide to do.

It's also clear to me that groups that are able to establish these conditions not only perform more effectively but also provide their members with a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment. It's simply more intrinsically rewarding to participate in such a group--a critical factor whenever the extrinsic rewards of group participation are unclear. Finally, as a coach I deeply appreciate Druskat and Wolff's framing of emotion not as a "necessary evil" but as a fundamental component of any human system. Even through emotionally intelligent individuals and groups must work to regulate their emotions in order to express them most effectively--see below--that's not at all the same as suppressing those emotions.

Druskat and Wolff build on the work of Daniel Goleman, of course, in defining just what they mean by group emotional intelligence:

[A] team with emotionally intelligent members does not necessarily make for an emotionally intelligent group... [C]reating an upward, self-reinforcing spiral of trust, group identity, and group efficacy requires...a team atmosphere in which the norms build emotional capacity (the ability to respond constructively in emotionally uncomfortable situations) and influence emotions in constructive ways...

[In Emotional Intelligence] Goleman explains the chief characteristics of someone with high EI; he or she is aware of emotions and able to regulate them--and this awareness and regulation are directed both inward, to one’s self, and outward, to others. "Personal competence," in Goleman’s words, comes from being aware of and regulating one's own emotions. "Social competence" is awareness and regulation of others' emotions.

A group, however, must attend to yet another level of awareness and regulation. It must be mindful of the emotions of its members, its own group emotions or moods, and the emotions of other groups and individuals outside its boundaries. [emphasis mine] [p 82]

Druskat and Wolff identify an extensive set of norms that 1) create awareness of emotions and 2) help regulate emotions at the individual, group and cross-boundary levels. Laid out in a table on page 87 of the original HBR article, this list is a great resource. In addition to some basic truisms ("Take time away from group tasks to get to know one another.") it includes a number of more challenging concepts ("Assume that undesirable behavior takes place for a reason. Find out what that reason is. Ask questions and listen. Avoid negative attributions.")

The critical question that Druskat and Wolff leave unaddressed, however, is how to motivate people to actually do any of this often difficult work when the costs will be paid by individuals now (not only in the form of time and effort, but also in feelings of self-consciousness or discomfort), while any potential benefits will be enjoyed by the group later. Asking people to read an HBR article and telling them that "study after study has shown that they'll be more creative and productive" probably isn't going to cut it.

I don't mean to be flippant--it's a real dilemma that I face as an experiential educator and as a practitioner in industry. I try to leverage what I know about joyful learning to get a group pointed in a helpful direction, but ultimately the group's ability to develop the norms that support emotional intelligence is dependent on individual members' emotional investment in the group experience itself.

This process may start with some social pressure or even outright coercion--for example, strongly urging or even mandating members' attendance at group events early in its life-cycle. If those initial group experiences create a sense of emotional investment, then it becomes much easier to encourage individual members to identify and establish norms that will support the group's collective emotional intelligence. But if those initial experiences fail to trigger an emotional investment, then appeals to enhanced productivity will likely fall on deaf ears, and increased levels of social pressure or coercion will create a backlash.

I don't know what will happen to the group I describe above, but I do know that they've successfully begun the process of transforming from a collection of emotionally intelligent individuals to an emotionally intelligent group, and the feelings of trust, safety, intimacy, identify and efficacy that characterize such a group will serve as an essential foundation to help them achieve their goals.

Photo by woodleywonderworks. 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.

 

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.

High Signs

One of the more challenging--and interesting--aspects of any leadership role is sensing the group's emotional state and responding accordingly.  This can involve conveying enthusiasm to address discouragement, or expressing empathy to acknowledge sadness, or simply not snapping back in the face of anger.

But we tend to focus on negative emotions as the key signs that merit our close attention and care.  Neuroscience research confirms what we know from direct experience: we have a keen sense for others' negative emotions, which activate a whole host of physiological and mental responses that allow us to manage both ourselves and the group dynamic more effectively.  In tense or fraught situations, our focus sharpens and our reflexes quicken, allowing us to act with clarity and decisiveness.  (Of course, when a situation becomes too stressful we may experience a threat response that will undermine our effectiveness; this is one reason why our leadership development curriculum at Stanford emphasizes experiential learning in settings that can evoke meaningful but manageable levels of stress, from role-plays to T-groups.  Experimenting in these relatively low-risk environments prepares us for situations when the stakes may be higher.)

However, a potential blind spot we can experience as leaders is forgetting about this responsibility when the group's emotions are positive.  We've just had a big win, hit a major milestone, or achieved our ultimate goal; people are happy, even giddy, and everyone feels great.  What's the problem?

When things are going particularly well and people are feeling particularly good, group norms and display rules can change dramatically.  And usually this is a wonderful experience.  Groups need this relaxation of everyday constraints in the wake of a big success or at the end of a meaningful experience; it provides an outlet for the wave of positive emotions people are feeling and creates a sense of release and closure.

But it can also lead to a sense of disinhibition that's important for leaders to be aware of and, if necessary, respond to.  The modified norms and suspended display rules that can play such an important role in heartfelt, enthusiastic celebration can also result in wide range of unintended consequences.  I think of them as "high signs"--indicators that the group is going so well or has achieved such a successful outcome that people are feeling a surfeit of positive emotions, which are both essential to the meaningful celebrations we crave at such moments and yet which can also result in misunderstandings, inadvertent insults and, well, lawsuits.

Heifetz and Linsky's metaphor of the balcony and the dance floor is helpful here: if we can't join our team on the dance floor and celebrate, we'll miss out on vital opportunities to connect.  (We'll also live much duller lives.)  But if we can't simultaneously step back and see the bigger picture from the balcony, we'll miss important patterns in the group dynamic--those modified norms and suspended display rules that usually signify good times, and on rare (but memorable) occasions are hallmarks of trouble.

Photo by EAWB.  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.

Don't Build a Castle; Put Up 1,000 Tents

Don't build a castle; put up 1,000 tents.

Vince Stehle gave me this advice on more than one occasion while I was serving as the first Executive Director of the Nonprofit Technology Network and he was a member of our founding Board of Directors.  I consider myself privileged to have had Vince as a mentor, and this is one of the most important lessons he taught me.

The implications are clear: 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.  Beware of commitments that will make it difficult to alter course in the face of changing conditions.  Instead, be nimble and responsive to incoming data (and resist the gravitational pull of sunk costs.)  Finally, don't prepare for siege warfare when all you need is a little shelter from the rain.

To be sure, the applications--the precise situations in which we should apply these heuristics--can be fuzzier, and this is where life experience, pattern recognition, and honing our instincts are key.  Because sometimes we do need to make a single, big investment, and embracing that portfolio of possibilities will spread us too thin.  And sometimes we have to be committed for the long haul, and if we cut and run we'll miss the success that was just around the corner.  And sometimes--every once in a while--we really are besieged, and nylon mesh won't stop cannonballs.

But I've found that Vince was right more often than not, and checking my impulse to start castle-building and diverting those energies into putting up lots and lots of tents has usually proven fruitful.  (Of course, there's a useful tension between this dynamic and my persistent perfectionism, and sometimes the latter gets the best of me.)

Castle by Phillip Capper.  Tents by Unofficial Glastonbury Festival.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Six Leadership Lessons from Dan Might

Even among the extremely talented, dedicated and service-oriented people I've had the privilege of working with in Stanford's Leadership Fellows program, Dan Might stands out as someone who would go the extra mile...or ten.  So it was gratifying--and not surprising--to learn that my recent post on Five Leadership Lessons prompted this insightful response from Dan, who added an extremely important sixth lesson of his own:

1. Initial Conditions Matter

I couldn't agree more--especially that you must be aware past the first hello.  Human systems are dynamic and we always have a lot of "firsts" with people.  The first time you commit to something people will notice if you follow through or not.  And the first time you face a stressful situation people will watch your reaction.

I agree when first meeting any group, whether you're the leader or not, remembering names will always help make a favorable impression.

Second, connecting with people on any level is critical.  Psychology shows commonality is important in relationships.  I figured this out by luck during my first leadership position.  I had 60 direct reports on a manufacturing line, and when I first met each employee I would point out when we had something in common as I asked questions about themselves.  I'm fortunate my parents had exposed me to a lot growing up from riding motorcycles to traveling all over that seemed to fit with something I could talk to someone about.  However, beyond even a common experience, just similar things about your personality I found work to connect and begin a relationship of understanding.  It was critical I do that because I was a 22-year-old newly-minted engineer leading a group of high-school educated adults who had worked with the company 25 years on average.  I had to bridge a gap with each individual.  Whatever it takes, connecting at some level is possible, and early on it is key.

I would also extend your last remark and stress always being aware beyond first encounters.  I try to live by that.  If I ever walk away and realize I might have been misunderstood or something would have been misinterpreted I go back and talk to the person and make sure we have the same understanding.  I literally did that before writing this post.  I emailed a co-worker I felt I might have upset today by pushing hard and asking tough questions to in order to spur some new thoughts around a strategy.  I was fortunate he responded right away and said he appreciated my passion for trying to motivate the leadership team and his motivation was something he had begun to lose and needed the wake up call.  It was important I followed up though in case he had been burying some resentment that would have grown.

2. Embrace Mistakes, Failures and Surprises

Yes!  I can identify with this, especially, early on in my career when I legitimately didn't have a lot of experience.  I figured controlling situations or defining tasks for people that I could do competently would avoid exposing where I might not be competent.  However, to your point, that limits the team and everyone’s experiences.  It also led to more micromanagement on my part because to ensure that nothing got beyond what I felt comfortable doing, I needed to control the situation more.  I slowly realized we could learn as a team, and I saw the value in saying, "I don’t know but I’ll find out."  If things went past what I knew, I admitted it confidently and said we’d figure it out.  I realized no one can do everything, and I had plenty of other skills that gained others' trust and respect.  Making mistakes was okay if I admitted it and was willing to correct and learn in the team's eyes.

I'm currently in a situation where I’m trying to help a struggling company and we need a better sales strategy.  I've had a lot of great experiences but sales is not one of them.  I needed to still maintain the leadership team's confidence that overall I can help the company but also let them know we’re going on a journey together and need to work as a team to find resources that will help us.  The great thing is we’re enjoying it and growing as a team.  We’re all experimenting, and we will make mistakes.  We’ve learned we need to be okay with that and use them as our most valuable lessons.  Remember, there are few mistakes you can make that will completely dismantle a company to the point of no return; it’s possible, but unlikely, so you need to be okay with going beyond your comfort zone.

3. Growth May Look Like Struggle

Yes!  People who are "Fs" on the MBTI or very high on empathy need to watch out for this.   I am right on the center of F and T, but I’ve always been rated high on empathy.  I constantly sense the unease of my employees when they’re struggling and I want to jump in and alleviate it.  I even had this problem as a Leadership Fellow.  It's a hard instinct to suppress.

What I need to tell myself is my best learning experiences have come from when I've struggled or made a mistake.  You can learn when things go well, but it’s harder to because we often assume we did everything right.  When things fail you have to look for a root cause.

I've helped manage this feeling by debriefing after someone struggles or coaching them and turning it into a positive after the fact that often leads to an "ah-ha" moment which provides a lot of satisfaction for both parties.  I focus on that satisfaction and know it will be worth it for the individual.  I think people are uncomfortable when they're struggling with something because they feel like they are being judged or considered a failure.  Instead, you can begin to shape their behavior with positive reinforcement after the fact by expressing you're happy they tried and now you both can begin examining what could have been done differently.

I did this with my employees on my production line.  They used to be trained that every decision had to go through the manager even if it was 2 AM and the line was broken down and the manager was at home asleep.  They were uncomfortable when I asked them to start making decisions and often times those decisions varied with their impact to cost, quality, or productivity metrics, so it was hard to say there was always one rule to go by.  I began to coach them that I was more proud of a decision and listening to them explain their well-intentioned logic (you should almost always be able to assume positive intent) that went into the decision than the actual outcome while they were still learning.  I stood by that belief and modeled it.  Even if they didn’t take the best route we debriefed the next day and I reiterated even if things didn’t go as best they could have I was proud of them and glad we had come up with lessons learned to fix it the next time.  Within a year we were setting production, cost, and quality records because we had a team that was learning, growing, and not afraid to try new things.

4. Feedback is a Gift

Right on all accounts.  Feedback does take time for us all to get used to giving and receiving.  Going back to something I said earlier about learning to admit when I was wrong, that went a long way to getting me better at accepting critical feedback and getting it.  When I started showing that I had no problem admitting my comfort with my own mistakes it opened others up to be more honest giving me feedback or accepting of my critical feedback because they know I also was willing to hold myself accountable and could find places to improve.

As a leader when giving feedback I always find it important to say that "Perception is reality."  I allude to the point that you're making about subjective versus objective truth.  They may feel they know objectively what they are feeling or doing, but they need to remember the perception of how they are coming across to others or myself might be different based on my subjective analysis and view of the situation and outcomes.

Acting on feedback is critical because it shows people you’re listening and care about what they have to say.

Bottom line: Feedback is critical, both giving and receiving, if you want to grow as a leader and improve your teams.

5. Safety, Trust, and Intimacy

Yes, patience and focus on what's important for the long run are critical.  I remember when I was turning around my production line I told my manager I needed time.  I told her not to look at the day-to-day metrics because they weren’t changing until I got the people engaged and feeling empowered which could be months...or years.  I was fortunate to have one of my best leaders at the time and she took a leap of faith and trusted me.  I realize looking back how big of a leap I was taking at 22 years old with little leadership experience and not knowing if what I was doing would even remotely work.  It gave me the room to take my time with the team and really focus on the intangibles.  Once we were a well-functioning team the metrics came and my manager was rewarded for her patience by record-setting numbers for the department at a time when the company needed all the production it could get.

I would also offer up a fourth factor that I’ve found critical: consistency.  I’ve noticed leaders that have a hard time developing the first three don’t have consistency in their reactions to certain stimuli.  They haven’t become self-aware enough to recognize when certain other factors may be influencing their mood.  I strive to make sure my reactions are consistent to a given type of stimulus.  If something is stressful I strive to remain calm even if I’m having a bad day or stressed in my personal life.  When someone brings me bad news I strive to listen carefully and make sure not to place blame on them and work to figure out what we need to do to correct it.  If I'm exhausted and someone brings me good news I muster all the energy I can show to my excitement with them.  For instance, even if you're a person who gets visibly stressed when things go wrong the consistency in your reactions allows your team to know that has nothing to do with them if you get upset due to something stressful.  They feel more comfortable delivering critical feedback and tough news or taking risks because they at least know how you’ll react.  To build safety, trust, and intimacy you need consistent behaviors.  I observed a peer of mine, who was also a production line manger, constantly react in different ways to good and bad news.  Happy sometimes, no reaction others, stressed at others, and even angry.  It makes people walk on eggshells when they don’t know who they’re going to get and what you may do with information.  That prevents building bonds between employees, peers, and the whole team in general.

6.  SAY THANK YOU!!

Also, this sounds funny, but say "THANK YOU!"  I can’t believe how far that simple phrase will go when honestly used to reinforce someone’s good actions.  Time and again I see managers don't take the time to acknowledge good work--something I’m not shy about giving people feedback on!  Money and other forms of recognition are always in limited supply, but honest "thank-yous" are always free and go a long way to improving morale, building relationships, and reinforcing simple but important things people do to help you or your team.