Ed Batista

Neuroscience, Joyful Learning and the SCARF Model

What conditions best support learning and personal growth?

1. Judy Willis on "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education"

Stephanie West Allen points to a thought-provoking and compelling answer to the question above in the work of Judy Willis, a former neurologist who obtained her teaching credential after a 15-year career in medicine and now teaches at Santa Barbara Middle School and blogs at Psychology Today.

Willis brings an unusual and highly valuable combination of hands-on experience as an educator and a deep understanding of neuroscience to her writing, and her article in the Summer 2007 issue of Educational Leadership, "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education," is one of the most helpful pieces I've read on the subject of understanding the practical relevance of neuroscientific research.

Willis's article is focused on formal education in a classroom setting, but I believe that the findings she discusses have relevance for any experience in which we're trying to impart knowledge, stimulate understanding and foster growth, from a group workshop to an executive coaching session to an impromptu feedback conversation.  I take the liberty of quoting Willis at length here (interspersed with my comments), but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing:

[W]hen we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged...

My own experience as a neurologist and classroom teacher has shown me the benefits of joy in the classroom. Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain (Thanos et al., 1999). When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience "aha" moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery (Kohn, 2004).

"An atmosphere of exuberant discovery."  I LOVE that phrase!  It perfectly describes my most fulfilling learning experiences.  If I can help to evoke that feeling--in myself and in others--in a workshop or a class or a coaching session, then I know we're on the right path.  I'm reminded of my recent post on being an infectious agent of enthusiasm.  Like enthusiasm, "exuberant discovery" is a contagious state. 

Willis continues:

The Brain-Based Research

Neuroimaging and neurochemical research support an education model in which stress and anxiety are not pervasive (Chugani, 1998; Pawlak, Magarinos, Melchor, McEwan, & Strickland, 2003). This research suggests that superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are enjoyable and relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences.

Many education theorists (Dulay & Burt, 1977; Krashen, 1982) have proposed that students retain what they learn when the learning is associated with strong positive emotion. Cognitive psychology studies provide clinical evidence that stress, boredom, confusion, low motivation, and anxiety can individually, and more profoundly in combination, interfere with learning (Christianson, 1992).

Neuroimaging and measurement of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) show us what happens in the brain during stressful emotional states. By reading glucose or oxygen use and blood flow, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicate activity in identifiable regions of the brain. These scans demonstrate that under stressful conditions information is blocked from entering the brain's areas of higher cognitive memory consolidation and storage. In other words, when stress activates the brain's affective filters, information flow to the higher cognitive networks is limited and the learning process grinds to a halt.

Simply put, stress kills learning--and yet so many settings intended to support learning are needlessly stressful.  I'm reminded of Hans Selye's concept of eustress and the resulting awareness that some level of stress--which differs for each of us in different situations--supports optimal performance, but above that level performance declines.  The curve below may not be accurate--I suspect that in reality it's quite a bit steeper for most of us, but it serves to illustrate the concept:

Willis's work is an important reminder to pay close attention to the profile of this curve and to insure that we don't push ourselves and others beyond that point of optimal performance where learning ceases.  Willis continues:

Neuroimaging and electroencephalography (EEG) brain mapping of subjects in the process of learning new information reveal that the most active areas of the brain when new sensory information is received are the somatosensory cortex areas. Input from each individual sense (hearing, touch, taste, vision, smell) is delivered to these areas and then matched with previously stored related memories...

I'm struck here by the potential importance of all the senses in the learning process and the way in which most learning environments fail to make effective use of any but hearing and vision (and even then rely heavily on monotonous lectures and boring lists of bullet points.)  It suggests to me that learning is enhanced when all the senses are stimulated more thoroughly, through movement, vivid imagery and language, and perhaps even taste and smell.

Willis's website is www.RADteach.com, an acronym that stands for "Reach And Discover" but that also has a more specific neurological meaning:

RAD Lessons for the Classroom

A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive input to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students. Lessons that are stimulating and challenging are more likely to pass through the reticular activating system (a filter in the lower brain that focuses attention on novel changes perceived in the environment). Classroom experiences that are free of intimidation may help information pass through the amygdala's affective filter. In addition, when classroom activities are pleasurable, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.

The acronym RAD can remind educators of three important neuroscience concepts to consider when preparing lessons:

• Novelty promotes information transmission through the Reticular activating system.
• Stress-free classrooms propel data through the Amygdala's affective filter.
• Pleasurable associations linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine...

Planning for the Ideal Emotional Atmosphere

Although it is valuable for teachers to be familiar with neuroscientific research and pass relevant findings along to education stakeholders, it is crucial that educators use classroom strategies that reflect what we know about the brain and learning. So how can teachers create environments where anxiety is low while providing enough challenge and novelty for suitable brain stimulation?

Make it relevant.

When stress in the classroom is getting high, it is often because a lesson is overly abstract or seems irrelevant to students. Teachers can reduce this type of stress by making the lesson more personally interesting and motivating. Ideally, students should be able to answer the question, "Why are we learning about this?" at any point in a lesson...

Give them a break.

...[T]eachers can give students a three-minute vacation to reduce stress. Any pleasurable activity used as a brief break can give the amygdala a chance to cool down and the neurotransmitters time to rebuild.

Create positive associations.

Eliminating all stress from students' lives is impossible. However, even if previous classroom experiences have led to associations that link certain activities, such as memorizing multiplication tables, to a stress response from the amygdala, students can benefit from revisiting the activity without something negative happening. By avoiding stressful practices like calling on students who have not raised their hands, teachers can dampen the stress association...

Prioritize information.

It is helpful for teachers to guide students in learning how to prioritize information—how to decide what facts are worthy of writing down and reviewing when studying. When teachers demonstrate and explain how they determine which facts are important, students see how to make those judgments for themselves as they read texts and study. Helping students learn how to prioritize and therefore reduce the amount of information they need to deal with is a valuable stress-buster.

Allow independent discovery learning.

Thanks to dopamine release and the consolidation of relational memories, students are more likely to remember and understand what they learn if they find it compelling or have a part in figuring it out for themselves. In addition, when students have some choices in the way they will study or report on something, their motivation will increase and stress will diminish. They will be more accepting of their errors, motivated to try again, and less self-conscious about asking questions.

Whenever we're helping people learn, whether it's in a workshop, a coaching relationship, or just a supportive conversation, we can feel tempted to tell, to advise, to provide answers.  My experience as a coach has taught me the importance of resisting this temptation, and Willis's final point above helps to explain the neuroscientific basis for this dynamic.  Our brains are wired to learn more effectively when we figure things out for ourselves.  (There's a connection here to the value of experiential learning and its emphasis on the "perceptual order" of our direct experience rather than the "conceptual order" stressed in most learning, in William James's language.)  This isn't to say that we should never tell or advise or provide answers--there are times when that's what's needed.  But when we take those shortcuts, we need to be mindful of their potential to undermine learning.

2. Joyful Learning and David Rock's SCARF Model

Willis's perspective on "joyful learning" is embedded in David Rock's SCARF Model, which provides a useful framework for understanding how our brains respond to social threats and rewards.  Rock's acronym stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness, five domains of social experience within which we regularly encounter threats and rewards that trigger responses in the brain similar to those triggered by physical threats, such as pain and hunger, and physical rewards, such as relief and satiation.

Rock writes in "SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others," (available as a PDF on the Resources page of the site promoting Rock's new book, "Your Brain at Work"):

[M]uch of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000)...[and] several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008). In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water.

The SCARF model summarizes these two themes within a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations. This model can be applied (and tested) in any situation where people collaborate in groups, including all types of workplaces, educational environments, family settings and general social events.

Willis's work provides an vivid example of the SCARF Model in action.  As Willis describes the neurology of learning, it's easy to envision specific aspects of stressful learning environments that trigger social threats: Authoritarian teachers and intimidating leaders who diminish others' status.  Unclear lessons and irrelevant exercises that fail to provide certainty around learning goals (or the likelihood of achieving them.)  Excessive structure and a lack of choice that rob people of their autonomy.  A heightened power distance preventing teachers or leaders from developing a sense of connection and relatedness with others.  And favoritism or arbitrary rules that undermine fairness.

Rock's model describes a set of neurological dynamics at work in every social setting, but Willis makes clear their vital importance in learning environments.  Whenever we're seeking to promote learning, it's essential that we structure the environment to minimize these social threats and cultivate that "atmosphere of exuberant discovery" Willis describes above by promoting social rewards.

As teachers and leaders, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to raise the status of those around us.  We need to provide sufficient certainty without stifling creativity, and we need to provide sufficient autonomy without leaving others feeling lost or alone.  We need to foster a feeling of connection and relatedness among the diverse members of a group.  And we must always be fair.

3. Safety, Trust, Intimacy and Learning

Finally, Willis's essay reminds me of my own belief in the importance of safety, trust and intimacy in any learning environment.  As I wrote recently:

The foundational qualities that define every group are the levels of safety, trust and intimacy: Safety =  A belief that we won't get hurt.  Trust = We mean what we say and we say what we mean.  Intimacy = A willingness to make the private public.

When safety, trust and intimacy are established, these qualities support the actions that lead to greater success as a group: experimentation, risk-taking and a willingness to be vulnerable.

When we feel able to experiment, take risks and make ourselves vulnerable, our ability to learn, to increase our self-awareness (and our awareness of others) and to change our behavior in order to achieve our goals more effectively increases dramatically.

Photo by Phineas H.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Self-Coaching Guides, One Year Later

Next month marks the first anniversary of the publication of my Self-Coaching Guides, six compilations of posts on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.

The Guides have been well-received--hey, they're currently in the top 10 when you search for "self coaching"--and I'm glad people have found them useful.  That said, they're due for an update, and there's plenty of room for improvement--a project I'm planning to tackle this Summer.  The main changes I hope to make include:

• Integrating my increased understanding of neuroscience and its implications for coaching.
• Making more effective use of of the framework that links these topics together.
• And transforming the Guides from compilations into more independent narratives on each topic.

If you have any feedback on how the Guides could be made more useful, please take a look and let me know--I'd be grateful for your input.

A final thought: ALL coaching is ultimately "self-coaching."  No matter how closely I work with my clients and students, and no matter what useful insights may emerge during our sessions, they do the heavy lifting of understanding themselves, tapping into their strengths, and, when necessary, changing their behavior on their own.

Photo by Theresa Thompson. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Jessica Hagy on How to Get Unstuck

Jessica Hagy's Indexed is an incredibly creative and thought-provoking (and funny) resource, and I find inspiration in her work on a regular basis.  I was particularly struck by today's entry, How to Get Unstuck, which is really an expanded version of the Experiential Learning Cycle.

We typically view this cycle as a series of sequential steps from one stage of the process to the next, in part for conceptual simplicity, but also--and more importantly--to get us to think more deeply about how we can learn more effectively from our experiences (hence the name!)

But Jessica's inclusion of some additional steps in the process--seeing "Imagination" springing from "Frustration" and noting that "Experimentation" should precede formal "Implementation" reminds me that in reality we move through this cycle not in an orderly stage-by-stage sequence, but in a messy series of intertwined loops that often lead us backwards:

The point of a tool like this isn't to tell us the "right" way to do things--it's to suggest a different way of doing things that might allow us to learn more, be more creative, or be more efficient in the process.  While I like Jessica's new version, you might find an even simpler one helpful:

Grant McCracken on Brainstorming as Intellectual Improv

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

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

Fonseca gave us fair warning.  She said something like,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Further Thoughts on Group Process

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

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

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

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

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

Blogs I Read

Here are several lists of blogs, ranging from Management to Miscellaneous, written by people whose work I admire and from which I draw inspiration on a regular basis.  (I'll keep a link to this post on my Resources page.)

Photo by Matti Mattila.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

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

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

1) Cognitive Training Can Lead to Behavioral Change

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

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

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

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

Dr. Beck is also interviewed in the Guide:

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

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

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

2) Experiential Learning Has a Neurological Basis

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

SharpBrains: How does learning happen?

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

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

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

3) Structured Learning Supports Peak Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Cognitive Training Enhances Attention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SharpBrains: Please summarize your research findings...

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

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

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

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

What Are You Paying Attention To?

What's your most valuable resource?

Give this a little thought and you might say it's your time.  But it's not time--it's attention.

True, we consume time when we pay attention to something.  But we can free up more time by doing fewer things, or by doing some things faster, or just by stopping sooner.  In a sense, time is elastic.

But attention is far less malleable.  We're either focused on something or we're not.  And we focus--I mean truly focus--on just one thing at a time.  Don't talk to me about multitasking--it's a myth.  Having lots of things in the background, occupying our "peripheral attention," isn't true multitasking any more than using our peripheral vision is true "multi-seeing."  It just means that our focus is shifting more frequently--which can substantially decrease our efficiency as we cycle in and out of various tasks.

I spent 2005-06 as the Executive Director of AttentionTrust, a nonprofit that aspired to educate people about the value of their "attention data," i.e. the mountains of data generated by what we pay attention to (and what we ignore), while providing them with the means to actually capture and make use of this data by means of a Firefox plugin.  I was reminded of that experience and of the crucial importance of attention by Sam Anderson's recent "In Defense of Distraction" in New York.  Anderson interviews psychologist David Meyer, Director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan:

I begin, a little sheepishly, with a question that strikes me as sensationalistic, nonscientific, and probably unanswerable by someone who's been professionally trained in the discipline of cautious objectivity: Are we living through a crisis of attention?

Before I even have a chance to apologize, Meyer responds with the air of an Old Testament prophet. "Yes," he says. "And I think it's going to get a lot worse than people expect." He sees our distraction as a full-blown epidemic--a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought. He compares it, in fact, to smoking. "People aren't aware what's happening to their mental processes," he says, "in the same way that people years ago couldn't look into their lungs and see the residual deposits."

Anderson goes on to discuss the "cognitive plague"--all the devices and channels that clamor for our attention today--in greater detail, as well as the increasing prevalence of "neuroenhancers" like Adderall that many people--particularly students--are using to improve their ability to focus and be productive, before circling around to suggest that distractions can actually be good things:

The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus--the inability to be distracted--can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with "attentional shift" is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It's been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments... It's possible that we're all evolving toward a new techno-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be an advantage again. The deep focusers might even be hampered by having too much attention: Attention Surfeit Hypoactivity Disorder.

I find Anderson's argument here compelling: the ability to let go and move on in a highly dynamic environment can be a valuable adaptive trait, and dogged determination in the same environment can be a sign of fatal inflexibility rather than laser-like focus.  But I'd emphasize two points before embracing that idea fully.

First, sometimes we're distracted for vitally important reasons, as Anderson's conversation with productivity guru Merlin Mann makes clear:

For Mann, many of our attention problems are symptoms of larger existential issues: motivation, happiness, neurochemistry. "I'm not a physician or a psychiatrist, but I'll tell you, I think a lot of it is some form of untreated ADHD or depression," he says. "Your mind is not getting the dopamine or the hugs that it needs to keep you focused on what you're doing. And any time your work gets a little bit too hard or a little bit too boring, you allow it to catch on to something that’s more interesting to you."

When I'm distracted because I'm demotivated or unhappy, my distraction is neither a symptom of the "cognitive plague" nor a badge of honor befitting a "techno-cognitive nomad."  Rather, it's an early warning sign of a deeper issue that needs to be addressed directly.

And second, what we pay attention to matters.  In Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin wrote:

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

What we pay attention to matters, because we pay for what we pay attention to, and we pay for it very simply; by the lives we lead.

Photo by hellosputnik.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

On Change: Inclination, Motivation, Action

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inclination

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

Motivation

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

Action

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

Here's a graphic representation:

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

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

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

So far, so good.

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

Photo by quinn.anya. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Time Horizons

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self-Coaching Guides: Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness

Several students I worked with in the Leadership Coaching class at Stanford this year raised the question of how to "self-coach" after graduation--how to continue the process of personal development without the resources of a graduate program at their disposal.

Much of the writing I've done here over the past 5 years has been aimed at helping people do just that, so I've created a series of "Self-Coaching Guides"  on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.

I don't intend these brief guides to provide the definitive word on such expansive subjects, but hopefully they'll allow anyone with an interest in a given topic to do some focused reading and to learn more about the thinkers and resources I've found valuable.

(Note that the files linked to below are PDFs, which require Adobe reader.)

Download Self-Coaching Guide #1: Communication
(PDF, 452 KB)

Topics include influence, interpersonal power, soft startups, positive feedback, asking questions and stagefright.

Download Self-Coaching Guide #2: Leadership
(PDF, 301 KB)

Topics include management vs. leadership, authenticity, kindness, power, and the dangers of leadership.

Download Self-Coaching Guide #3: Motivation
(PDF, 378 KB)

Topics include control, risk-taking, failure, importance vs. urgency, status anxiety, and saying "Yes."

Download Self-Coaching Guide #4: Change
(PDF, 397 KB)

Topics include transitions, leaping vs. growing, managing oneself, strategic quitting, decision-making, reinvention and searching vs. planning.

Download Self-Coaching Guide #5: Learning
(PDF, 564 KB)

Topics include experiential learning cycles, journal writing, learning from mistakes, double-loop learning and heuristics.

Download Self-Coaching Guide #6: Happiness
(PDF, 363 KB)

Topics include intentional activities and happiness strategies, the concept of "flow," excellence and uniqueness.

UPDATE: I'm finding that the six topics addressed here form a useful framework for personal development.

Photo by Nesher Guy.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.