Ed Batista

Pre-Blogging as a Motivational Tool

My friend Agnes Le has come up with a great motivational technique: Write a blog post about an important accomplishment before you actually do it.  For lack of a better term, I'm calling this "pre-blogging."

Last week Agnes ran the 50-kilometer (30+ miles) Villa de Madrid race, her first ultramarathon effort after several months of intensive training.  She reflected back on the experience in a great blog post, and as she makes clear, the process was about much more than running a race:

I have a confession. The past 4 months, I have been focusing on ChiRunning and marathons (and talked non-stop about them, some people would say, hahaha). There is however, a "head fake", defined so beautifully by Randy Pausch in "The Last Lecture." If you have not seen his truly moving video (free on the internet) or read the book, you should not miss it. Randy describes a "head fake" as indirect learning, "when you teach somebody something by having them think they’re learning something else". In other words, key lessons people don’t realize they’re learning until well into the process.

Well, this hasn't been simply about ChiRunning and marathons, but much more. It’s about life and how to achieve your dreams.

Agnes goes on to talk eloquently about the most important lessons she learned along the way--well worth a read--and then she adds a twist:

I have another big confession to make. I wrote this entry blog three days before I ran the ultramarathon (I made some revisions today). Yes, I cheated hahaha. But who said that you could not trick your brain? See, it’s about visualizing success and acting as if it happened. I made it a reality. The professional athletes do it. These are powerful techniques to train your brain. Your brain does not like incoherence. It will find a way to bridge the gap between your imagination and reality, if you let it.

I love it.  I'm reminded--yet again--of a paraphrase of St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises: "Perform the acts of faith, and faith will come."

And of recent neuroscience research that suggests that our performance is affected by emotions and internalized stereotypes that impact our faith in our own abilities; in other words, our beliefs about our likely success or failure can be self-fulfilling prophecies.

(Congrats, Agnes, and thanks for the inspiration.)

Photo by Morton Liebach. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Tiger Woods on Nerves

Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express-News quoted Tiger Woods on whether he was nervous about returning to competitive golf after an 8-month layoff while he recovered from knee surgery:

"The day I'm not nervous is the day I quit," Woods said. "To me, nerves are great. That means you care. (But) that's the greatest thing about it is just to feel that, to feel that rush."

That perspective reminds me of John Lahr's New Yorker interview with acting coach Susan Batson and her comments on stagefright:

I'm always terrified of the person who doesn't have [stagefright], because it means that the commitment is not fully there.

I find something very compelling about this approach to fear--and that's what it is, whether we call it "nerves" or "stagefright" or anything else.  Rather than resisting our fear or pretending it's not there, we can acknowledge it and embrace it.  Rather than view our fear as a harbinger of failure, we can re-frame it as evidence of our caring, our commitment, and view it as a precursor to success.

I'm not saying I've mastered this perspective shift--hardly.  But I am finding that whenever I feel fear and "lean into it" rather than "back away from it," I tend to learn and grow a lot more.  (Of course, that doesn't mean I have fun in the process.)

Steve Young on Readiness, Confidence and Humility

The photo on the right by Mickey Pfleger is one of my favorite sports images.  It's a shot of San Francisco 49er quarterback Steve Young in an exhibition game on August 14, 1995.  Having lost his helmet, Young still scrambled for an 8-yard gain--and this happened after Young had led the 49ers to victory in the Super Bowl earlier that year, making his eventual selection to the NFL's Hall of Fame inevitable.  He had nothing to prove, but in a meaningless exhibition game, he still couldn't help but go all-out.  I fully agree with Charles Barkley--athletes and rock stars aren't role models--but Young's a thoughtful guy, and I do find his dedication inspiring.

I'm thinking about football because the NFC and AFC Championships to be held in Phoenix and Pittsburgh tomorrow mark the conclusion of the 2008-09 NFL season.  (The Super Bowl's of interest to marketing execs and fans of the two teams involved, but it's more pop-culture festival than football game.)  So here's a quote from an interview with Young last September 3rd on KNBR that has stuck with me:

Don't waste a snap, don't waste a moment.  Every time that you get in practice, scout team, I don't care, if there's a moment that you're…working on your craft, you act like you're going to be the greatest player ever, and you take every opportunity to learn from it and make sure you're ready.  Because if you don't waste this time, and you prepare like you're going to start every day, then when your chance comes, your window opens and you'll go right through it.  If you don't, and you wait for it to kind of come around and complain and moan…then the window opens, sooner or later a window will open, and you'll have wasted your time, and you won't make it happen.

I appreciate Young's primary point about readiness--the longer I live, the more I want to make the most of every every experience.  But he's also making a deeper point about attitude and approach:

If there's a moment that you're…working on your craft, you act like you're going to be the greatest...ever, and you take every opportunity to learn from it.

The paradox embodied in that sentence jumps out at me: Act as though you're the greatest ever and take every opportunity to learn.  Exude confidence and embody humility.

We're constantly encouraged to do one or the other, but it's striking to realize how much more powerful it is to do both at the same time.

Photo by Mickey Pfleger. © All rights reserved.

Bill Curry on Leadership and Kindness

We don't necessarily associate great leadership with kindness, particularly when discussing Vince Lombardi-era football.  But former NFL player and longtime college coach Bill Curry had this to say in an interview with Tom Tolbert on KNBR this afternoon:

Unexpected, undeserved, unrewarded acts of kindness from great leaders...make great teams.

He was referring to the kindness showed to him as a rookie Green Bay Packer in 1965 by veteran African American players who took him under their wing and, in his words, "taught me how to behave."  Curry had no black teammates in college at Georgia Tech and initially found the diversity he encountered in the NFL hard to handle.  But influential team leaders such as Willie Davis apparently went out of their way to reach out to Curry and helped him adjust.

Curry expressed profound gratitude for his teammates' kindness, and in his retelling, that kindness was as instrumental as Lombardi's legendary toughness in shaping the '60s Packers into a tight-knit, cohesive unit.  I'm not suggesting--nor was Curry--that Lombardi's approach was wrong, or that kindness alone would have had the same affect.

And yet it feels as though we hear about leaders' toughness all the time, and we never hear about their kindness.  But when I think about the most effective leaders I've known and worked with, they had the ability to be both tough and kind as needed, and those aspects of their personality didn't cancel each other out.  Rather, their skillful use of one approach complemented the other; their kindness meant even more because I knew how tough they could be.

Mike Ditka's a People Person

NFL Hall of Famer Mike Ditka on tonight's Monday Night Football broadcast from San Francisco:

Head coaching isn't about X's and O's as much as people think.  It's about dealing with people.

The pic notwithstanding (a cheap shot, I know) Ditka's offhand comment touches on an important truth: Domain expertise, in football or in finance, gets you only so far and no further.  At a certain point in your field of endeavor, your success depends less on your mastery of tactics and strategy than on your ability to manage, inspire and lead people who are smarter and more highly skilled than you are.

Top Posts

Here are a few posts from recent years (updated January 2009) that continue to resonate with me.  Topics include executive coaching, personal and professional development, leadership, management, motivation, organizational culture, and the process of change.  I'll update this list every few months, but you're looking for a post that's no longer shown here, you can always find it using the search box below my Contact Info in the left-hand sidebar.

Three Things You (Probably) Won't Learn in Business School (January 2009)
"I don't know that we'll be teaching these lessons to our current students, either--perhaps because they're best learned after graduation."

The Influence Pyramid 2.0 (January 2009)
"We can understand at ever-deeper levels not merely how to be more influential but what implicit and unchallenged assumptions we hold about power and influence."

Gestalt Coaching (January 2009)
"When we speak of using Gestalt therapy with organizations or at the organization level, the fact remains that we ultimately are going to be using this approach with individuals or groups of individuals."

Peter Drucker on Knowledge Workers, Management and Leadership (October 2008)
"Am I being managed, or am I being led?  Am I managing, or am I leading?"

Technology Is Soft (May 2008)
"Thinking about technology as 'soft,' as an aspect of an organization's staff, style and skills, may seem counterintuitive, but increasingly this is where it truly resides (and it's where you'll have the greatest leverage when driving technology-related change.)"

Double-Loop Learning (May 2008)
"A number of people wind up here after searching for 'double-loop learning'...so I thought I'd provide a simple graphic overview."

Organizational Effectiveness (May 2008)
"What makes organizations effective?  For that matter, what do we even mean by effectiveness?"

Energy vs. Intensity (February 2008)
"Understanding the subtle difference between [energy and intensity] can help us be more aware of the choices we're making and allow us to tailor our approach to a given interaction."

Experiential Learning Cycles (October 2007)
"The point is to recognize how much can be learned from our every experience and interaction, and to begin to capture more of that learning on a consistent basis."

Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good People (September 2007)
"Why do so many well-meaning people give such bad presentations?  Last year Andy Goodman and Cause Communications sought to answer that question."

Ground Rules for Meetings (September 2007)
"What makes a meeting successful?...The culture we established at the outset with these ground rules seems to have helped the group stay focused and productive despite the disruptions."

Successful Debriefing: Ask, Don't Tell (September 2007)
"To get people to talk in clear, readily understandable and quotable language, you have to ask really simple questions that can have the effect of making you look uninformed at best and foolish at worst."

Bill George on Teaching Leadership (August 2007)
"The hardest thing we have to do is see ourselves as others see us.  And do you gain that self-awareness?  Some people think they have it, but they've never really tested themselves, and that is crucial."

The Dip: Seth Godin on Strategic Quitting (July 2007)
"Only excellence matters.  Improving from incompetence to mediocrity is worse than useless... Where can I deliver excellence?  Where should I expect excellence in return?   And how can I focus my time and energy to make this as likely as possible?"

T-Groups, Feedback and Double-Loop Learning (March 2007)
"How effective are your interactions with others?  What behaviors enhance your effectiveness, and what behaviors undermine your effectiveness?"

T-Groups, Trust, Leadership and Management (February 2007)
"Why are personal issues relevant in a professional setting?   How do our internal dynamics shape our external effectiveness as leaders and managers?"

The Problem with Positive Feedback (February 2007)
"[T]oo much praise will eventually have the same effect as no praise at all.  But by uncoupling the feedback from any goals other than rewarding the recipient, you'll increase its value as a motivator."

The Value of Soft Startups (January 2007)
"[S]pouses are much more likely to resolve difficult conversations successfully when they use a soft startup, and I'm inclined to believe that the same is true in most of our professional relationships as well."

Double-Loop Learning and Executive Coaching (December 2006)
"When we begin a double-loop learning process, everything comes to a full stop while we ask such challenging questions as 'Why do we do this task this way?' and 'Why do we do this task at all?'"

Agreement vs. Alignment (October 2006)
"Agreement = Everyone gets their first choice (difficult and time-consuming to obtain.) Alignment = Everyone can fully support the choice that is made (much easier to obtain.)"

The Inner Game of Work: Who Are You Working For? (September 2006)
"We need to listen to our inner voice and work freely for ourselves without simply giving in to indulgent whims.  And we need to be of service and to create value for others without simply responding to external demands."

Johnny Cash on Doing it Your Way (June 2006)
"It doesn't matter to me that I only know three or four chords... I just believe that when it all comes together it's the right way for me to do it."

Organizational Development: Is Humanism Overrated? (June 2006)
"A better understanding of how our brains function will allow organizations to embrace change and tackle new initiatives much more effectively.  But I wouldn't throw the humanistic baby out with the bathwater just yet."

Pfeffer and Sutton on Leadership (May 2006)
"We tend to assign more credit and blame to leaders than...they actually deserve... But...leadership can make a difference, and Pfeffer and Sutton have a short checklist to help leaders be as effective as possible."

Matt Doherty: Live and Learn? (February 2006)
"There's more to leadership than command authority, and Matt Doherty's experience during and since his time at UNC suggests three big take-aways for the rest of us..."

Peter Drucker on Managing Oneself (November 2005)
"Most people...do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.  By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths?  How do I perform?  and, What are my values?"

Hit Parade: Top Posts from the Past Year

Here are a few posts from 2005-06 that continue to resonate with me.  Topics include coaching, motivation, professional development, leadership, organizational culture, and the process of change.  I'll update this list as time passes, but you can always find any post using the search boxes to the left. 

Peter Drucker on Managing Oneself (November 2005)
"Most people...do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.  By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths?  How do I perform?  and, What are my values?"

Matt Doherty: Live and Learn? (February 2006)
"There's more to leadership than command authority, and Matt Doherty's experience during and since his time at UNC suggests three big take-aways for the rest of us..."

Pfeffer and Sutton on Leadership (May 2006)
"We tend to assign more credit and blame to leaders than...they actually deserve... But...leadership can make a difference, and Pfeffer and Sutton have a short checklist to help leaders be as effective as possible."

Organizational Development: Is Humanism Overrated? (June 2006)
"A better understanding of how our brains function will allow organizations to embrace change and tackle new initiatives much more effectively.  But I wouldn't throw the humanistic baby out with the bathwater just yet."

Johnny Cash on Doing it Your Way (June 2006)
"It doesn't matter to me that I only know three or four chords... I just believe that when it all comes together it's the right way for me to do it."

Finding Professional Fulfillment (July 2006)
"What makes a job satisfying?  What constitutes fulfillment?  What factors have to be balanced to achieve it?"

The Inner Game of Work: Who Are You Working For? (September 2006)
"We need to listen to our inner voice and work freely for ourselves without simply giving in to indulgent whims.  And we need to be of service and to create value for others without simply responding to external demands."

Zinedine Zidane and Authenticity

I was intrigued to read in Friday's Wall Street Journal that French soccer star Zinedine Zidane's popularity has increased dramatically since his infamous head-butt of Italian Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup Final.  (If you were in a monastery over the summer and missed all media coverage, here's a 10-second clip.)

At the time most people thought that the incident would be perceived as a black mark on Zidane and diminish his ability to win commercial endorsements (which earned him $11 million in 2005.)  But as Marie Valla wrote in the WSJ...

[I]n the two months since [the World Cup...Zidane's] public appeal has soared.

"From an advertising point of view, Zidane's emotional charge is twice as big today as it was before the World Cup," says Frederic Raillard of Publicis' affiliate Marcel...

Through France ended up losing the match, Mr. Zidane was voted the country's favorite personality in a recent annual newspaper poll.

What's going on here?  Zidane's impulsive act was clearly remarkable by virtue of its setting (the largest sporting event in the world) and its mysteriousness (Materazzi's taunting seems even less provocative now that we know he was insulting Zidane's non-existent sister).  So it's logical that Zidane would be the focus of intense media scrutiny.  And the increased attention resulting from that scrutiny certainly explains some of Zidane's increased popularity.

But underlying that mechanical explanation is something more emotional: the obvious impulsivity (even stupidity) of Zidane's act has a visceral appeal in a world where most public actions are scripted and mediated with the greatest care.  Zidane was pissed--who really knows why, or cares?--and he expressed himself directly.  Not intelligently or articulately, but directly.  That's in stark contrast to 99% of other public figures, and it's made Zidane authentic and, frankly, more interesting.

We can and should decry Zidane's poor sportsmanship, disdain attention-getting stunts, and aspire to a world of ethical sport.  Even Zidane says "I hope that none of these kids [at a junior soccer tournament] will ever do something like I did."  But there's clearly value in authenticity and, at times, in wearing our emotions on our sleeves.

Photo courtesy of premasagar.  Yay Flickr.

Who Is Landon Donovan Working For?

Landon Donovan is a 24-year-old professional soccer player and one of the greatest American soccer players ever.  Donovan was sufficiently talented to win a contract with a top German team at age 17, but despite expectations that he would be one of the first Americans to break into the Bundesliga, the highly competitive German league, and compete at a world-class level, he had a generally unsuccessful experience in Germany during 2004-05 and returned to the much less rigorous American professional ranks.

Donovan's poor showing in Germany seemed to result from a number of factors, including homesickness.  But he's been criticized by a number of American soccer coaches, players and fans for his failure to succeed in that environment.  They contend that rather than dominating Major League Soccer here at home without breaking a sweat, Donovan should be pushing himself harder to compete in the Bundesliga in order to make himself a better player and by so doing to improve the chances of the U.S. national team.  Recent quotes from Donovan in an interview with Reuters' Erik Kirschbaum suggest that Donovan agrees that going to Europe would have that effect: "I'd probably become a better soccer player just from the day-in, day-out grind of it there."  However, he goes on to note, "I wouldn't be a better person. I wouldn't be a happy person. I'd be pretty miserable."

So what should Donovan do?  It depends on who--and what--he's working for, but that's a more complicated question than it seems at first.  Is he working only for himself?  And what does that mean: Maximizing his happiness by staying at home, or getting the most out of his talents by returning to Europe?  Making good money by staying here, or making great money by returning to Europe?  Will he be most fulfilled if he stays within his comfort zone, where he knows he can succeed, or will he one day wish he'd tried to compete on a bigger stage?  And what about Donovan's obligations to others with an investment in his success?  Should their perspective affect his decision?

Obviously, I don't raise the issue because I think we can answer these questions for Donovan; only he can answer them for himself.  But I think they're worth asking of ourselves.  Who and what are we working for?  More to come.

Photo of Landon Donovan courtesy of nwistheone.  Yay Flickr.

Even Millionaires Need A Pat On The Back

The Cincinnati Reds just arrived in San Francisco to kick off a West Coast road trip with major playoff implications.  Before they left, Reds owner Bob Castellini sent each player a letter:

Your performance on the field has been awsesome all year. You NEVER quit. Good luck on your West Coast swing. Please know upon your return we will have done everything we can to fill the stands in these last crucial homestands. You deserve nothing less from our fans and management team.

Professional baseball players are among the most competitive people on earth, and they're obviously well-compensated--the average MLB salary was $2.6 million in 2005.  It would be easy to assume that they don't need any extra motivation.  But I love Castellini's approach here-he's clearly aware that a pat on the back can be important even when it might seem superfluous, and he's sending a great message to everyone in the organization: We're all in this together, and everyone's role is important.

Apparently inspired, the Reds came back from an 0-3 deficit to beat the Giants last night 6-3.  Grrr.  (Thanks to Geep at the SportsFrog for the heads-up.)