Ed Batista

Talking with Colleagues About Suffering

A theme in my practice is the leader who's aware or senses that a colleague is suffering and would like to offer support but is unsure how to broach the topic--and a version of this occurs in my own work. In most cases when a client is suffering in some way our coaching sessions provide them with a setting in which they can express those feelings freely. But at times it's clear to me that a client is suffering and yet it's not the focal point of their agenda, or even on the agenda at all.

It's not my place to determine our agenda--that's the client's job--but it's not uncommon for people to want to talk about something while also feeling ambivalent about raising the topic. If I ignore my intuition and defer to their stated agenda, we might miss a meaningful opportunity. And yet the client must always feel a sense of agency in our work together.

It's complicated, but at least I have the benefit of being a coach, and in my relationships with clients it's expected that at times we'll explore troubling and even painful topics. But my clients may not have that kind of social contract with their colleagues, making it hard to know how to proceed when they sense that a co-worker is suffering. If you're in this situation, here are some suggestions:

Take the Initiative

Some people prefer to suffer in private, or they may be reluctant to discuss it with colleagues. They may resist or even resent our efforts to address the topic, and we should be careful to avoid "inflicting help." [1] But most of us tend to err on the side of caution, and while we tell ourselves we're "being sensitive," this also reflects our fear and anxiety. We're afraid that our efforts will be rebuffed, and we'll feel embarrassed. So instead we sit back and wait, hoping that when they need our help they'll ask for it.

Sometimes this is true...and sometimes it's not. The suffering person may in fact feel embarrassed themselves, and they may want us to relieve them of the burden of initiating the conversation. They may wonder if we see their suffering at all, or if we even care. Or they may conclude that this isn't the kind of relationship, or the kind of company, where we talk about such things.

So find the courage to take the initiative. This will be fraught, and it will feel risky, and sometimes you'll get it wrong. But you'll only improve your ability to sense the right time and to find the right language with practice. [2] Extend the invitation, and don't be discouraged if it isn't accepted at first. Try again later. Don't insist--the other person has to feel in control--but by signaling your interest you make it easier for them to respond when they're ready.

Normalize Vulnerability

Acknowledging suffering often evokes a sense of vulnerability in both parties. This is almost certainly true for the person who's suffering, who may believe that such acknowledgment is a form of weakness that will leave them feeling exposed and unsafe. They may worry that they'll be seen as less competent or capable, or that they'll be considered "emotional," a liability in many professional settings.

But this is also likely true for the leader seeking to offer support, particularly when it's unclear if such support will be welcome. The leader may lack experience in having these conversations, or this may be a new frontier in their relationship with this individual. Or the person's suffering may be apparent while the underlying cause is unknown, compounding the leader's uncertainty about whether or how to proceed.

The paradox is that in most settings expressions of vulnerability trigger an empathetic response, a mechanism that may be rooted in our evolutionary psychology. [3] This isn't guaranteed, of course, and it's necessary to take small steps at first and read the signs with care. A starting point is conveying any trepidation you might feel and letting the other person know that it's OK if they feel similarly.

Understand What's Needed

Leaders often rise to their position on the basis of their effectiveness as problem-solvers, and that's an identity as much as a skillset. In some circumstances colleagues are seeking a solution that will solve the problem, but much of the time there's none to be found, or at least not one that the leader can provide. This is certainly true of our greatest difficulties--a grievous illness, the loss of a loved one, a global crisis. [4]

If you find yourself in such a discussion there are many ways to offer useful help and support, but it's important to understand what the other person actually wants. Even when you don't have a definitive solution, they may still value your advice on how to address or think about the problem. But note the tendency of problem-solvers to offer advice, even when it hasn't been asked for.

Before jumping in to share your perspective, be sure to slow down and listen. The experience of truly feeling heard is surprisingly rare in organizational life, where people often listen in order to reply. Put your advice on hold, at least until it's requested, and just be fully present. You may find that this is sufficient.

And you may also find that something more is called for, even--and perhaps especially--when there's no advice to give and listening isn't enough. The other person may simply need a literal or virtual hug, which can be daunting territory to navigate in organizational life. While it's essential to be aware of and respect another person's boundaries, we can be so cautious about avoiding offense that we inadvertently appear callous. Tone of voice and body language can go a long way toward expressing the sentiment. A murmur, a sigh, a moment of silence, or holding our hand to our chest can speak volumes.

Why Bother?

All of this work is easier if we take steps early in our professional relationships to lay a foundation for more meaningful dialogue later on. One of the most straightforward ways for a leader to accomplish this is by scheduling regular one-on-ones with direct reports, honoring that commitment by minimizing cancellations or rescheduling, and ensuring that employees feel a sense of ownership over the agenda. [5] And yet it will still require effort and a modicum of risk, and a leader may well ask, Why bother?

One very pragmatic reason is that people who are suffering are incapable of doing their best work. They may be in the grip of a threat response, aka a "fight, flight or freeze response," which will impair creative thinking and render them more risk-averse and prone to distraction. [6] Talking about their distress and anxiety can play a significant role in helping them manage these feelings, enabling them to redirect their focus to other matters. [7]

I would add that our professional relationships have the potential to be sources of belonging and connection [8], not merely vehicles for value creation, and we realize this potential fully only when we're willing to have hard conversations. This doesn't mean that companies are "families"--I agree with Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke that this is an inappropriate metaphor, and that colleagues are best-served by viewing each other as fellow members of an elite team who earn their positions by virtue of their performance. [9]

Cultivating the ability to have hard conversations about suffering develops a set of skills that are equally valuable in hard conversations about performance: the courage to speak up, a sense for the right timing and the right language, comfort with vulnerability. This is yet another reason why "accountability and empathy are not mutually exclusive." [10]

 

This is a companion piece to Talking with Colleagues About Divisive Topics.

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Footnotes

[1] Inflicting Help

[2] Conscious Competence in Practice

[3] Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (Dacher Keltner interviewed by David DiSalvo, Scientific American, 2009)

[4] This section is adapted from What Do You Need Right Now? (Advice, Listening, A Hug?).

[5] How to Have Better One-on-Ones

[6] Neuroscience, Leadership and David Rock's SCARF Model

[7] Talking About Feelings

[8] Abilene: Loneliness and Belonging in Organizational Life

[9] Shopify CEO email to managers: We are not a family (Tobias Lütke, internal email, 2020, shared by Lukas Naugle, LinkedIn, 2021)

[10] Accountability and Empathy (Are Not Mutually Exclusive)

 

Photo by Christopher Matson.

How to Have Better One-on-Ones

One-on-one meetings with employees are seemingly among a leader's most straightforward tasks. Two colleagues have yet another conversation about work--what could be simpler? But a theme in my practice is that a more deliberate approach to one-on-ones can turn them from perfunctory exchanges into much higher sources of leverage. [1] If you're a leader who'd like to hold better one-on-ones, here are some questions to ask yourself and a set of proposals to consider:

If you're not holding formal one-on-ones, why not?

Andy Grove, the late CEO of Intel, noted that managers from other companies viewed formal one-on-ones as unnecessary, telling him, "I don't need scheduled meetings with my supervisor [or subordinate]; I see [them] several times a day." [2] I sometimes work with early-stage CEOs who feel similarly and view formal one-on-ones as superfluous bureaucracy. But this approach has several problems.

Even when you're communicating frequently with employees, it's likely that those interactions are highly tactical, with with little time devoted to more strategic issues, and no time at all to address the quality of your working relationship or anything of similar complexity. And, as Grove continued, "there is an enormous difference between a casual encounter by a supervisor and subordinate, or even a meeting to resolve a specific problem, and a one-on-one." [3]

The absence of formal one-on-ones means that when you do schedule a meeting to address a bigger challenge, you signal to your employees that such events are for "tough conversations," rendering them more stressful and less likely to succeed. (And this may be equally true when an employee schedules a one-on-one with you.)

Alternatively, holding formal one-on-ones on a regular basis normalizes the experience, allowing you and your employees to grow more comfortable addressing complex or difficult topics. Simultaneously, it highlights that this is a particular type of conversation and not just an ordinary meeting, motivating both you and your employees to be more thoughtful about how you prepare and participate.

Who merits a one-on-one?

Having formalized the process, it's important to assess how you're allocating the time you have available for one-on-ones, which is one of your organization's most precious resources. This isn't self-aggrandizing--it's simply a consequence of the fact that your attention is finite. [4] And a one-on-one meeting involves a major "investment" of attention from which you should expect a substantial "return," just as you would with any other limited resource. [5]

In addition to meeting with their direct reports, some of my clients initiate or make themselves available for skip-level one-on-ones with more junior employees. This practice can provide you with a new perspective on the organization, but it comes with potential dilemmas. It doesn't scale, and can leave you spread too thin. It can also short-circuit normal managerial channels--although if you have concerns about one of your direct reports, this may be the point.

I've had clients who levelled an employee and offered ongoing one-on-ones as a way to cushion the blow, but again, this doesn't scale and is generally a short-term fix. The key is recognizing that people want the leader's attention because it's a valuable resource, and beyond a certain point in your career it's unlikely that you'll be able to meet this demand entirely without compromising on other responsibilities.

What's the appropriate cadence? How long should a one-on-one last?

Here Grove offers some useful guidelines:

How often should you have one-on-ones? Or put another way, how do you decide how often somebody needs such a meeting? The answer is in the job- or task-relevant maturity of each of your subordinates. In other words, how much experience does a given subordinate have with the specific task at hand? This is not the same as the experience they have in general...

The subordinate should feel that there is enough time to broach and get into thorny issues... I feel that a one-on-one should last an hour at a minimum. Anything less, in my experience, tends to make the subordinate confine themselves to simple things that can be handled quickly. [6]

Given that your employees' "job- or task-relevant maturity" likely varies, the cadence of regular one-on-ones need not be uniform, nor is there a single best practice. Most of my clients hold weekly one-on-ones with most of their direct reports, but meeting every other week is also common. A longer cadence with direct reports is less typical, but skip-level one-on-ones are often monthly or quarterly. Ultimately it's up to you and each employee to determine what works best.

The key is predictability, so you should only ever cancel or reschedule a one-on-one as a last resort. If you do this repeatedly you send a very clear message that it's a low-priority event, and your employees will act accordingly. And if you have a direct report who's reluctant to hold one-on-ones or who cancels on you, this merits further investigation. It may be a sign of a deeper problem in the relationship [7], or it may simply be that the quality of your one-on-ones needs to be improved. Make clear your desire for one-on-ones to be valuable to them, solicit feedback on your current arrangements, and enlist them in joint problem-solving.

What's on the agenda? How should we prepare?

As with cadence, there's no universal template for agenda-setting or preparation, but there are some general principles to bear in mind. Grove stresses that the employee should feel a sense of ownership:

A key point about a one-on-one: It should be regarded as the subordinate's meeting, with its agenda and tone set by [them]... So the [subordinate] should be asked to prepare an outline, which is very important because it forces them to think through in advance all of the issues and points [they] plan to raise. Moreover, with an outline, the supervisor knows at the outset what is to be covered and can therefore help to set the pace of the meeting according to the "meatiness" of the items on the agenda. An outline also provides a framework for supporting information, which the subordinate should prepare in advance. The subordinate should then walk the supervisor through all the material.

What should be covered in a one-on-one?... The most important criterion governing matters to be talked about is that they be issues that preoccupy and nag the subordinate. These are often obscure and take time to surface, consider, and resolve. [8]

Claire Hughes Johnson, the former COO of Stripe, expresses similar sentiments:

I generally tell folks, especially more experienced people, that the 1:1 is their time. We set up a mutual doc that we can both edit, and we track action items and link out to goals and career conversation notes. Beyond that, I ask the individual to propose each 1:1 agenda, and I only edit the doc to add in agenda item suggestions when I have them. [9]

When your employees own the agenda, not only is this much more efficient for you, it also ensures that the discussion will focus on issues that are most important to them. But having your employees set the agenda doesn't mean that you have no input, as Grove and Hughes Johnson make clear. You can also give feedback to an employee on the quality of their agenda if you conclude that the time isn't being well-spent. My clients who've asked their employees to take responsibility for agenda-setting typically find it a useful exercise in revealing who's well-prepared and who's not.

A particular form that lack of preparation can take is the employee who treats the one-on-one primarily or even exclusively as a vehicle to report out. If you find yourself listening to extensive updates that should have been written reports or automated dashboards for you to review in advance, you can let them know that it's a missed opportunity to have a more meaningful dialogue.

How should one-on-ones be conducted? What role should I play as leader?

An employee who sets the agenda and provides you with sufficient time to digest any preparatory materials enables you to add value not by directing the conversation or even having answers to all their questions, but by posing questions yourself. While there are limits on the extent to which you can serve as an employee's "coach," you can readily employ coaching as a methodology. [10] This not only scales, it also allows you to add value in one-on-ones even with senior employees who possess specialized expertise that you lack. Grove recommended what he called "dialectic management":

What is the role of the supervisor in a one-on-one? They should facilitate the subordinate's expression of what's going on and what's bothering them. The supervisor is there to learn and to coach... How is this done? By applying Grove's Principle of Dialectic Management, "Ask one more question!" When the supervisor thinks the subordinate has said all they want to say about a subject, [the supervisor] should ask another question. [11]

And your questions should include inquiring about your employee's state of mind and well-being. Hughes Johnson notes that a one-on-one should always begin by "asking how someone is doing--checking in really matters." [12] Grove firmly agrees: "The supervisor should also encourage the discussion of heart-to-heart issues during one-on-ones, because this is the perfect forum for getting at subtle and deep work-related problems." [13]

It's by attending to the logistical details above that you create an environment in which employees are willing to truly tell you how they're doing and be candid with you on "heart-to-heart" issues. Holding formal one-on-ones that are rarely cancelled or rescheduled and for which both of you are fully prepared goes a long way toward creating the psychological safety that's necessary for real openness. This doesn't mean that you should avoid contentious issues, as I've noted previously:

Psychological safety entails candid and direct communication. It requires asking and answering hard questions. It does not mean "being nice." It does not mean avoiding difficult conversations or fraught topics to ensure that no one experiences distress. To the contrary, a setting in which people are reluctant to be candid and direct for fear of triggering any distress in others is psychologically unsafe. [14]

I opened with the idea that better one-on-ones can be a great source of leverage for a leader, and I'll close with Grove's thoughts on the same subject:

What is the leverage of a one-on-one? Let's say you have a one-on-one with your subordinate every two weeks, and it lasts one and a half hours. Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate's work for two weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours, and also upgrade your understanding of what [they're] doing. Clearly one-on-ones can exert enormous leverage. [15]

 

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Footnotes

[1] 1x 10x 100x (On Leverage)

[2] High Output Management, page 73 (Andy Grove, 1st edition, 1983)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Beyond Simple Multi-Tasking: Continuous Partial Attention (Linda Stone, 2009)

[5] Growth, Profitability and Return on Attention

[6] Grove, pages 73-74.

[7] Better Working Relationships

[8] Grove, page 75.

[9] Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company-Building, page 399 (Claire Hughes Johnson, 2023)

[10] For more on coaching as a leadership tool (and its limitations), see the following:

• Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)
• How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize
• Investment vs. Attachment

[11] Grove, pages 75-76.

[12] Hughes Johnson, page 399.

[13] Grove, page 77.

[14] Safety Is a Resource, Not a Destination

[15] Grove, page 77-78.

 

Photo by World Bank Photo Collective.

Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder

A theme in my practice is defensiveness, which I define as an unwillingness to accept responsibility for setbacks, characterized by a disproportionately hostile, anxious or evasive response to critical feedback. When it arises as a topic I'm usually working with a client who's figuring out how to deal with a defensive employee or colleague, but occasionally I have a client who's been accused of defensiveness and is wondering what to do in response.

The key word in the definition above is "disproportionate." When someone is slightly hostile, anxious or evasive in response to critical feedback, we don't think of them as "defensive." Critical feedback is stressful under the best of circumstances. [1] So when someone responds with curiosity and calm we view that as a sign of maturity and professionalism, but a moderately negative response is normal and expected.

And yet we also expect this negative response to be temperate and short-lived. It's only when the other person's hostility, anxiety or evasion seem excessively emotional or unduly persistent that we label them as "defensive." This is highly contextual, determined by the surrounding cultural norms, our relationship with the other person, and our individual standards. What qualifies as defensiveness is truly in the eye of the beholder. So what are the implications of all this, and what can we do about it?

When You're Dealing with a Defensive Person

Don't call them "defensive."

Don't even use the word, as it will only make the situation worse. Bear in mind that they don't think of themselves as "defensive"--no one ever does--so being labeled as such will feel to them like an unjustified accusation and amplify the negative emotions they're already having difficulty managing. You may be perfectly justified in thinking of them as defensive, but keep it to yourself, at least for the moment.

In the present moment, de-escalate.

Defensiveness emerges in response to unexpected bad news, and you and your counterpart may be facing an immediate crisis. In this moment your task is to help them de-escalate their threat response and regain the ability to regulate their emotions. [2] Slow down--choose your words thoughtfully, make decisions judiciously, be mindful of how you might be contributing to their sense of threat. [3] In some circumstances, encouraging the other person to discuss what they're feeling can help them down-regulate those feelings. [4]

As soon as possible, make it a learning opportunity.

When the sense of urgency has abated--but before so much time has passed that the details have grown hazy--make use of this situation as a learning opportunity for the other person. At this point it may be useful to acknowledge that you perceived their response as defensive, but don't stop there. Offer behaviorally-specific feedback that allows the other person to gain a new perspective on their response and understand why you experienced it as counter-productive. [5]

In the meantime, clarify your own lessons.

There's undoubtedly ample learning here for you as well. Why did this bad news come as such a surprise to the other person? How did you share it with them? If you hired them, why did you fail to identify their defensiveness in the process? [6] How successful were you at de-escalating their defensiveness? Did you inadvertently make it worse, and if so, how? And if you're repeatedly encountering defensiveness over time, that merits a look in the mirror. Just because defensiveness is in the eye of the beholder doesn't mean it's always a fair or reasonable perception.

When You've Been Accused of Defensiveness

Don't make it worse by rejecting the label.

You almost certainly don't feel defensive, nor is that how you would describe your behavior, and it's unfortunate that the other person has chosen to label you this way. But reflexively responding, "I'm NOT defensive!" will only be perceived as further evidence of your defensiveness. Remember that defensiveness is in the eye of the beholder, and the fact that you feel unfairly maligned has no bearing on the other person's belief in the validity of their perspective.

If you haven't heard this very often, it's a learning opportunity.

It's likely that the behaviors being perceived as "defensive" are the result of your surprise and disappointment at encountering an unexpected setback. If you've enjoyed sustained success in your career, this may be the first time that you've experienced a meaningful failure. And if you've rarely (or never) been called defensive before, you're learning that your responses to setbacks are perceived as problematic by this person at this moment. As challenging as it may seem, this presents you not only with an opportunity to transform setbacks into fruitful experiences [7], but also to accelerate your overall growth and development. [8]

If you've heard this repeatedly, take it very seriously.

Learning opportunities sometimes come at a cost, and being called defensive can be career-limiting if the label sticks. When I'm working with a client who's hiring to fill a role, I encourage them to test for defensiveness in the interview process because defensive people can have such a corrosive effect on company culture, and it's difficult if not impossible to get them to change. [9] If this person has perceived you as defensive multiple times, it's a signal to invest in your working relationship. [10] And if you've been called defensive at multiple points in your career, consider whether a failure to take responsibility is holding you back professionally. [11]

No matter what, it's feedback, and feedback is data.

Being called defensive is a form of feedback, and like much feedback, it can be stressful, confusing and unwelcome. As I've noted before, feedback isn't a "gift" that we should automatically express appreciation for, but it is potentially valuable data that merits investigation to assess its utility. [12] You're not obligated to agree with this feedback, nor are you required to take any particular action in response, but consider the extent to which you trust this person's judgment and value their opinion of you. Should you conclude that they're trustworthy and acting in good faith, thank them for taking the risk to speak up, and ask them to tell you more. [13]

 

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Footnotes

[1] For more on feedback and stress, see the following:

• Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful
• Why Some Feedback Hurts (and What to Do About It)

[2] The Tyranny of Feelings

[3] How Leaders Create Safety (and Danger)

[4] Talking About Feelings

[5] How to Deliver Critical Feedback

[6] Surfacing Defensiveness (Three Questions for Candidates)

[7] The Ruling Out of Possibilities (On Failure)

[8] Learning How to Learn

[9] Surfacing Defensiveness (Three Questions for Candidates)

[10] Better Working Relationships

[11] The Trium Group on Responsibility

[12] Feedback Is Not a Gift

[13] Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up)

 

Photo by West Point.

We Don't Get What We Deserve...

We don't like to acknowledge this. It feels unfair, an injustice. I talk with clients every day about perceived injustices, some grievous, even outrageous. But in my capacity as coach I don't do my clients much good by merely validating their grievances or affirming their outrage.

Sometimes that's a starting point. Leaders need to vent like anyone else, and their colleagues may be unsympathetic (or implicated in the injustice), and their family and friends may not really understand the problem. But empathetic listening has its limitations, and when we reach those limits in a given conversation, I'll remind my client of this fundamental truth:

We don't get what we deserve. We get what we negotiate.

This isn't to deny the injustice, or to dismiss my client's feelings of grievance and outrage, or to excuse the actions of others that may have caused or contributed to the situation. Nor do I lack empathy--this isn't code for "Tough shit. Try harder."

To the contrary, empathy plays an essential role here. I must empathize with my clients' sense of injustice to be an effective coach to them. More importantly, my clients must empathize with their presumptive adversaries--but here's another fundamental truth: Empathy isn't agreement.

Empathizing with adversaries does not mean agreeing with them or abandoning our efforts to change the situation. It means getting out of our self-centered mindset and fully inhabiting an alternative view in order to be a more effective agent of change.

Because whenever we think, "I'm not getting what I want, but I deserve it," we diminish our agency and make it less likely that we'll achieve that desired outcome. We make ourselves victims of circumstance, and if the world has anything to teach us it is that victims may deserve justice, but that has very little bearing on whether justice will be done.

Empathizing with adversaries does mean seeing the world as they see it, understanding their emotions in response, and suspending our judgment about the accuracy of their view or the validity of their feelings. And the intent is to make use of this data in negotiating with them.

To be clear, we should think of "negotiations" more broadly than we usually do. Negotiations don't occur only in rare or special circumstances, such as compensation discussions or peace treaties. Life is an endless series of negotiations, particularly in our professional relationships.

Many people are uncomfortable with negotiating--they view it as unseemly or grasping--so they don't engage in deliberate practice, and they never improve their skills. And when they inevitably run into a savvy negotiator, they lose--which makes them feel uncomfortable, and the cycle continues.

But we need not assume that negotiations require a zero-sum, winner-take-all attitude, or that they're characterized by distrust or rancor. This is a caricature, one that enables people who are uncomfortable with negotiating to justify their discomfort. And yet in my experience very few negotiations benefit from this approach. (Some do, of course, but not many.)

So if you find yourself unhappy with a situation, feeling that an injustice has been done, and yet unclear on how to move forward, what can you do?

Consider your beliefs about yourself and how you respond to adversity.

• Learning How to Learn
• The Tyranny of Feelings
• The Value of a Good Fight

Consider your beliefs about power, influence and negotiation.

• Power Struggles Among Nice People
• Force Isn't Power
• Culture, Compensation and Negotiation

Engage in deliberate efforts to develop your skills and learn from experience.

• Conscious Competence in Practice
• Comfort with Discomfort

 

This piece is perhaps another way of saying Make It Better.

Photo by Jernej Furman.

Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)

Coaching is a way of being with others that's accessible to everyone and is by no means the exclusive purview of professional coaches. And while there are limits on the extent to which you as a leader can coach an employee [1], coaching is an approach that lends itself well to many managerial relationships, particularly between senior executives. [2]

I've written before about coaching as part of your leadership toolkit, most notably in "How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize," first published by Harvard Business Review in 2015. As the title indicates, I believe these three skills are central to the coaching process:

Coaching begins by creating space to be filled by the employee, and typically you start this process by asking an open-ended question. After some initial small talk with my clients and students, I usually signal the beginning of our coaching conversation by asking, "So, where would you like to start?" The key is to establish receptivity to whatever the other person needs to discuss, and to avoid presumptions that unnecessarily limit the conversation...

It's important to understand the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a cognitive process that happens internally--we absorb sound, interpret it, and understand it. But listening is a whole-body process that happens between two people that makes the other person truly feel heard...

Empathy is the ability not only to comprehend another person's point of view, but also to vicariously experience their emotions. Without empathy other people remain alien and opaque to us. When present it establishes the interpersonal connection that makes coaching possible. [3]

Asking evocative questions, ensuring the other person feels heard, and actively conveying empathy remain the foundations of coaching. But there's certainly more to the process, and here's a sequence of steps that I employ frequently in sessions with clients that you may find useful if you're seeking to integrate coaching into your managerial style:

• Connect: Establish and renew the interpersonal connection, followed by an open-ended question.
• Reflect: Having elicited a response, reflect back the essence of the other person's comments.
• Direct: Focus their attention on a particular aspect of their response that invites further exploration.
• Then Ask: Pose a question that builds upon, integrates or challenges what's been said so far.

Throughout this sequence it's essential to listen and respond in such a way that the other person feels heard and empathized with, but note that the emphasis is on their responses and not your questions. There are more and less useful ways of asking questions--see below--but when you're experimenting with a coaching approach you may put pressure on yourself to ask a "powerful question," and that's often counter-productive.

Below I provide further context on each of the stages--I discuss Connect at greater length because we frequently underestimate its significance for all that follows. And while the stages are ordered in a logical sequence that may repeat itself multiple times over the course of a given conversation, they shouldn't be viewed as a fixed set of steps that must be followed in order. You should feel actively encouraged to trust your intuition and employ them fluidly as needed.

 

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Stage 1. Connect

1.1. Safety and Trust

In "Ask, Listen and Empathize" I note the importance of connecting, albeit briefly: "After some initial small talk...I usually signal the beginning of our coaching conversation by asking, 'So, where would you like to start?'" In the years since I've developed a greater appreciation for the value of establishing the interpersonal connection at the beginning of a conversation and renewing it regularly.

When we encounter others, we are implicitly asking, Are you safe? Can I trust you? Executive coach David Rock has explored neuroscience research to understand its implications for organizational life [4], and he explains why connecting at the outset of an interaction helps us answer these questions affirmatively:

The ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same social group... When [a] new person is perceived as different, the information travels along neural pathways that are associated with uncomfortable feelings (different from the neural pathways triggered by people who are perceived as similar to oneself)... Once people begin to make a stronger social connection, their brains begin to secrete a hormone called oxytocin... [which] disarms the threat response and further activates the neural networks that permit us to perceive someone as 'just like us.'" [5]

1.2. Small Talk

The means by which these connections are most readily established is typically some form of "small talk," a colloquial term that obscures the significance of a vital element in human interaction. As I've written before,

Why can small talk have such a big impact? Possibly because it's a highly evolved form of "social grooming"--a common behavior among mammals that is believed to serve a range of functions transcending basic hygiene. Research by anthropologist Robin Dunbar and others indicates that social grooming in primates is a function of group size, suggesting that it helps maintain harmonious relationships in larger social units where individuals may have less frequent contact with each other. [6]

Dunbar has even proposed that human language evolved from social grooming, and while this theory remains controversial, it's clear that "vocal grooming" can play a significant role in effective relationships. [7] As science educator Kate Fehlhaber has noted, "Social grooming [in humans] can take on a completely non-physical form due to our extensive spoken and written language and is probably [our] dominant form of social grooming. A few kind words are often all the 'grooming' it takes to strengthen social relationships." [8] [9]

The appropriate amount of small talk and the acceptable topics for discussion are highly contextual, dependent upon the surrounding culture, the nature of the relationship, and the purpose of the conversation. But when you successfully abide by these constraints, the process of small talk presents you with many opportunities to accomplish the goals articulated by Rock: identify similarities, signal your shared membership in a social group, demonstrate that you're safe and trustworthy, and thereby set the stage for more meaningful discussion.

A disregard for small talk is often rooted in the perception that the topics seem frivolous or irrelevant. Sometimes they are, but even when the content of small talk is essentially meaningless, the process of engaging in the ritual for the right amount of time (and no longer), at the right level of depth (and no deeper) conveys a weighty message: I'm a safe and trustworthy person.

1.3. The Open-Ended Question

The connection stage concludes with an open-ended question, which should be simple and concise. If there's value in specifying potential topics in advance, after the initial connection has been established you can ask What's on your agenda? But that presumes a need to manage time, which won't always be the case. If not, you can ask, What's on your mind? or, as I note above, Where would you like to start? And as this four-stage process repeats itself over the course of the conversation, at subsequent junctures you can simply ask, Where do you want to go from here?

As with small talk, the purpose of the open-ended question transcends the content--as long as it's short, the wording is immaterial. The open-ended question serves to reinforce the process of interpersonal connection not only by putting the focus on the other person's priorities, but also by enhancing their sense of agency and control, which may be particularly important in a hierarchical reporting relationship.

The late Edgar Schein, a longtime professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, highlighted the interpersonal aspect of open-ended questions. Here he refers to the person being coached or helped as the "client," but the concept applies to employees as well:

The pure inquiry process has several purposes: to build up the client's status and confidence; to create a situation for the client in which it is safe to reveal anxiety, information and feelings; to gather as much information as possible about the situation; and to involve the client in the process of diagnosis and action planning. [10]

1.4. Over Time

While establishing the interpersonal connection is most important in the first encounter of a brand-new relationship [11], it remains relevant in repeated encounters. My former Stanford colleague Richard Francisco called this "extended ritual"--a way of reaffirming safety and trust at each and every contact. [12] In some relationships we may be able to establish connection with increasing efficiency, and eventually just one or two opening remarks may suffice. In other relationships or in certain interactions, we may choose to linger at this stage--the key is being attuned to the needs of the moment.

Further, this four-stage cycle will repeat itself multiple times in any given conversation. While it's most important to establish the interpersonal connection at the outset of the interaction, there will be countless opportunities to renew it and deepen it. This need not entail returning to the small talk that opened the conversation, but it may well include jokes, asides, observations, stories, and disclosures. As I've noted before, coaching conversations should feel normal, not stilted, and that starts with the person doing the coaching: "Being normal myself allows coaching to be seen as a normal form of helping and interacting, rather than as something special or extraordinary." [13]

1.5. The Virtual Environment

Finally, as more of our working relationships have moved online in recent years, we've had to "translate" in-person social rituals that establish interpersonal connection, such as a handshake, with varying degrees of success. Virtual environments can make it tempting to dispense with such efforts in service of time-efficiency, and on occasion that may be necessary. But in my experience a little forethought ensures that virtual coaching conversations are as effective as face-to-face, and making the effort to connect goes a long way toward that goal. [14]

 

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Stage 2. Reflect

The central idea in this stage is that once you've asked a question that evokes a substantive response from the other person, you reflect back your understanding of their response to them. This shouldn't be a verbatim recitation--instead, convey the essence of what was said. This will likely entail filtering out some (and perhaps much) of what you heard while also preserving any specific language that feels resonant or meaningful. The key is finding a balance between reducing the response into more concise language and ensuring that the other person hears their individual voice reflected in the language you use.

I find it useful to do some lightweight note-taking while listening, using a pen and pad instead of a device to minimize the risk of distractions. My intent isn't to transcribe what I'm hearing so that I can repeat it back, nor do I want to spend so much time glancing away that I miss facial expressions or gestures. I'm merely offloading items from working memory and capturing words or phrases that seem noteworthy--I pay close attention to emotions, imagery, metaphors, and colorful terms, including jargon or profanity.

This process will take different forms over the course of a given conversation. As I note above, at the outset you may want to ask the other person what's on their agenda and help them prioritize their list of topics. I find this approach useful with a client who may have more on their mind than we can realistically cover, given the time available. But even in those cases it may be possible to manage time assertively and strive to reach a point of sufficiency on each item. Here the task is to reflect back the list of potential topics as you understand them, both to test for accuracy and to jointly agree on an approach to the agenda. While the other person should feel a sense of ownership, you also have a stake here. If the agenda feels too ambitious, don't hesitate to say so.

But as you go deeper into a coaching conversation, the act of reflecting back serves a number of useful purposes beyond agenda-setting. It can be particularly valuable for the other person to hear your understanding of their response if that interpretation differs from their intent. Even when your understanding is aligned with theirs, it can be striking for them to hear it back in their own language--thus the importance of capturing specific words and phrases that resonate in some way, even (and especially) if you don't understand their precise meaning to the other person.

 

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Stage 3. Direct

Sometimes merely reflecting back the other person's response is sufficient to advance the conversation. They may choose to correct misinterpretations in your reflection, restate the response in new language, identify a particular element of the response to focus on--or go off in a completely new and unexpected direction. And sometimes none of those things happen, and there's an opportunity for you to advance to the third stage of this process, in which you focus the other person's attention on some aspect of their response

Directing the other person's attention can be accomplished through questions (What do you think that means? How do you feel about that?) as well as statements (That's interesting. Tell me more.) When you're getting comfortable with coaching as a methodology, there's no need to get too hung up on the precise formulation. It's also off-putting to people when they only hear questions in a coaching conversation--to my point above, that's not normal, and it can serve to create distance when you've been working to establish connection. That said, it's useful to observe which phrasings work best, which will differ from person to person, and to evolve your approach over time.

The key is being deliberate and intentional about where you're directing the other person's attention. Honing your intuitive sense of what merits further exploration is more important than worrying about whether it's phrased in the form of a question. Schein identifies four areas that tend to yield fruitful results: 1) feelings and reactions, 2) causes and motives, 3) actions taken or contemplated, and 4) "systemic issues," i.e. the feelings, reactions, causes, motives, and actions taken or contemplated by any other individuals who have been referenced by the person you're coaching. [15]

This is also where some light note-taking can be useful. For example, I generally write down the specific term a person uses to describe an emotion, in part because their definition may differ from mine and synonyms may cause confusion. (I also find it helpful to encourage people to expand their "emotional vocabulary." [16]) And I write down other individuals' names, even when I already know the cast of characters in the other person's environment. Names are potent symbols, and when someone's name comes up repeatedly it's often a sign of something worth exploring.

 

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Stage 4. Then Ask

To be clear, questions will be part of your coaching repertoire in all of the previous stages of this process. You'll ask questions while connecting in the course of making small talk, as a means of signalling a transition, and in order to evoke a substantive response. You'll ask questions while reflecting the other person's response back to them in order to clarify their comments and ensure an accurate understanding. And you'll ask questions to direct their attention, rather than simply making a statement--this is harder at first, but it gets easier with practice.

But having connected with the other person, reflected their response back to them, and directed their attention toward aspects of their response, you'll also have opportunities to ask questions that build upon, integrate, or challenge what's been said so far and open up entirely new avenues for exploration. This is where coaching becomes a truly synergistic process--where your questions have the potential to help the other person discover answers they didn't know they had.

Yet while acknowledging the importance of questions in the coaching process--and the value of learning how to ask better questions--I also want to take some of the pressure off. For a decade I helped train MBA students at Stanford in coaching skills, and almost all of them struggled with the sense that their questions needed to be powerful or profound. This impulse is problematic. At a tactical level, it can cause you to fumble for the right words, which is a distraction to the person you're coaching. More broadly, it positions you as "the insightful coach," which distorts the relationship and elevates your role when you're coaching a direct report.

There are some easy ways to ask more effective coaching questions without worrying about whether they're sufficiently "powerful." First, questions that invite an extended response are generally preferable than those that can be answered with "Yes" or "No." For example, How did you accomplish that? is better than Did you accomplish that? And What did you think would happen? is better than Did you think that would happen? And How did you feel? is better than Did you feel [X]?

Observe that my preferred questions above begin with What... and How... but not Why. While you shouldn't feel precluded from ever asking a Why question, they tend to evoke rationalizing and even defensiveness. The other person feels obligated to justify their actions or their response to you, which narrows their frame of reference rather than expanding it. So instead of asking Why did you do that? ask What were your intentions? Instead of asking Why did you feel that way? ask What prompted those feelings? Instead of asking Why is that your goal? ask How would that be helpful to you?

A bad habit that many managers bring to coaching conversations is asking a leading question, such as Don't you think it would be better if [X]? or Wouldn't you prefer [Y]? The problem with leading questions is that they're not really questions--they're statements in disguise: I think it would be better if [X], and I prefer [Y]. Even worse, a leading question can feel like a pop quiz with a "right" answer, which will remind the other person that they're talking with their manager, and they'll start telling you what they think you want to hear, rather than candidly exploring their inner thoughts with you. The solution, yet again, is to make coaching normal--if you have something to say, just say it. This may affect the coaching dynamic, particularly in a reporting relationship, but it's preferable than trying to contort a statement into the form of a question.

One final point: As someone who's in love with language, I often find myself thinking of an even better question when I'm in the middle of asking one. But if I give in to the temptation to tack on second question, I put my client in a bind: Which question should they answer? If you share this tendency, remind yourself to ask once, and stop.

 

For more on this topic, see Coaching and Feedback Tools for Leaders.

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Footnotes

[1] Coaching has limits as a managerial tool because leaders are usually attached to a given outcome--they want something specific to happen--and not simply invested in their employees' success. A leader's desired outcome and an employee's definition of success are generally aligned, which is why coaching can be effective as a managerial tool, but they aren't always identical. This is one of the reasons why external coaches have a unique role to play--we're invested in our clients' success, but rarely attached to any particular outcomes. For more on this, see Investment vs. Attachment.

[2] "Senior executives require a great deal of autonomy, and this may entail a shift in perspective as CEO, particularly if you're used to working with direct reports who are less experienced, more deferential, and more dependent on you for tactical direction." From Mind the Gap (On Leading Senior Executives).

[3] How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize (Originally published by Harvard Business Review.)

[4] For an overview of Rock's work, see Neuroscience, Leadership and David Rock's SCARF Model.

[5] Managing with the Brain in Mind (David Rock, strategy+business, 2009). More recent research has added nuance to our understanding of oxytocin's role. It appears to augment social connections but isn't necessary for their establishment. Journalist Katharine Wu offers an overview of this research in The Atlantic (2023). I include Rock's reference to oxytocin here to simply to highlight that our perceptions of safety and trust have a neurological basis.

[6] For more on the role of social grooming in primates and the relationship with group size:

• Functional significance of social grooming in primates (Robin Dunbar, Folia Primatologica, 1991)
• Group size, grooming and social cohesion in primates (Julia Lehmann, Amanda Korstjens, and Robin Dunbar, Animal Behavior, 2007)

[7] For more on social grooming and language:

• Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language (Robin Dunbar, 1998)
• Group size, vocal grooming and the origins of language (Robin Dunbar, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2017)

[8] Social Grooming: It's not just for monkeys and prairie voles! (Kate Fehlhaber, Knowing Neurons, 2013)

[9] Excerpted from Bosses and Birthdays (The Importance of Small Talk).

[10] Helping: How to Give, Offer and Receive Help, page 70 (Edgar Schein, 2009)

[11] First Impressions

[12] Five Levels of Communication

[13] From In Defense of Normal (A Coaching Manifesto).

[14] Tips for Coaching Someone Remotely

[15] Helping, pages 70-73

[16] Vocabulary of Emotions [PDF]

[17] For a list of potential questions, see Scott Ginsberg on Asking (Better) Questions.

 

Photos: Connect / Handshake by Amtec Photos. Reflect / Taj Mahal by Louis Vest. Direct / Tufa at Mono Lake by Sathish J. Ask / Question Mark by Dominik.

Self-Care for Coaches

Coaching is a very fulfilling activity, and I feel lucky to spend all day, every day working with leaders in this capacity. But it's also very demanding, which is why I try to take good care of myself--and my practice--in a variety of ways. This certainly includes the basics: mindfulness, exercise, sleep, reducing chronic stress. [1] But more specifically, there are four self-care practices for coaches that I follow myself and recommend to colleagues.

1. Get a Coach

There are a number of obvious reasons why every coach should have a coach. Just like our clients, we encounter difficult situations that test our capabilities on a regular basis, and coaching is a reliable means of augmenting our strengths and addressing our weaknesses. Further, guidance from a seasoned fellow professional can help us to consider new possibilities and overcome blind spots. As I've noted before, coaching isn't just about asking questions, and advice and feedback play valuable roles in the process. [2]

But being in a formal coaching engagement also offers something of special importance to the coach-as-client: empathy. As coaches, we're used to being in the position of having others come to us with their problems and challenges, and forgetting what it's like to be on the other end of a helping relationship can be an occupational hazard. Being coached reminds us of what it feels like to be a client--and that invariably makes us better coaches. [3]

My initial exposure to coaching came as a client in my first leadership role after business school. A mentor on my board of directors advised me to invest in myself and get a coach, and I went back to one of my Stanford professors, Mary Ann Huckabay, and asked if she would take me on as a client. Thankfully she did, and our work together not only transformed my approach to leadership, but also helped motivate me to launch my own coaching practice in 2006. Three years later I realized that I needed a coach in order to be the best coach I could be--I returned to Mary Ann's practice, and we've been working together continuously ever since. If you don't have a Mary Ann in your life, I hope you'll reach out to your network of colleagues and find one. [4]

2. Talk About Money (with People You Trust)

As an independent coach working solo, I wear two hats: I'm a coach who cares deeply about my craft, and I'm also the CEO of a small business who must ensure that my business remains profitable. It's easy to find people who want to talk about the soulful art of coaching but who don't know much about running a profitable practice. It's also easy to find people who are eager to sell you their services to help you build a practice but who don't seem particularly soulful, to say the least. In my experience the key is building relationships with colleagues who share your commitment to craft and who are also willing to discuss the financial and logistical aspects of running their practice. [5]

For many of us there's always some discomfort in discussing finances, and that can be exacerbated if we're reluctant to think of coaching as a profession. But a coaching engagement is both a personal relationship and a business relationship, and the integration of both halves makes it successful and sustainable. Acknowledging and attending to the financial needs of our practice is critical in that process and ultimately in the best interests of our clients.

Collegial relationships in which we can have such candid conversations are built on trust, which often starts with a willingness to be vulnerable. (This may be yet another reason to work with a coach.) And note that it may be easier than you think. I sometimes have occasion to talk with aspiring coaches who are just starting out, and at a certain point in the conversation I generally say, "Let's talk about money"--and they are invariably relieved that I've taken the initiative to broach the subject.

3. Manage Your Assets (and Say No More Often)

When wearing my CEO hat I have to be mindful that my small business has two (and only two) assets: my time and my reputation. I'm the sole steward of those assets--if my time is wasted or my reputation suffers, no one pays a price but me. Further, other people may well have very different ideas than I do about how to employ my time or build my reputation. So it's essential for me to manage these assets with great care.

I'm not suggesting that there's one best way for you to manage your own time and reputation. One person's wasted hour is another's sound investment. And what qualifies as a "good use of time" or provides a boost to your practice's visibility or your personal brand will undoubtedly change during the course of your career, so any guidelines in these areas should be revisited regularly. But it helps immensely to establish such guidelines in the first place, even if they're provisional and open to experimentation.

I suspect that running your practice with an eye toward managing your time and reputation with care will eventually require to you say "no" more often. Nearly a decade ago, I wrote about the necessity--and the difficulty--of this transition:

Success is often built on a reflexive habit of saying "yes" to opportunities that come our way. We’re hungry for any chance to prove ourselves, and when we're presented with one, we take it, even--or especially--if it seems daunting. A lesson I learned years ago was to say "yes" to opportunities that made me feel nervous because the anxiety was a sign that I'd learn something useful. We may also tend to say "yes" out of a fear that turning down an opportunity even once sends a message that we're not interested, and we'll stop getting additional chances in the future.

But success tends to attract bigger and better opportunities. As we succeed, a key challenge becomes prioritizing the many opportunities that present themselves. We often try to do this without saying "no" definitively--we still want to keep our options open. Inevitably, though, this results in a lack of clarity and overcommitment, and we wind up disappointing people, exhausting ourselves, or simply failing. To prevent this we need to learn to say "no" gracefully but firmly, maintaining the relationship while making it clear that this is one opportunity we're choosing not to pursue. [6]

4. Live a (Somewhat) Boring Life

The French novelist Gustave Flaubert advised Gertrude Tennant, a friend and patron who later edited his correspondence, "Be regular and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work." [7] I don't think of coaching as artistry, nor do I aspire to be "violent and original," but I do find Flaubert's underlying principle highly relevant and seek to apply it in a number of ways.

By committing to a "regular and orderly" set of routines, both professional and personal, I make it possible to do my best work every day on a sustainable basis. I'm not recommending any particular set of routines--I think each of us needs to determine for ourselves the practices that will best meet our individual needs. In my case, I generally get a lot of sleep, wake up at roughly the same time each day, see clients at predetermined timeslots with ample time in between sessions, take several walks a day, and have a quiet evening at home.

To be clear, I don't think it's necessary to strive for some sort of "perfect attendance record," nor am I suggesting that you need to impose a rigid set of rules on yourself. [8] Routines that feel unduly constraining are fragile, not resilient, and usually fail to be become habitual practices. Every once in a while I feel the need to stay up late, drink too much wine, and watch an old movie--although that's as wild as I get these days. But by giving myself permission to make exceptions, I make it easier to sustain the (regular, orderly) routines that constitute a typical day.

 

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Footnotes

[1] In The Art of Self-Coaching I devised the (admittedly cheesy!) acronym MESSy to highlight the importance of mindfulness, exercise, sleep and reducing chronic stress. For more on these topics:

Mindfulness

• Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People)
  
• Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2007)
• Meditation Techniques for People Who Hate Meditation (Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company, 2014)
• 26 Scientifically Proven Superhuman Benefits of Meditation (Jon Brooks, ComfortPit, 2014)
• This is what eight weeks of mindfulness training does to your brain (Christian Jarrett, BPS Research Digest, 2016)
• Eight weeks to a better brain (Sue McGreevy, The Harvard Gazette, 2011)
• Changing Our Brains, Changing Ourselves (Lea Winerman interviewing Richard Davidson, American Psychological Association Monitor, 2012)

Exercise

• Get Moving! (Exercise for Busy People)
• Walking lifts your mood, even when you don't expect it to (Christian Jarrett, BPS Research Digest, 2016)
• The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer (Gretchen Reynolds)
• Need A Self-Control Boost? Get Outside (Jessica Stillman, Inc., 2014)

Sleep

• Great Leaders Sleep Well--Why Rest Is Critical for Success (Ronnie Hendel-Giller, 2018)
• There's a Proven Link Between Effective Leadership and Getting Enough Sleep (Nick van Dam and Els van der Helm, Harvard Business Review, 2016)
• You Can't Do Your Job if You Don't Sleep (Tony Schwartz, Harvard Business Review, 2012)
• Sleep-Deprived Leaders are Less Inspiring (Christopher Barnes, Harvard Business Review, 2016)
• Senior Leaders Get More Sleep Than Anyone Else (Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter, Harvard Business Review, 2018)
• The Science of Sleep: Dreaming, Depression and How REM Sleep Regulates Negative Emotions (Maria Popova, The Marginalian, 2012)

Stress

• Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others (Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk, 2009)
• Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being (Linda Graham, 2013)
• Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success (Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, 2017)
• Embracing Stress Is More Important Than Reducing Stress (Clifton Parker, 2015, discussing recent work by Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal)
• How to Make Stress Your Friend [14-minute video] (Kelly McGonigal, 2013)

[2] Coaching, Advice and Feedback

[3] See Chapter 3 in Edgar Schein's Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help (2011), entitled "The Inequalities and Ambiguities of the Helping Relationship."

[4] How to Find (and Choose) a Coach

[5] While coaching isn't therapy, one of the most useful resources I've encountered regarding the management of a practice is Sheldon Kopp's Back to One: A Practical Guide for Psychotherapists. A few of the topics he covers are unique to therapy, but much of the book is equally relevant to coaching.

[6] Learning to Say "No" Is Part of Success

[7] Oxford Reference

[8] I make one exception: I expect to be early and fully prepared for every single coaching session, every working day. A coach's first job is showing up.

Photo by iezalel williams.

Thank You, Stanford, and Goodbye!

Hoover Tower, July 2016

Begin with the End in Mind

At the end of 2006 I accepted an offer to join the first in-house coaching staff at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where I had completed my MBA six years before. I took on the role not because I aspired to a career in academia, but because I was excited about the opportunity to contribute to the launch of the school's new curriculum, with its emphasis on leadership development and experiential learning, and because I thought it could accelerate my own development as a coach. The results on both fronts exceeded my wildest expectations.

I maintained a full-time role at the GSB until 2016, when I resigned to devote more time to my private practice, although I continued to serve as a Lecturer teaching Interpersonal Dynamics (aka "Touchy Feely") and The Art of Self-Coaching, the course I had launched the year before. I resigned from the Interpersonal Dynamics faculty in 2017 after the school asked me to add a third section of The Art of Self-Coaching, as I could only be on campus one day a week, and until 2020 I taught my course year-round. It was routinely one of the school's highest-rated electives until the last time I taught it in 2021, and I learned a great deal from that experience. I took a break from Stanford entirely last year, in part to reflect on the role I wanted teaching to play in my life, and a few days ago I concluded that it was time to retire from the GSB.

Today I'm struck by the extent to which the courses and programs that were products of the "new curriculum" are now viewed as features of the landscape, as if they'd always been there. This is gratifying, but it also reminds me that it's time to move on before I, too, am viewed as a feature of the landscape. I'm also somewhat astonished to realize that I worked with well over 1,000 MBA students in more than 50 courses from 2007 to 2021. It's impossible to convey how much my work with them has meant to me, and how significantly it shaped my growth and development, not only as a coach, but also as a person.

I know it's time to end this chapter of my professional life, but I do so with some ambivalence. I took great pride in delivering excellence as a teacher, and I don't like ending on a disappointing note with my final group of students. I loved creating an environment in the classroom that invited students to have deeper conversations and take some meaningful risks in order to learn, and I'm not sure how I'll meet that need in the future. And this evolution in my relationship with Stanford is yet another in a series of post-pandemic transitions that evoke a loss of identity.

All that said, the time is surely right. The last few years have made it clear that coaching is a counter-cyclical profession--the worse the state of the world, the more leaders benefit from good coaching, and I've never felt more useful to my clients or more needed. The idea of relating to Stanford as an alumnus, with none of the responsibilities that faculty and staff must bear sounds appealing. And at this stage of my life I'm reflecting on and writing about issues more relevant to senior leaders than to graduate students: coping with midlife malaise, evolving from warrior to sage, leading other senior leaders.

It's impossible to summarize my relationship with Stanford in a single essay, but I can recount half-a-dozen stories from the last few decades that provide a little color...

1. A Lesson in Humility

I arrived at Stanford as an MBA student in 1998--a quarter-century ago!--but my relationship with the university began in 1985, when I was a senior in high school. I was a bit lackadaisical about the college admissions process--the fact that high school was ending came as something of a surprise to me--and I discovered that I'd missed the application deadline for Brown, which had been my first choice, to the extent that I was making a choice at all.

I never considered the other Ivies, which seemed out of reach or a poor fit for me (or both), so I set my sights on Stanford, which I envisioned as both more achievable and more offbeat. I didn't feel arrogant about it, but I was confident I'd get in--and then a thin envelope arrived in the mail, informing me that my presence in California would not be required. It was the first of many useful lessons Stanford would teach me.

I ultimately graduated from Brown, via a long and winding path, but I keenly remembered Stanford's rejection, which served as a useful chip on my shoulder and source of motivation when I decided to apply to the Graduate School of Business to pursue an MBA. At the time I was passionate about helping nonprofits and NGOs use technology more effectively, and entrepreneur Jed Emerson and Stanford alumna Melinda Tuan helped me realize that the GSB would be the best place to pursue my vision. So it was very fulfilling when I got the call from the GSB's Director of Admissions Marie Mookini that I'd been accepted as a member of the Class of 2000.

2. Let's Talk About That

After graduation I spent the next six years pursuing the vision that had initially led me to business school, primarily as the first executive director of the Nonprofit Technology Network, aka N-TEN. I was determined to make N-TEN a success, and I threw myself into the experience with vigor, which resulted in some predictable conflicts. Vince Stehle, a member of my board, took me aside and said, in effect, "You're a talented guy, but you have some rough edges. I advise you to invest in yourself and get a coach." I turned to Mary Ann Huckabay, with whom I'd taken Interpersonal Dynamics (aka "Touchy Feely") as an MBA student and asked if she'd take me on as a coaching client. (Thankfully she said yes, and she's still my coach today.)

When I began exploring coaching as a career path in 2005, I considered applying to the GSB's Group Facilitation Training Program, which prepared community members to lead student groups in Touchy Feely. I participated in a group co-facilitated by Barbara Brewer and Dietmar Brinkmann to refresh my memory of the experience, and I got a lot more than I bargained for. Most significantly, I came to the realization that to give myself the greatest chance of succeeding as a coach I needed to quit my job and dedicate myself entirely to my practice--which I did. But for the first time I also grasped just how much growth would be required of me if I were to pursue this path.

With Mary Ann's encouragement I applied to the training program, and one step in the process was an interview with a current facilitator. The night before my interview Amy had to go to the emergency room, and the hospital kept her for observation. Amy insisted that I keep the appointment, and I arrived on campus feeling anxious and distracted. My interviewer was Tony Levitan, a GSB alumnus, and as we got started he noticed that something was amiss and asked me how I was doing. I answered candidly, saying something like "Not great," and Tony did something that I'll never forget: He said, "Well, let's talk about that." So we did--which, of course, turned about to be the most relevant type of "interview" for the program.

3. Too Big to Fail (Or So I Thought)

The Executive Challenge is a role-playing case competition that serves as the culmination of the first-year Leadership Labs course. I served as an alumni judge in a pilot version of the EC in 2007, and later that year my colleagues and I on the Leadership Coaching staff had to decide what to do with the event now that "LeadLabs" was becoming a mandatory component of the core curriculum. I recall a meeting with Evelyn Williams, the faculty member who had developed the original version of LeadLabs and the Fellows program at the University of Chicago's business school and had been recruited to bring it to the GSB by Dean Bob Joss.

At Chicago participation in the EC had been a reward for high-performing students, but I advocated for expanding it to include all students. If we kept it small, it would be our responsibility alone--and we were already struggling to command the resources necessary to make LeadLabs a success. But if the whole school was involved more people would feel a sense of ownership, and the EC would be "too big to fail." The final decision was Evelyn's, but I take a little credit for influencing the outcome, and today the entire MBA1 class participates in the EC, along with 70+ MBA2 Leadership Fellows and hundreds of alumni judges. (It's the second-largest event at the GSB behind graduation.)

This set the stage, however, for a great embarrassment and another profound lesson. From 2008 through 2015 I ran the scoring system for the EC, and it evolved into a finely-tuned machine that managed to process an immense amount of data throughout the day, carefully check the results, and deliver the final scores in time to be announced at a massive party held at the conclusion of the competition. But in 2014 an oversight on my part resulted in an error, which meant that several teams were awarded a victory that had to be renounced, and the real victors were denied the opportunity to celebrate with their classmates.

The cause of the error was a tiny technical glitch, and when I discovered what had happened I realized that it would be easy to evade responsibility. No one would have faulted me if I'd shrugged my shoulders and blamed the fates. But I decided that if I took pride in the system's previous successes--and I did--I had to claim this failure as my own. I reached out to the students who had been affected and apologized, and I received a host of gracious responses in return. I also wrote to the staff who had been assisting me, making it clear that I held myself responsible, and their supervisor, Ursula Kaiser, replied, "Thanks for the clarification, Ed. I appreciate your sense of accountability and honesty. You are a true gentleman." I don't always live up to that, but it's something to shoot for.

4. A Role Play for Real

In the summer of 2010 I was invited by Carole Robin to co-facilitate a group with her in the GSB's week-long version of Touchy Feely for executives, a program that would be overseen by David Bradford. I owe both Carole and David an immense debt for their many contributions to my career, including this experience, which was a high-profile opportunity for a relatively junior facilitator like myself. Much like the MBA version of the course, the program included large-group sessions before each group during which a faculty member would lecture or conduct an exercise that all 36 participants would observe. One such exercise was a role-play involving feedback between a faculty member and one of the facilitators, and it was agreed that David and I would team up for it.

Unbeknownst to David, I had felt an increasing sense of irritation with him as the week progressed. He had made a few joking comments that highlighted my junior status on the staff, and although in hindsight it was merely a form of friendly teasing, at the time I felt sensitive about my relative inexperience and resented these remarks. Without providing David any advance warning, I decided to make this dynamic the focus of our exercise--rather than conduct a "role-play," I would simply be myself and provide him with some direct feedback for real.

I don't recall what I said, but I recall vividly how it felt. David and I were seated in front of the room, with all of the participants and the rest of the staff arrayed in front of us. Somehow I conveyed to David that I wasn't role-playing, I was speaking from the heart, I was truly frustrated and upset, and I had some real feedback for him. Everyone in the room suddenly realized what they were witnessing, and it became very still and quiet.

From my vantage point today, I'm both embarrassed by this episode and proud of it. I'm embarrassed because it was clearly an effort to gain an unfair advantage over David by surprising him with this feedback in a public setting. And yet I'm proud of it because it was also a legitimate attempt to "walk our talk" as facilitators, to illustrate the concepts we were teaching not through a simulated experience but a real one.

David, to his immense credit, responded in the moment with grace and compassion, dissolving my frustration and providing our participants with a powerful example of how a leader could respond effectively to critical feedback from a subordinate, even--and especially--when it was an unwelcome surprise. After the conclusion of the large-group session, Carole and I joined our group in our breakout room. One of our group's members was a hardened military veteran, and throughout the week he had been skeptical about the experience and what he might learn from it, but as our group session began, he expressed how my interaction with David had earned his respect. He saw that we took our business as seriously as he took his, and he was going to put his skepticism aside.

5. On the Big Stage

From 2017 through 2020 I taught The Art of Self Coaching, the course that I founded in 2015, three times a year, in Autumn, Winter and Spring Quarters. While it was rewarding to work with so many students--over 100 members of each graduating class--by the end of each academic year I needed a break from Stanford. In 2017 and 2018 I was invited by the Second Year students to give a "Last Lecture," a talk on any topic I chose that would be held in the GSB's largest auditorium the week before their graduation.

It was an honor to be invited, but it also felt like a lot of work at a moment when I was ready to take a break, so I declined as graciously as I could. That was true, but it wasn't the whole truth--I was also anxious about the prospect of speaking in front of hundreds of people. I'm not a natural public speaker, and I've had to work hard to feel comfortable at the front of a room. The most helpful step in that process was taking a public speaking course at the Engineering School while I was an MBA student myself, but I still get butterflies even today.

In 2019 I anticipated being invited to speak for a third time--and having to decline a third time--when something interesting happened: The expected invitation never came...and I was disappointed. I realized that I enjoyed being asked, and when you keep saying "No" eventually people stop asking. Then, out of the blue, the invitation finally arrived, and it was clear that this time I had to say "Yes." So I did.

I knew what I wanted to discuss, and expanding that theme into a full lecture was relatively easy. But I was still anxious at the prospect of appearing on the big stage, so I went back to what I learned in that public-speaking course decades earlier--practice. I recorded myself giving the talk in my office, and that helped, but the best preparation was a bit more esoteric. The day before the lecture I drove all the way out to Chimney Rock, at the very tip of Point Reyes, and I gave my talk to the Pacific Ocean. The vastness of the sea was calming, perhaps because it put everything in perspective. If it went well, if it didn't go well, what would really change? (It went well.)

6. Bookends

Although I ended my GSB career teaching The Art of Self-Coaching virtually as a result of the pandemic--the first time was a big success, the second not so much--the course itself and my philosophy as an experiential educator were built around the in-person classroom experience, which is reflected in two activities that served as bookends for the course. I designed The Art of Self-Coaching to be an accelerated and economical journey. In a given quarter we had just nine or ten class sessions, each 1 hour, 45 minutes, which was less time than the other courses I'd been involved in over the years. I was confident that in the right conditions students could still have a deeply meaningful experience, but we had to get off to a fast start.

So before each quarter I memorized every student's face so that I could greet them by name as they walked into the classroom for the first time. There's no trick to the memorization process--it just takes time and effort--and it inevitably had an outsized impact. Occasionally students would even laugh in amazement. My goal was to send two messages: First, I'm setting a high standard for myself, and I hope you'll join me. But also, I see you--you're not just one of 36 students to me, you're an individual.

And in the final class session there was an exercise that invariably provided some of my best moments as a teacher. An ongoing theme in the course was what I really meant by "self-coaching." I provided a simple definition in the syllabus: "The process of guiding our own growth and development, particularly through periods of transition, in all domains of life." But this was intentionally vague and abstract, and by the final class I expected each student to have determined what self-coaching meant to them as an individual, and what it would look like in practice in their life.

I began the final class session with a warm-up exercise to get everyone moving and energized, and then I had them work on whiteboards in small groups, creating mindmaps that answered the question, "What is self-coaching to me?" The students would sketch out their mindmaps in silence and then discuss the results in their group. After the small group discussions we would conduct several more full-class activities, including some final remarks from me and a ritual to close the class. I enjoyed the entire session immensely, but it was particularly rewarding to observe my students as they discussed their mindmaps. Many of these conversations were quite animated, and there was a palpable sense of energy in the room. My persona as teacher was generally "circus ringmaster," so it's unexpected to realize that my most lasting memory of the classroom will be those times when I sat in the back and merely observed.

Many Thanks...

So to my former students: It was an honor to work with you, and I hope our time together continues to bear fruit in your current endeavors. Thank you, good luck, and keep in touch.

Over the course of my career at Stanford--as an MBA student myself, and later as a Leadership Coach and Lecturer, I was blessed with so many people who provided support and encouragement. I'm certain that I've inadvertently left some people off this list, and I apologize in advance for those oversights. That said, many thanks to...

Allison Rouse, Amy Kraus, Anamaria Nino-Murcia, Andrea Corney, Agnes Le, Anthony Ramsey, Barbara Brewer, Barbara Firpo, Bob Joss, Bob Sutton, Bonnie Wentworth, Bri' Godfrey,  Brian Lowery, Bryan McCann, Carrie Lee, Chevalisa Bruzzone, Chris McCanna, Chris Sadlak, Christopher Williams, Collins Dobbs, Courtney Payne, Delilah Gallardo, Dietmar Brinkmann, Dikla Carmel-Hurwitz, Domenico Anatrone, the late Don Flaxman, Don Hejna, Erica Peng, Grace Yokoi, Graham Veth, Graham Weaver, Hugh Keelan, Inbal Demri Shaham, Ingrid McGovert, James VanHorne, Jamila Rufaro, Jana Basili, Jed Emerson, Jeff Pfeffer, Jimena Galfaso, Joe Murphy, Joel Peterson, John Cronkite, John Johnson, Johnnie Walton, Joy Hsu, Karin Scholz Grace, Ken Chan, Kevin Martin, Kirstin Moss, Kris Becker, Lara Tiedens, Lela Djakovic, Leslie Chin, Lily Kimbal, Ling Lam, Lisa Kay Solomon, Lisa Radloff, Lisa Schwallie, Lisa Simpson, Lisa Stefanac, Liselotte Zvacek, Lynn Santopietro, Margee Hayes, Mark Voorsanger, Melinda Tuan, Michael Terrell, Mike Hochleutner, Mindy Williams, Nancy Dam, Nirit Hazan, Nonna Kocharyan, Nora Richardson, Paul Abad, Paul Roberts, Rebecca Taylor, Rebecca Zucker, Rich Kass, Richard Francisco, Richard Haukom, Ricki Frankel, Roberto Fernandez, Saraswathi Ram Mohan, Sharon Richmond, Stephanie Stevens, Sunny Sabbini, Sue Neville, Suzan Jensen, Tony Levitan, Tuquynh Tran, Ursula Kaiser, Vince Stehle, Yifat Sharabi-Levine, and Zoe Dunning.

More specifically...

Thank you, Carole Robin, for your invaluable guidance, your commitment to excellence, and your ongoing friendship.

Thank you, David Bradford, for your unfailing candor and your lifelong stewardship.

Thank you, Evelyn Williams, for your passion for leadership development, your genius for curriculum design, and the opportunity of a lifetime.

Thank you, Garth Saloner, for your rigor as a teacher and your foresight as a leader.

Thank you, Gary Dexter, for being yourself in the classroom, which emboldened me to do the same.

Thank you, Marie Mookini, for taking a chance on me.

Thank you, Mary Ann Huckabay, for being the single biggest influence on my life outside my family.

Thank you, Paul Mattish, for your unfailing professionalism in the face of utter chaos.

Thank you, Roberto Fernandez, for all you taught me and for being my greatest role model as a teacher.

Thank you, Sarah Stone, for being a beacon of clarity in the confusing life of a Lecturer.

Thank you, Scott Bristol, for your intellectual innovation and your heartfelt compassion.

 

Thank you!

My Appearance with John Baldoni

My colleague John Baldoni is a highly experienced coach, a great ambassador for the field, an inspiring writer, and a generous champion of the work of others, so I was truly delighted to join him on Grace Under Pressure. Our 30-minute live interview was recorded and is available via YouTube or the following podcast platforms:

• Apple
• Amazon
• Spotify

In addition to thanking John for the invitation, I want to thank the many teachers and mentors who made it possible for me to pursue coaching as a career, including Mary Ann Huckabay, Carole Robin, and Scott Bristol, who I mention in our interview. There are too many others to name, but I will always be in their debt.

My Appearance on the Re:Considering Podcast

I'm occasionally asked to appear on a podcast, and with the exception of my old friend and Stanford GSB classmate Agnes Le's "Leading Edge Lab" last year--see below--I've always declined. But Meredith Black, Bob Baxley and Aarron Walter recently invited me to join them on Re:Considering, and I'm glad I said yes. Not only was I was honored to follow in the footsteps of three authors who've had a big influence on my own work--Brad Stulberg, Kieran Setiya, and Oliver Burkeman--but I also had a lot of fun :-)

• Re:Considering, July 19, 2022
• Leading Edge Lab, Part 1, September 10, 2021 (with Agnes Le and Celine Teoh)
• Leading Edge Lab, Part 2, October 14, 2021 (with Agnes Le and Celine Teoh)

Work with Whatever Shows Up

Among my most important developmental experiences was the more than 1,500 hours I spent in T-groups, the experiential learning methodology developed by pioneering social psychologist Kurt Lewin in the late 1940s and deployed at Stanford (among many other places) in the 1960s. And one of the most valuable lessons I learned in that setting was: Work with whatever shows up.

Whoever shows up--that's the group. Don’t worry about who's not there--focus on who is there. Whatever anyone needs to talk about, that's the agenda. Don’t worry about what you're "supposed to" discuss--focus on what is being discussed. Whatever happens is what's happening. Don’t worry about what "should" or "shouldn't" happen--focus on what is happening. Work with whatever shows up.

Although I've always identified primarily as an executive coach who works one-on-one with leaders, I spent so much time as a T-group facilitator not only because I enjoyed it and found it meaningful (although I did, immensely), but also because it made me a better coach. Having a candid, potentially fraught interaction with someone while the other 12 members of the group observed or joined in gave me much more confidence that I could handle any challenging issues that might come up in a one-on-one coaching session. And the tremendous variability of what 14 people might come up with in a given group left me prepared for anything that might happen with a coaching client.

All of that was excellent preparation for a coaching session yesterday. My client and I were talking by phone while he was on a walk in downtown San Francisco. About two-thirds of the way through the call I heard some shouting, my client suddenly stopped talking, and then there was a series of unintelligible noises. It became clear to me that something was happening to my client--an incident of some sort--although I had no idea what was going on.

Finally, after what seemed like ages but must have been less than a minute, my client returned to the line, recovering his breath. A homeless man, possibly mentally ill, had fixated on my client, screamed at him, and chased him, seemingly intent on causing harm. My client was able to elude him and get to safety, but it had been a shock.

There was a temptation in that moment that we both felt to "resume" our conversation, as if we had been "interrupted." And yet that struck me as precisely the wrong thing to do. Instead of trying (or pretending) to ignore what just happened, it seemed important to do the opposite: Notice it, acknowledge it, integrate it into our conversation. We did, and we found that rather than distracting us from the topic at hand, our discussion of what had happened contributed to an even deeper understanding.

A simple lesson, one I've learned many times before, but worth repeating, as it's so easy to forget in the heat of the moment: Work with whatever shows up.