Ed Batista

Attention Surplus Disorder (Anxiety and Distraction)

Anxiety and Attention

At one time or another most of us have felt overwhelmed by anxiety or unable to stop worrying obsessively. Sometimes there’s a specific focus and a vivid response--we wake up in the night with a start, our mind racing, fixated on a recent argument or a stalled project or an avoidable mistake. Sometimes the experience is more more generalized--a gnawing sensation distracts us, and our mind drifts away into a black cloud of concern.

I see this pattern regularly in my work with clients and students--as well as in my own life--and I’ve come to think of it as attention surplus disorder. We habitually devote excessive amounts of attention to the objects of our anxiety, far out of proportion to the results we can reasonably expect that attention to yield. (It's important to distinguish between everyday anxiety and acute anxiety that may require clinical treatment or medication; for dealing with the latter, a list of anxiety resources can be found below.)

I’ve written about attention many times over the past decade (and I even teach a class on the topic) because I believe that attention is our most precious resource. Attention is finite: we can focus intensely for a very limited amount of time each day before we feel fatigued. Attention can’t be sub-divided: misguided ideas about multi-tasking notwithstanding, we can truly pay attention to just one thing at a time. (What we call multi-tasking is really continuous partial attention, or rapidly shifting our focus from one object to another, and it typically works only with basic tasks requiring minimal cognitive effort.)

And attention is tremendously powerful: whether we’re laboring at a task, reflecting and learning, or interacting with others, the amount of attention we can bring to bear on that experience usually determines how effective we are at accomplishing our goals. So when anxiety causes us to devote a surplus of this precious and limited resource to objects unworthy of our attention, we undermine ourselves in any number of ways.

Attention Magnets and Mental Control

There are two underlying dynamics at work here: 1) the power of emotion to capture our attention, and 2) the difficulty of controlling our thoughts and directing our attention. As I wrote in 2015, "psychologist Victor Johnston describes emotions as 'discriminant hedonic amplifiers,' meaning that they boost various signals in our mental landscape, drawing our attention toward certain issues and events and away from others. In other words, emotions are attention magnets." This is one of the most important functions served by emotions; they nudge us (and sometimes shove us) in directions that are likely to ensure our continued survival, toward sources of health and happiness and away from threats to our safety or enjoyment.

Note the emphasis on likely; as neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has written, emotions are a "quick and dirty processing system" that allow us to rapidly assess the potential impact of a given situation on our health and happiness, but our intuitive emotional response to a given situation isn’t always accurate. Emotions don’t work in opposition to our logic; work in recent decades by neuroscientists such as LeDoux and Antonio Damasio, among others, has made it clear that emotions play a crucial role in our reasoning process, and the quality of our decisions generally improves when we're in more in tune with our feelings.

But not always--and anxiety that fails to serve a useful purpose is a perfect example of the power of emotion. In many cases we know that our concern is misplaced, or at least disproportionate to the risk we face from the object of our anxiety--but that knowledge offers only limited resistance to the power of anxiety.

The second dynamic at play when we’re distracted by anxiety is the profound difficulty of controlling our thoughts and directing our attention toward certain objects and away from others. The late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner was an authority on this process, known as mental control. His research shows that conscious efforts to evoke or avoid specific mental states and direct our attention can work, but they can also backfire, particularly when we’re trying to suppress thoughts, resulting in the "the very mental states we are trying to avoid."

And yet we must constantly filter out and ignore vast amounts of information. As neuroscientist and psychologist Ian Robertson has noted, "We have to inhibit the billions of bits of irrelevant information assailing our senses in order to concentrate on the fragments of information which are crucial for us at a particular point in time." This highly selective focus is what makes it possible for us to complete any task, from driving a car to writing a sentence to having a conversation. But it’s a process that requires substantial cognitive effort under the best of circumstances, and when we’re tired or stressed our capacity for mental control is substantially impaired.

Mindset and Change

Our anxieties often take advantage of both of these dynamics, seizing us in their powerful grip when our ability to resist them is at a low ebb. So what can we do? First it's important to embrace what Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset, a view of ourselves in which we see our skills and abilities as subject to development, rather than a fixed mindset, in which we view such traits as inherent and impossible to change. Dweck’s research shows that people with a growth mindset are more resilient when experiencing a setback and more persistent in the face of obstacles, and both of these qualities can be valuable assets when seeking to overcome anxiety. As I've written before, Dweck's work suggests that it's possible to adopt a growth mindset, and this begins with simply being aware of the difference between the two mindsets.

We can also pay attention to our inner dialogue and look for signs of a fixed mindset, particularly any messages regarding our difficulty in dealing with anxiety. When we hear such messages, it’s important to challenge their accuracy and not simply accept them at face value. Substantial research in recent years has shown that our brains continue to develop throughout our entire lives, and this property of neuroplasticity insures that change is almost always possible, even though it’s often difficult.

Once we see ourselves as capable of change, there are a number of steps we can take to manage our emotions more effectively and mitigate anxiety’s ability to capture our attention. Note that emotion management is different than suppression; the latter is a futile (and even counterproductive) effort to ignore our feelings or deny their existence, while the former is a productive strategy of active engagement.

Emotion Management

Emotion management starts with heightening our ability to sense what we’re feeling. Emotions such as anxiety begin as physiological events--the release of neurotransmitters in our brain or visceral muscular contractions--before they register in our consciousness. The shorter the gap between those events and our conscious awareness of what we’re feeling, the more control we can exert over how we are likely to respond to those feelings. Practices such as regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and meditation help us attune to our bodies and the physiological manifestations of our anxiety.

Once we can better sense our emotions as physical experiences, we can improve our ability to comprehend them, to label them with the appropriate words that allow us to translate what we’re (literally, physically) feeling into (conceptual) feelings. One simple way to start is to expand our emotional vocabulary. It’s critical to distinguish the subtle variations in our feelings, particularly when identifying their depth and intensity. When we label all anxiety as a form of fear, and fail to differentiate among, for example, tension or nervousness or excitement, we frame the situation in a particular way, which has an impact on our behavioral response. Saying to ourselves, "I’m tense," or "I’m nervous" or "I'm excited" can put us in a very different state of mind than saying, "I’m scared."

An improved emotional vocabulary allows us to more clearly articulate what we’re feeling to others, which serves several purposes. Research by neuroscientists Matthew Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberg and others has shown that talking about our feelings allows us to better manage difficult emotions such as anxiety by reducing activity in the regions of the brain associated with those emotions. Openly stating what we’re feeling is also critical in helping others understand us and respond appropriately. We’ve evolved a finely-tuned ability to be aware of others’ emotions, but we can’t necessarily interpret the precise nature and cause of those feelings. When we’re anxious it’s essential to talk about it, which will tend to both make it easier for us to regain control over the emotion and invite others to provide support. Note that our ability to hold these conversations is a function of the surrounding cultural context. Different relationships, families, organizations, and nations have vastly different attitudes toward emotions, so it’s important to establish norms that make it acceptable for us to talk about our anxieties.

Sensing, comprehending, and articulating our emotions more effectively ultimately allow us to express those feelings in more productive ways. Anxiety pulls us off course when we’re not attuned to its physical symptoms, when we label it incorrectly, or when we elect not to talk about it with others. When we’re anxious but unaware, when we mistake anxiety for deeper fears, or when we sit alone with our feelings, we’re more likely to seek comfort in counterproductive behaviors, including obsessive rumination. Improved emotion management helps us choose healthier outlets for our anxiety--a long walk, a heartfelt conversation, or just a good cry.

Healthy Distractions

In addition to loosening anxiety’s grip through improved emotion management, we can improve our attention management by strengthening our ability to control and direct our thoughts. Health journalist Lea Winerman covered a presentation by Wegner at the 2011 convention of the American Psychological Association, in which he described several strategies for mental control. In the moment Wegner recommends that we minimize multi-tasking, which diminishes our cognitive load, frees up finite working memory and increases our ability to focus. In my work as a coach it’s evident that leaders who are able to ignore low-value demands on their time and focus on more important tasks are better able to manage the inevitable stresses and anxieties that accompany leadership roles.

The leaders I’ve worked with who’ve successfully guided their organizations through times of crisis also emphasize the importance of minimizing interruptions in order to devote their full attention to the task at hand. When we try to tackle multiple tasks at once or allow unwanted distractions to clutter our mental landscape, not only are we likely to perform less effectively, we also make it more difficult to direct our attention toward productive work and away from fruitless worry.

Wegner also suggests identifying an "absorbing distractor" that will prevent us from becoming fixated on a more problematic focal point. If we can arrest our anxiety before we’re deeply in its grip, we can redirect our attention elsewhere away from the object of our concern. This can involve substituting an immersive activity for worrying, such as intense exercise or a stimulating cognitive task, or it can involve re-focusing our anxiety on a more useful object--an alternative issue that we have more control over.

Over time, Wegner recommends that we build our capacity to resist distraction by committing to address unwanted thoughts during some designated period. Winerman notes that chronic worriers who set aside 30 minutes a day during which they were free to worry experienced less anxiety during the rest of their day. A related option is some form of journaling, which can be particularly helpful in processing emotions such as anxiety. The class I teach at Stanford, The Art of Self-Coaching, as well as other classes I've taught in the past, such as Interpersonal Dynamics and Leadership Labs, all involve putting students through a range of challenging situations and then asking them to write about their experience, which serves in part to help them manage any difficult feelings that have been triggered. And many of the leaders I coach in my practice find that taking just a few minutes in the morning or evening to jot down some notes is sufficient in helping them process the events of their day and avoid unnecessary worry.

Finally, Wegner also notes that meditation and other mindfulness techniques help with mental control, a view that has become increasingly mainstream as researchers such as Jon Kabat Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin have demonstrated its beneficial effects. In 2009 I heard Harvard Business School professor and former Medtronic CEO Bill George discuss his 30-year commitment to a daily meditation practice, and today it’s something I discuss with most of my clients and students.

A popular misconception about meditation is that it involves relaxing into some sort of bliss, but Kabat Zinn describes meditation as a "mental workout." Our minds wander constantly as a steady stream of thoughts enter and exit consciousness, and most meditation practices involve a steady--and difficult--process of returning our attention to a focal point, such as the breath, after every distracting thought. Just we grow stronger by lifting weights repeatedly, the intensive effort that meditation requires builds our capacity to notice when we’re distracted and re-direct our attention, a critical skill when seeking to avoid unproductive anxiety.

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The title of this post was inspired by Sam Anderson's In Defense of Distraction, a thought-provoking piece for New York from 2009 that continues to inform my work on this topic:

The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction. Unwavering focus--the inability to be distracted--can actually be just as problematic as ADHD. Trouble with "attentional shift" is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD. It’s been hypothesized that ADHD might even be an advantage in certain change-rich environments. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that a brain receptor associated with ADHD is unusually common among certain nomads in Kenya, and that members who have the receptor are the best nourished in the group. It’s possible that we’re all evolving toward a new techno-cognitive nomadism, a rapidly shifting environment in which restlessness will be an advantage again. The deep focusers might even be hampered by having too much attention: Attention Surfeit Hypoactivity Disorder. [page 7]

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For Further Reading

Anxiety

When a Stress Expert Battles Mental Illness (Brad Stulberg, Outside, 2018)

Dealing With Anxiety: Exploring the Patterns that Fuel the Anxious Process (Sarah Sarkis, 2017))

Why Anxiety Is So Persuasive--and Pervasive (Sharon Salzberg, On Being, 2018)

The Worry Cure (Robert Leahy, 2006)

Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being (Linda Graham, 2013)

Anxiety Disorders (National Institute of Mental Health)

Attention

The Art of Self-Coaching, Class 3: Attention

The Art of Self-Coaching: Attention (Stanford GSB Class of 2016 Reunion) (2017)

To Stay Focused, Manage Your Emotions (2015)

Growth, Profitability and Return on Attention (2015)

The Marshmallow Test for Grownups (2014)

Rubbernecking (Stop Wasting Attention) (2013)

Spending Attention (2013)

What Are You Paying Attention To? (2009)

Photo by Joel Penner. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Learning How to Learn

As I wrote recently, a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance is a hallmark of successful entrepreneurial leadership because it enables such leaders to be exuberant optimists while remaining keenly aware of all the risks they face. A further advantage of such tolerance is that it can play an important role in learning. As psychologist Elliot Aronson has noted,

An extremely high drive to reduce dissonance would lead man to weave a cocoon about himself; he would never admit his mistakes and would distort reality to make it compatible with his behavior. But if a person is ever going to grow, improve, and avoid repeating the same errors, he must sooner or later learn to profit from past mistakes. One cannot profit from one’s mistakes without first admitting that one has made a mistake. And yet, the admission of error almost always arouses some dissonance. [page 30]

By definition entrepreneurial leaders are doing something for the first time (and in some cases they're leading for the first time), which inevitably entails making mistakes. If they fail to learn from their mistakes, they won't be leading for very long, but this requires accepting the dissonance that comes from acknowledging a mistake in the first place. There's a connection here with the work of Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychologist who developed the concept of "fixed" and "growth" mindsets:

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success--without effort. They're wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work--brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.

Our mindset has substantial implications for our ability to learn from mistakes. When we hold a fixed mindset and believe that our abilities are inherent, we view mistakes as character flaws, and we have an strong negative emotional response to setbacks and failures. As a consequence we're less comfortable with risk and prefer to compete in settings where success (and approval) are assured. In contrast, holding a growth mindset and believing that our abilities are can be actively developed allows us to view mistakes as learning opportunities. We still respond negatively to setbacks and failures, but we're less distressed by the experience. And as a consequence we're more comfortable with risk and tend to seek out bigger challenges.

Recent neuroscience research shows different patterns of activity in the brains of people with fixed and growth mindset that's relevant in this context. A study led by Jason Moser of Michigan State indicated that people with a growth mindset pay closer attention to mistakes and are more likely to improve their performance as a result, suggesting a relationship between a growth mindset and a higher tolerance for dissonance.

Our tendency toward a fixed or growth mindset derives from our formative experiences as children and our early education and professional training, and we all have a fixed mindset in some circumstances. But Dweck's work suggests that it's eminently possible to adopt a growth mindset, and this begins with simply being aware of the difference between the two mindsets and their implications for our learning and performance. So what steps can we take to continue this process? How can we learn how to learn?

A Work-In-Progress

The concept of mindset is a type of mental model--a conceptual framework that we employ to explain some aspect of the world to ourselves. In this case, mindset is a model about ourselves that we use to understand our abilities and how we perform. Mental models are not neutral--they have a significant impact on our experience--but in most cases they're adaptive, enabling us to navigate situations and accomplish our goals more effectively. As a result our mental models typically operate automatically and unconsciously--we don't think about them any more than we think about breathing.

The key step here is simple in theory but often challenging in practice: To surface and examine this particular mental model, and to deliberately and consciously see ourselves as a work-in-progress. An obstacle here is the traditional view of human development, which holds that our brains cease growing after adolescence along with the rest of our bodies. But an extensive body of research in recent years on neuroplasticity has demonstrated that our brains actually retain the potential for developmental growth and change throughout our lives. The idea that we're a work-in-progress, which is the essence of a growth mindset, isn't merely a metaphor--it's the literal truth.

An Ongoing Conversation

Greater familiarity with neuroscience research can make us more open to a growth mindset, but we still need to actively engage ourselves in an ongoing conversation about our performance in order to learn. We need to do much of this work on our own in the form of reflection and journaling, but it's also essential to talk with others about our experiences. (It's particularly important for leaders to cultivate and maintain relationships that are sufficiently safe and trustworthy to talk openly about setbacks and mistakes.)

But note that these activities rarely occur spontaneously without advance planning--particularly dialogues with trusted partners--and even then they can easily be pushed off the schedule unless we protect them from more urgent (but not necessarily more important) demands on our time and attention. If you truly value learning, you should be able to look at your calendar and know when it will happen on a regular basis.

The Power of Reframing

Even when we're open to the idea of a growth mindset and actively engaged in practices that support our learning, our emotional response to mistakes can pose a barrier to progress. A generally accepted principle in psychology regarding the source of our emotions is known as "cognitive appraisal" or simply "appraisal theory," and Ira Roseman and Craig Smith provide a concise summary:

According to appraisal theories, it is interpretations of events, rather than events themselves, that cause emotions. Since the same situation can often be interpreted in different ways, there are few if any one-to-one relationships between a situation and an emotional response. Because appraisals intervene between situations and emotions, different individuals who appraise the same situation in significantly different ways will feel different emotions; and a given individual who appraises the same situation in significantly different ways at different times will feel different emotions. [page 6]

Appraisal provides a highly flexible and therefore especially useful emotion generation mechanism, "decoupling" emotional responses from rigid one-to-one relationships with situational conditions. Emotional response will vary with variation not only in external circumstances but also in internal needs and coping resources. Thus appraisals adapt emotional responses to the individual and temporal requirements of the situations in which they occur. [page 8]

Here's where we can leverage the power of reframing. Our intellectual interpretation of situations in which we've encountered setbacks or made mistakes has a significant influence on our emotional experience. One interpretation is that we lack the talent or ability--a hallmark of a fixed mindset. But an alternative explanation--a way to reframe the situation--is that we simply lack experience, and with feedback, practice, and hard work, our performance is likely to improve.

Note that reframing does not mean failing to hold ourselves accountable. Recall the study led by Jason Moser noted above--the people who learned best from their mistakes spent a substantially higher amount of time and energy focusing on and reviewing what they did wrong in order to learn from it. They didn't shirk responsibility or fail to hold themselves accountable--just the opposite.

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For Further Reading

The Cognitive Dissonance of the CEO (2018)

Corn Mazes and Mental Models (2011)

How to Think (More on Open Space and Deep Work) (2017)

The Value of Journal Writing (2008, revised 2018)

Self-Coaching Is SOCIAL (2018)

The Friendship of Wolves (2018)

Show Me Your Calendar and I'll Show You What You Value (2016)

The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective (Elliot Aronson, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1969)

Mind Your Errors: Evidence for a Neural Mechanism Linking Growth Mind-Set to Adaptive Posterror Adjustments (Jason Moser et al, Psychological Science, 2011)

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck, 2007)

Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives (Maria Popova, 2014)

• Popova's concise and thoughtful essay is the best discussion of Dweck's work that I've encountered.

What is brain plasticity and why is it so important? (Duncan Banks, The Conversation, 2016)

The Dynamic Brain: Neuroplasticity and Mental Health (Jill Kays, Robin Hurley and Katherine Taber, The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 2012)

Appraisal Theory: Overview, Assumptions, Varieties, Controversies (Ira Roseman and Craig Smith, 2001)

• Introduction to Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research (Klaus Scherer, Angela Schorr and Tom Johnstone, editors)

Photo by R. Nial Bradshaw. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

The Cognitive Dissonance of the CEO

Most of my coaching clients are CEOs of growing companies, and a theme that shows up in my work with many of them is the stress that results from simultaneously maintaining two very different views of the world. Because my clients are constantly raising money from investors, or recruiting senior employees, or closing deals with major customers, they must be exuberant optimists, portraying a compelling vision of a successful future. And because the possibility of failure remains quite real--and those investors, employees, and customers will ask tough questions before signing up--my clients must also be keenly aware of the nearly endless list of risk factors and things that could go wrong, sometimes to the point of inducing anxiety.

One of my clients once jokingly called this state of mind "CEO schizophrenia," but to be precise it's a form of cognitive dissonance. The pioneering work on this concept was done by Leon Festinger in the late 1950s, and he described it concisely in an article in Scientific American:

If a person knows various things that are not psychologically consistent with one another, he will, in a variety of ways, try to make them more consistent. Two items of information that psychologically do not fit together are said to be in a dissonant relation to each other. The items of information may be about behavior, feelings, opinions, things in the environment and so on...

Such items can of course be changed. A person can change his opinion; he can change his behavior, thereby changing
the information he has about it; he can even distort his perception and his information about the world around him.
Changes in items of information that produce or restore consistency are referred to as dissonance-reducing changes.

Cognitive dissonance is a motivating state of affairs. Just as hunger impels a person to eat, so does dissonance impel a person to change his opinions or his behavior. The world, however, is much more effectively arranged for hunger reduction than it is for dissonance reduction. It is almost always possible to find something to eat. It is not always easy to reduce dissonance. Sometimes it may be very difficult or even impossible to change behavior or opinions that are involved in dissonant relations. Consequently there are circumstances in which appreciable dissonance may persist for long periods. [pages 93-4]

When meaningful dissonance does persist, we typically experience it as a source of pressure and stress, as Festinger noted in his primary book on the subject:

The presence of dissonance gives rise to pressures to reduce or eliminate the dissonance. The strength of the pressures to reduce the dissonance is a function of the magnitude of the dissonance. In other words, dissonance acts in the same way as a state of drive or need or tension. The presence of dissonance leads to action to reduce it just as, for example, the presence of hunger leads to action to reduce the hunger. Also, similar to the action of a drive, the greater the dissonance, the greater will be the intensity of the action to reduce the dissonance and the greater the avoidance of the situations that would increase the dissonance. [page 18]

More recent research suggests that cognitive dissonance evokes discomfort specifically in situations where action is required, and a conflict between competing perspectives poses a barrier to taking action effectively. Eddie Harmon-Jones has conducted much of this research, which he and several colleagues summarized in 2015:

Most situations that cause dissonance involve difficult decisions and a commitment to action. According to the action-based model, once individuals commit to a course of action, they are primed to act. That is, they are motivated to translate their intended behavior into effective action, and this approach motivation is revealed in changes in attitudes that support the commitment. These attitudinal changes help us to follow through, to effectively enact the behaviors that follow from the decision. [page 185]

The relevance to a CEO who's seeking not only to take action themselves, but also to influence the actions of prospective investors, employees, and customers, is obvious. And this is why it's so difficult to fully inhabit the two mindsets described above for any sustained period of time. In these circumstances most people would feel compelled to take steps to reduce the dissonance in order to move in one direction or another. They might remain committed to the entrepreneurial vision, but to do so they would discount the risks involved--and then they would likely be caught by surprise when problems arise--as they inevitably do in any new venture. Or their awareness of the risks would overwhelm their faith in the vision, and they'd opt for a safer, more secure path--which is one reason why relatively few people become entrepreneurs in the first place.

Note that I'm not referring to situations in which leaders use deception or misrepresent the truth. I suspect that these leaders don't experience cognitive dissonance, either because they readily "distort their perceptions" to find a self-serving justification for their actions, or their lack of conscientiousness borders on the sociopathic. In contrast, my clients who experience cognitive dissonance struggle with it not because their vision of success is fraudulent and they're pretending it's real, but because the possibility of success and the risk of failure are both real. As the eminent psychologist Elliot Aronson--a PhD student under Festinger--later noted, "The inconsistency that produces dissonance, although it can be logical inconsistency, is not necessarily logical. Rather, it is psychological inconsistency." [page 5]

In other words, my clients' faith in the potential success of the venture enables them to portray a compelling vision of that reality when pitching prospective investors, employees, and customers. But they also know that failure, in some sense, is a still an option, and this requires them to thoroughly explore and understand all of the venture's internal weaknesses and external threats. These two perspectives aren't logically incompatible, but they can evoke a profound sense of psychological inconsistency--thus the cognitive dissonance of the CEO.

The ability to tolerate this dissonance while maintaining one's integrity is a prerequisite of the job--but what can CEOs and other entrepreneurial leaders do to become more effective in this regard?

Expect It

The unpleasant feelings that result from cognitive dissonance are predictable consequences of an entrepreneurial leadership role, so leaders shouldn't be caught by surprise when these feelings occur. A common theme in my work with clients is the importance of a consistent commitment to the practices that help them manage stress and anxiety, avoid distractions, and focus on their most important tasks. This typically includes self-care practices, such as mindfulness, sleep and exercise, but it also includes ample blocks of unscheduled time to allow for strategic thinking and reflection. And note that these activities don't happen by accident--they're always important and never urgent, so if the leader doesn't put them on their calendar and protect them from competing obligations, they won't happen.

Get Comfortable with It

Stress and anxiety are undeniably uncomfortable feelings, and they can't simply be turned off. While our inability to fully control our emotions poses many challenges, it's usually beneficial--emotions are attention magnets that alert us to potential rewards and threats in our environment, so it's essential that they have the capacity to interrupt conscious thought. But we can't be unduly distracted by these feelings while performing other tasks, and this requires entrepreneurial leaders to expand their comfort with discomfort. Again, this often involves a commitment to self-care practices--mindfulness, sleep, and exercise--that allow us to heighten our awareness of uncomfortable feelings without feeling driven to take some sort of action to minimize the discomfort.

Talk About It

Finally, we know from experience that talking about difficult emotions makes them easier to manage, and recent neuroscience research has helped us better understand the processes in the brain that contribute to this result. But it can be a challenge for CEOs and other entrepreneurial leaders to find relationships in which they can productively discuss the issues referenced here. In some cases investors and senior employees are appropriate discussion partners, but the hierarchical nature of these relationships can make them less useful for this purpose, particularly for CEOs. Friends and family members can play a helpful role, but at times it can be distressing or confusing for them to hear about the challenges a leader is facing.

So it's essential for CEOs and other leaders to establish and maintain relationships with people who are appropriate partners for these conversations. One solution is working with a professional coach, although it's always important to choose a coach who's a good fit. But I also encourage my clients to engage a peer group, either on their own or through a formal program like YPO. As I've noted before, the key is insuring that these partners are "A) successful enough to avoid feeling threatened by or jealous of the leader's status, B) sophisticated enough to understand and empathize with the leader's challenges, C) invested in the leader as an individual and NOT invested in the leader's company, and D) completely trustworthy."

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For Further Reading

Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People) (2017)

Open Space, Deep Work and Self-Care (2017)

How to Think (More on Open Space and Deep Work (2017)

Importance vs. Urgency (2016)

To Stay Focused, Manage Your Emotions (2015)

Comfort with Discomfort (2015)

Talking About Feelings (2018)

How to Find (and Choose) a Coach) (2013)

The Friendship of Wolves (2018)

More on cognitive dissonance

A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger, 1957)

Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger, Scientific American, 1962)

The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective (Elliot Aronson, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1969)

Cognitive Dissonance: Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology (Eddie Harmon-Jones and Judson Mills, editors, 1999)

• Chapter 1: An Introduction to Cognitive Dissonance Theory and an Overview of Current Perspectives on the Theory (Eddie Harmon-Jones and Judson Mills) The late Judson Mills was also a PhD student under Festinger at Stanford.

An Action-Based Model of Cognitive Dissonance Processes (Eddie Harmon-Jones et al, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2015)

Cognitive Dissonance Theory After 50 Years of Development (Eddie Harmon-Jones and Cindy Harmon-Jones, Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 2007)

Photo by Amy Elyse. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Talking About Feelings

My work as a coach often involves encouraging clients and students to talk about their feelings--a process known to psychologists as affect labeling--in order to manage difficult emotions more effectively. Experience tells us that this is a useful practice, but why? How does talking about feelings make them easier to manage?

Recent neuroscience research, including a substantial body of work by Matthew Lieberman of UCLA, has helped us to better understand the processes in the brain that contribute to this effect. Some of the earliest research on this topic was conducted by Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberger, and several other colleagues, and in "Putting Feelings into Words" (2007) they discussed their findings:

Putting feelings into words has long been thought to be one of the best ways to manage negative emotional experiences. Talk therapies have been formally practiced for more than a century and, although varying in structure and content, are commonly based on the assumption that talking about one's feelings and problems is an effective method for minimizing the impact of negative emotional events on current experience. More recently, psychologists have discovered that merely putting pen to paper to express one’s emotional ailments has benefits for mental and physical health. Although conventional wisdom and scientific evidence indicate that putting one’s feelings into words can attenuate negative emotional experiences, the mechanisms by which these benefits arise remain largely unknown.

Recent neuroimaging research has begun to offer insight into a possible neurocognitive mechanism by which putting feelings into words may alleviate negative emotional responses. A number of studies of affect labeling have demonstrated that linguistic processing of the emotional aspects of an emotional image produces less amygdala activity than perceptual processing of the emotional aspects of the same image. [The amygdala is a region of the brain associated with emotion processing that plays a role in helping us interpret and respond to perceived threats, among other tasks.] Additionally, these studies have demonstrated greater activity during linguistic processing than during non-linguistic processing of emotion in [the] right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), a region associated with the symbolic processing of emotional information and with top-down inhibitory processes. Finally, the magnitude of RVLPFC activity during affect labeling has been inversely correlated with the magnitude of amygdala activity during affect labeling in these studies. Together, these results suggest that putting feelings into words may activate RVLPFC, which in turn may dampen the response of the amygdala, thus helping to alleviate emotional distress... [page 421]

The results of this study provide the first clear demonstration that affect labeling disrupts the affective responses in the limbic system that would otherwise occur in the presence of negative emotional images...

These data thus suggest that one route by which putting feelings into words may regulate negative affect is by increasing activity in RVLPFC, which in turn dampens activity in the amygdala by way of intermediate connections through [the medial prefrontal cortex]... [page 426]

In summary, this study provides the first unambiguous evidence that affect labeling, compared with other ways of encoding, produces diminished responses to negative emotional images in the amygdala and other limbic regions...

These findings begin to shed light on how putting negative feelings into words can help regulate negative experience, a process that may ultimately contribute to better mental and physical health. [page 427]

While the specific neural mechanisms involved remain unclear, it's noteworthy that this research highlights the connection between the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain most closely associated with logical reasoning, and regions of the brain involved in processing emotion. Although this may seem counterintuitive, given our popular conception of reason and emotion as opposing influences on our behavior, it's entirely consistent with decades of research by neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Richard Davidson, whose work emphasizes the complex and intertwined relationship between these modes of mental processing.

Lieberman continued to explore these neural mechanisms in "Why Symbolic Processing of Affect Can Disrupt Negative Affect" (2010):

[T]here is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the process of sharing one's worry, of putting bad feelings into words, can diminish one's emotional distress at least under certain circumstances. This chapter examines the neurocognitive mechanisms of disruption effects, the process by which putting feelings into words can disrupt the feelings being verbalized... [page 188]

RVLPFC activity is associated with reduced activity in limbic regions, such as the amygdala and [dorsal anterior cingulate cortex], and [symbolic processing of affect] is associated both with increased RVLPFC activity and decreased limbic activity. [page 199]

Given that [symbolic processing of affect] appears to regulate limbic responses...this would provide a mechanism by which putting feelings into words would have benefits for regulating emotional distress and for mental health more generally. [page 200]

Numerous philosophers and psychologists have noted over the years that thinking about affect has the capacity to alter and even dampen the affect that is being thought about. This has been used to good effect in various forms of therapy, from formal psychotherapies to informal social support networks in which people talk about their feelings with friends. The reason that putting feelings into words helps has remained elusive and somewhat mystical. The work presented here describes a neurocognitive process focused on RVLPFC that provides the beginnings of an answer. Putting feelings into words activates a region of the brain that is capable of inhibiting various aspects of immediate experience, including affective distress. [page 203]

Lieberman later summarized this research in his insightful book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (2013):

[I]t turns out that putting our feelings into words or simply being able to label them can regulate our emotions and promote our mental and physical well-being...

Preschoolers who can describe their feelings have fewer emotional outbursts, get better grades, and are more popular with their peers. High school students who write about their math anxiety right before taking a math test actually do better on the test. In my lab we ask adults to perform a simple task, called affect labeling, during which people choose a word to best describe the emotional aspect of a picture. For instance, a picture of an angry face might be shown, and the participant would have to choose whether the word angry or scared describes the target's emotion. We have found that labeling the affective aspect of a disturbing image reduces the distress a person feels while looking at the image...

When people label an emotional picture or their own emotional response to a picture, it activates the RVLPFC and reduces activity in the amygdala... It is still unclear what exactly the RVLPFC does to stimulate self-control. The debate typically focuses on whether this and similar regions are directly inhibiting responses in other brain regions, like the amygdala, or are helping to strengthen the nonimpulsive alternative so it can compete effectively with the impulsive response. [pages 219-221]

So while we can't explain the underlying mechanisms with absolute certainty, a highly plausible theory has emerged over the past decade that allows us to explain why talking about distressing feelings mitigates the counterproductive impact of those emotions. How can we make more effective use of these ideas?

Practice

Many of us lack experience talking about our feelings, particularly in a professional setting, and just thinking about it can trigger a sense of anxiety and unease. This response is understandable--being called "emotional" is typically a criticism in business, and yet it can be unclear what would cause that label to be applied to us. But in our efforts to avoid this outcome, we may overcorrect and never disclose our feelings at work--which prevents us from leveraging the neural processes discussed above, making our negative emotions even more difficult to manage.

In White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, the late psychologist Daniel Wegner quoted educator John Dewey on the importance of routinizing desired behaviors: "Habits must intervene between wish and execution in the case of bodily acts, [but] we still cherish the illusion that they can be dispensed with in the case of mental and moral acts." [emphasis added, page 14]

The key here is recognizing that talking about emotions is a bodily act, not just a mental one. By definition emotions aren't purely cognitive processes--we often become aware of our emotions when we suddenly feel our heart pounding or a pit in our stomach. And just like any other embodied experience that involves multiple physiological systems, like driving a car or public speaking, we must make it a habit in order to grow accustomed to the challenge. But the good news is that practice inevitably increases our comfort with discomfort and reduces our self-consciousness as we grow more competent.

Expand Our Vocabularies

A consequence of our inexperience with discussing emotions--and a contributing factor that holds us back--is a limited emotional language. Even when we're ready to talk more fully about our feelings, if we lack the precise word to convey our emotion to another person in such a way that it has the intended impact, we're likely to struggle. A simple solution is to expand our emotional vocabulary.

This one-page document lists eight primary emotional states--angry, averse, caring, embarrassed, excited, fearful, happy, inadequate, and sad--and 52 synonyms. Psychologists differ on the nature and number of primary emotions--Paul Ekman defined the six basic emotions as anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, while the late Sylvan Tompkins believed there are eight: anguish, disgust, fear, joy, interest, rage, shame, and surprise. (For more on this topic, see Chapter 5 in Joseph LeDoux's The Emotional Brain.) I've adapted this list from one originally developed by David Bradford, Mary Ann Huckabay and Carole Robin at Stanford, and I find that it works well for my clients and students.

Create a Supportive Culture

As Lieberman's work indicates, and as ample empirical evidence makes clear, merely reflecting on our feelings also allows us to regulate them over time. But the process of internal reflection appears to work less efficiently than openly discussing our feelings, and in many circumstances it's simply not possible to pause the interaction in order for us to take time to reflect. If we want to manage difficult feelings as effectively as possible, we need to talk about them with others--including those people who may be the cause of our emotions.

And yet even if we're willing to have this conversation with a rich vocabulary at the ready, our ability to do so will be significantly influenced by the surrounding culture. Note that every relationship and group has its own culture--a set of norms, often tacit and unspoken, that determine what behaviors or statements are acceptable and what will result in embarrassment or threat.

If we want to make full use of the neural processes described above, we have to create a safe, trusting and intimate culture in which talking about feelings is accepted as normal. I fully recognize that this may involve taking some risks in order to move the culture in the desired direction, and I'm not suggesting that we do so heedlessly. But what gives me hope is that the bold act of talking about our feelings is what tends to create a safer, more trusting, and more emotionally intimate culture in the first place.

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For Further Reading

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (Matthew Lieberman, 2013)

• I highly recommend Social as a lucid and thought-provoking guide to recent neuroscience research on a wide range of issues beyond the topic of this post. When I taught Interpersonal Dynamics (aka Touchy Feely) at Stanford, I included chapters from Social on my syllabus for the first and last classes in the course.

Comfort with Discomfort (2015)

Conscious Competence in Practice (2015)

Vocabulary of Emotions

Self-Coaching Is SOCIAL (2018)

Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up) (2012)

Safety, Trust, Intimacy (2010)

Taking the Leap (Dealing with Risk and Uncertainty (2017)

This is a substantially revised and updated version of a post first published in February 2008.

Thank you to Stephanie West Allen for helping me grasp the implications of current neuroscience research for my work as a coach, and, more specifically, for initially referring me to the work of Matthew Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberger, and their colleagues at UCLA.

Photo by Gideon. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Leadership and Authenticity

Photo by Zoltán Vörös

While the expression of an authentic self is necessary for great leadership, the concept of authenticity is often misunderstood, not least by leaders themselves. They often assume that authenticity is an innate quality--that a person is either authentic or not. In fact, authenticity is a quality that others must attribute to you. No leader can look into a mirror and say, "I am authentic." A person cannot be authentic on his or her own. Authenticity is largely defined by what other people see in you and, as such, can to a great extent be controlled by you. If authenticity were purely an innate quality, there would be little you could do to manage it and, therefore, little you could do to make yourself more effective as a leader. 

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Managing Authenticity, Harvard Business Review, 2005

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The topic of authenticity comes up frequently in my coaching practice. In some cases this is a function of rapid and intensive change in a leader's role or in their company's evolution that compels the leader to step into new responsibilities or try out new behaviors. But even in times of relative stability leaders must fulfill many different functions in organizational life, a process that often pushes them well beyond their comfort zones. As I discussed in 2017 in Leadership as a Performing Art:

A consistent theme in my work with [leaders] is addressing the stress or discomfort they feel when fulfilling certain aspects of their role. For some this occurs in formal settings before an audience... For others it happens in more spontaneous interactions... Whatever the context, at one time or another most leaders have the sense of being observed and assessed on the basis of their ability to fulfill a wide range of expectations, which can trigger uncomfortable emotions ranging from mild self-consciousness to a deeper sense of inadequacy.

Leaders also face the challenge of engaging with diverse groups of stakeholders who have different (and sometimes conflicting) needs. Senior executives, middle managers, front-line employees, clients and customers, and investors and board members all impose different obligations on a leader, who must context-shift fluidly and repeatedly as they move from one interaction to the next over the course of their day.

And in the midst of this demanding work, leaders must handle significant amounts of confidential information with discretion and tact while maintaining others' trust. Even Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, a hedge fund known for the "radical transparency" of its culture, acknowledges that leaders must keep some information private. As Dalio writes in Principles,

Radical transparency isn't the same as total transparency... We do keep some things confidential, such as private health matters or deeply personal problems, sensitive details about intellectual property or security issues, the timing of a major trade, and at least for the short term, matters that are likely to be distorted, sensationalized and harmfully misunderstood if leaked to the press. [page 331]

So leaders are constantly 1) acting outside their comfort zones, 2) striving to meet the divergent needs of various groups, and 3) deciding what information should be disclosed and what should be withheld. Under these conditions it's no surprise that a leader may struggle to understand what it means to "be authentic." This challenge can be further compounded by our definition of the "authentic self" and the means by which we encounter it.

Is The Authentic Self Discovered?

Photo by Pål-Kristian Hamre

A popular view of the authentic self is that it's an identity at the core of our personalities, something we're born with and must discover through a process of excavation. We may find this view appealing for a number of reasons. If our authentic self is already fully formed within us, then conscious efforts to modify it are fruitless, and we need not feel obligated to undertake the hard work of change.

This definition of the authentic self also allows us to avoid discomfort with a clean conscience. As I wrote in 2017, "We equate authenticity with comfort, and so if something makes us feel uncomfortable or self-conscious, then it is de facto inauthentic, which means we need not persist at it (or are relieved of our responsibility to try)." Herminia Ibarra describes a similar dynamic in The Authenticity Paradox: "Because going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what's comfortable."

Finally, in some circumstances we all tend toward a "fixed mindset," a mental model about ourselves that views our skills and abilities as inborn. A disadvantage of this perspective is that we view mistakes as character flaws, and as a result we take fewer risks and seek approval rather than pursue challenges. But a fixed mindset also can also allow us to evade responsibility when we encounter setbacks or failures, and viewing our authentic self as innate can have a similar effect. ("That's just who I am.")

But while research indicates that aspects of our personalities are inherited (although the mechanism by which this occurs is much more complex than commonly understood), it's clear that experiential factors ranging from major life circumstances to small-scale daily activities also play a major role, suggesting that the nature of our authentic self is similarly dynamic and subject to our influence.

Or Is The Authentic Self Created?

Photo by Gemma Stiles

An alternative is to view our authentic self as something that we actively create, forging it out of a combination of ongoing life experiences in the context of any inherited preferences and aversions. I first explored this idea in 2011 in Self-Monitoring and Authenticity:

What precisely do we mean by "authentic self"? Further, how do we come to know this authentic self? If we mean a sort of "elemental identity at the core of our personalities," you might say we have to discover our authentic self; it's revealed to our consciousness over time. But I don't actually subscribe to this notion. I think authenticity is a dynamic and subjective state of being that we phase into and out of, not a static feature of our internal landscape.

We're more or less authentic at any given moment, and it's in those experiences that we feel authentic that we are our authentic selves. Of course, the dynamic and subjective nature of this state means not only that it's changing all the time, but also that our perspective on it is changing all the time. How we define authenticity at one point in time may not be how we defined it in the past, or how we'll define it in the future. So rather than discover our authentic selves, I believe we create our authentic selves.

We do so by trying out new behaviors and seeing how they fit with our self-concept, how they affect our relationships with others, and how they support our goals.  Most new behaviors feel inauthentic at first--I can't do this; it's not ME! And if that feeling persists over time, we end the experiment and move on. But my experience as a coach has made it clear just how often that feeling does not persist, and how capable we are of integrating the new behavior into our repertoire, expanding what it means to be authentic as we do so. (My experience as a coach--and as a coaching client--has also highlighted the many obstacles we face in this process, from embarrassment to impatience.)

The idea that our authentic self is created, not fixed, can render us more resilient and adaptable in the face of change. But this perspective on authenticity requires us to repeatedly undergo experiences that cause discomfort and stress, and a helpful framework in this context is the Conscious Competence model. In summary, when we first engage in new activities we're Unconsciously Incompetent--we don't even know what mistakes we're making. Feedback renders us Consciously Incompetent--we're still error-prone, but at least we're aware. If we can persist through the discomfort that this stage inevitably evokes, we become Consciously Competent--we're succeeding, but only with a great deal of mental effort. If we invest sufficient time and energy in repeated practice our skills develop, allowing us to finally achieve Unconscious Competence--success comes more readily with less deliberation.

Photo by Tsuyoshi Uda

Bearing this model in mind can make it much easier to view our authentic self as something we create. When we're tackling new tasks or trying out new behaviors that cause discomfort or require fatiguing conscious thought, rather than interpret those feelings as signs of "inauthenticity" we can view them merely as evidence of inexperience. Note that this approach doesn't require us to persist indefinitely with everything that feels like a struggle--we may conclude that certain tasks or behaviors simply can't be added to our repertoire, or that the effort required is too great or the reward too meager. But we shouldn't be dissuaded from the attempt by fears that we're acting "inauthentically." Herminia Ibarra offers similar encouragement in The Authenticity Paradox:

By viewing ourselves as works in progress and evolving our professional identities through trial and error, we can develop a personal style that feels right to us and suits our organizations’ changing needs. That takes courage, because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous. But the only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic sense of self would keep us from doing.

When we subscribe to the idea that the authentic self is inborn and must be discovered, and when we associate authenticity with comfort and ease, we allow this "rigid authenticity" to hold us back. But when we entertain the possibility that the authentic self is created, and when we accept discomfort as the inevitable cost of growth, we open up new ranges of possibility and potential.

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For Further Reading

Leadership as a Performing Art (2017)

Self-Monitoring and Authenticity (2011)

Self-Monitoring (2011)

Attitude, Behavior, Cognitive Dissonance, and Authenticity (2010)

Managing Authenticity (Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Harvard Business Review, 2005)

• Goffee and Jones explore related themes in this earlier article and subsequent book:
  • Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? (Harvard Business Review, 2000)
  • Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? (2006, 2nd edition 2015)

The Authenticity Paradox (Herminia Ibarra, Harvard Business Review, 2015)

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Thanks to Scott Bristol, whose teaching had a significant effect on my understanding of the nature and origin of our authentic self.

How I Read Stoicism

One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching The Art of Self-Coaching at Stanford is introducing some of my MBA students to Stoicism in our class on Unhappiness. To be sure, some of my students are well-versed in the classics, but for others it's a new discovery. Given that this same session also explores Buddhist thought via the work of Pema Chödrön as well as Viktor Frankl's philosophy of Logotherapy, I cover Stoicism through "What Would Seneca Do?," a chapter from Oliver Burkeman's outstanding book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.

Burkeman provides a lucid and concise discussion of Stoicism's basic ideas, and in addition to Seneca he references Zeno, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. My students who find Stoicism appealing often go on to read Seneca's letters or the Meditations of Aurelius, which have both consoled and challenged me many times over the years. But these works can pose some difficulties for the contemporary reader, and I find it helpful to bear a few guidelines in mind:

1. Stoicism isn't "stoicism."

A challenge we face today is the risk of conflating Stoicism, the philosophical school of thought, with "stoicism," our present-day interpretation of the term. The latter can connote a passive approach to the world, indifference to outcomes, and a lack of ambition, qualities which my students understandably find alien and unappealing. But the lives of the Stoics weren't characterized by these attitudes, and it's useful to know something about their personal histories.

Zeno, a wealthy merchant, was honored with a pillar in his native Cyprus for his efforts to rebuild public baths, and he was commemorated with a tomb in Athens that acknowledged the influence of his teachings. Aurelius spent several decades devoting himself to imperial administrative and financial affairs, and in his final years led military expeditions against Germanic tribes, dying in camp in present-day Vienna. After being exiled by Claudius, Seneca carefully engineered his return to Rome, where he amassed a vast fortune while advising Nero. These were dynamic men whose dedication to Stoic principles in no way dampened their desire to have a meaningful impact on the world around them.

2. Emotion regulation isn't suppression.

One of the most powerful themes in Stoicism is the importance of keeping our emotions in check:

Our inner thoughts are open to the gods' eyes: they should see a man not disposed to any complaint and free of self-pity. [Aurelius, Meditations, XI.13]

When you are high in indignation and perhaps losing patience, remember that human life is a mere fragment of time and shortly we are all in our graves. [Aurelius, Meditations, XI.18]

The man who is not puffed up in good times does not collapse either when they change. His fortitude is already tested, and he maintains a mind unconquered in the face of either condition. [Seneca, Consolation to Helvia]

This emphasis on emotion regulation can easily be misunderstood as emotion suppression, and it's essential to distinguish between the two. Efforts to completely suppress and extinguish an emotional response are typically unsuccessful and can even be counterproductive, exacerbating the undesired feeling and heightening our focus on its causes. Further, a lack of emotional awareness can erode the quality of our thinking. Recent work by neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Richard Davidson has allowed us to more fully understand the positive role that emotions play in the process of logical reasoning and the complex relationships that interconnect the regions of the brain that process emotion and cognition.

But Damasio fully acknowledges "that uncontrolled or misdirected emotion can be a major source of irrational behavior [and] seemingly normal reason can be disturbed by subtle biases rooted in emotion." The key is cultivating the subtle skill of what I'll call emotional effectiveness--we must be able to sense, comprehend, articulate and express our feelings in ways that help us accomplish our goals. This certainly entails the ability to regulate our emotions, but not to such an extent that we're seeking to suppress them--as the passage above from Damasio concludes, "Reduction in emotion may constitute an equally important source of irrational behavior." [emphasis original, Descartes' Error, pp 52-53]

3. The Stoics were human beings just like us.

Reading the Stoics can inadvertently create the impression that as individuals they had overcome and mastered the challenges they're writing about. But it's necessary to remember that for all their accomplishments they were ordinary human beings, subject to the same feelings and frailties as the rest of us. For example, this passage in the Meditations could be read as stern guidance from a man who feels no pain himself:

Epictetus used to say that when you kiss your child you should say to yourself, "Tomorrow you may be dead." But these are ominous words! "No," he replies, "nothing is ominous which points to a natural process. Otherwise it would be ominous to speak of the corn being reaped. [XI.34]

But we see it in a new light when we consider that Aurelius was a father who had already lost four children by his early 30s, and, as R.B. Rutherford notes in his introduction to the Oxford edition, Aurelius "was writing for himself, and seems to have had no thought of making his reflections available to a wider audience in his own lifetime or thereafter... At the end of the day, the emperor would record a few reflections and admonish himself to observe certain precepts and ethical rules which he might have neglected." [pp ix-x]. From this perspective, Aurelius isn't a super-human figure who's conquered grief, but an all-too-human one who, decades later, continues to feel sadness and loss and is striving to manage these difficult emotions.

Similarly, there's a school of thought that views Seneca as a duplicitous schemer who preached virtue while practicing vice, enjoying Nero's support and patronage as the emperor grew increasingly murderous and tyrannical. Seneca's life does merit close scrutiny, and it would be naive to assume that his personal conduct perfectly mirrored the noble sentiments expressed in his writing. But it seems equally simplistic to call him, as the critic Robert Hughes did, "a hypocrite almost without equal in the ancient world."

A more sympathetic view of Seneca is suggested by historian James Romm, who finds it likely that Seneca exerted a positive influence on Nero for a number of years before the younger man eventually bristled at and rejected his tutor's guidance. Seneca later made a concerted effort to retire from public life, at one point offering Nero half of his considerable fortune in order to allow him to leave imperial service--the offer was refused, and as Seneca writes in De Beneficiis, "It makes no difference whether you refuse to give to a king, or refuse to accept gifts from him; he takes both, equally, as a rejection." Romm also notes the striking contrast between Seneca's published essays and letters, in which he rarely makes direct references to imperial figures, and his (largely unproduced) plays, which were essentially allegories about the wanton cruelty of the emperor and the corruption of his family.

Seneca is clearly a complex figure, but rather than brand him a hypocrite and reject the counsel of his writings, I find myself taking a more nuanced view. I don't absolve Seneca of his complicity in Nero's reign, but, knowing that he felt trapped in the service of an emperor who would ultimately order his suicide, I see his work, like the Meditations, as a series of uncertain efforts to reassure and convince himself, rather than as confident assertions from a man who's claimed the moral high ground.

Stoicism as a whole challenges us to rise above our frustrations and fears in order to become better versions of ourselves. The awesome difficulty of this task can be demoralizing if we assume that the Stoics themselves accomplished it with ease and are preaching at us from on high (or, worse, failed in the attempt and are lying to us.) Instead, I choose to read the work of the Stoics as testimonials from fellow sufferers who are sharing their struggles, not recounting their triumphs.

Do not give up in disgust or impatience if you do not find action on the right principles consolidated into a habit in all that you do. No: if you have taken a fall, come back again." [Aurelius, Meditations, V.9]

These are the words of a man who knows disgust, who knows impatience, who has fallen.

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts... For example: where life can be lived, so can a good life; but life can be lived in a palace, therefore a good life can be lived in a palace." [Aurelius, Meditations, V.16]

These are the concerns of a man wrestling with his own worthiness, wondering if he can surmount his (literal) palace or if its luxury will prevent him from achieving the good life.

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. [Seneca, On the Shortness of Life]

These are not the boasts of a man who's certain that he's lived his life well, but the anxious musings of a 53-year-old who's worried that he has not, and who's hoping that he'll be granted sufficient time and freedom to change course.

We all face these dilemmas, and the Stoics aren't telling us to follow in their footsteps--they're walking alongside us.

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For further reading...

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

It's important to find a translation that feels right for you--I like these three:

Oxford University Press (1998)

This reissue of A.S.L. Farquharson's 1944 translation includes an outstanding introduction by R.B. Rutherford.

Penguin Classics (2006)

This recent translation by Martin Hammond has a more contemporary feel and is extensively annotated.

Dover Thrift (1997)

This classic 1862 translation by George Long lacks any extras, but it's a slender, inexpensive volume that's also freely available online.

Dialogues and Letters, Seneca

Letters from a Stoic, Seneca

These two volumes overlap extensively, but there's sufficient distinction that they're both worth having.

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, James Romm

Enchiridion, Epictetus

Discourses and Selected Writings, Epictetus

On the Shortness of Life

Seneca on the Importance of Rest and Relaxation

Marcus Aurelius, 3,000 Years, and the Present Moment

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Photo by Bradley Weber. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Leadership as Professional Practice

In the "Enchiridion" (or Handbook) of Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher offers guidance to those of us with high aspirations:

In every act observe the things which come first, and those which follow it... A man wishes to conquer at the Olympic games, I also wish indeed, for it is a fine thing. But observe both the things which come first, and the things which follow... You must do everything according to rule, eat according to strict orders, abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself as you are bid at appointed times, in heat, in cold, you must not drink cold water, nor wine as you choose... And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest.

If you do not, you will behave like children, who at one time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors. So you will also be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician, then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing at all. But like an ape you imitate everything that you see, and one thing after another pleases you. For you have not undertaken anything with consideration, nor have you surveyed it well, but carelessly and with cold desire. [XXIX]

Epictetus is warning us that ambition and skill are insufficient. Merely wanting to win and having some talent aren't enough. Instead, we must "observe the things which come first" and dedicate ourselves to the preparation that is the necessary precondition for success. We must persist through adversity, pain, boredom and failure. It's fine for children to try on different identities as a form of experimentation; they don't need to train in order to play. (The intensive training and specialization that increasingly characterize youth sports are actually contributing to an increase in injuries.) But adults who aspire to excellence will only get so far without a disciplined approach. In short, we must commit to a practice.

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A theme in my coaching with leaders is the recognition that the skills and abilities that helped them achieve their current levels of success will not be sufficient to enable them to accomplish their next set of goals. This can take many different forms: The founder recruits experienced executives and realizes that now she's managing people who know much more about their functional areas than she does. The CEO doubles the size of the company, adding a new layer to the org chart, and discovers that leading leaders poses an unexpected set of challenges. The CTO builds out his team and finds that he adds more value by facilitating productive conversations than through his technical expertise.

All of these people have a desire to lead and are relatively effective leaders, or they wouldn't have reached these roles to begin with. But a common thread running through these situations is the increasing complexity and difficulty of leadership at scale among senior people; merely wanting to lead and possessing a natural set of skills are insufficient. What's being asked of my clients is to take their performance as leaders to the next level, and what's required is to approach leadership as a professional practice.

The author Steven Pressfield discusses what it means to be a professional in The War of Art:

The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning "to love." The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his "real" vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. [pp 62-3]

This is the work my clients face--committing full-time to improving as a professional leader. What does this look like in more concrete terms? Pressfield explores this theme more fully in his later book Turning Pro, the source of the passages quoted below:

The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habits. The human being is a creature of habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones. [p 20]

A first step here is simply noticing the habits we do have, both bad and good. Habits are often automatic and even unconscious responses to a set of environmental cues and triggers. We have to step out of our immediate experience on a regular basis to expand our awareness of the environments we're operating in and the habitual responses they trigger. For a leader this can certainly take the form of journaling and reflection, but it should also include conversations with others who are in a position to offer both coaching and feedback.

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When we turn pro, everything becomes simple. Our aim centers on the ordering of our days in such a way that we overcome the fears that have paralyzed us in the past. We now structure our hours not to flee from fear, but to confront it and overcome it. We plan our activities in order to accomplish an aim. And we bring our will to bear so that we stick to this resolution. This changes our days completely. It changes what time we get up, and it changes what time we go to bed. It changes what we do and what we don't do. It changes the activities we engage in and with what attitude we engage in them. It changes what we read and what we eat. It changes the shape of our bodies. [p 72]

It's no accident that I discuss mindfulness, exercise, and sleep with most of my clients. These practices not only contribute directly to a leader's effectiveness by supporting better prioritization, emotion management, and decision-making, but they also entail a new perspective on "the ordering of our days." Even when a leader agrees in principle that self-care is an investment, not an indulgence, they still need to take control of their calendar in order to follow through on these commitments. And show me your calendar, and I'll show you what you value.

---

The pro mindset is a discipline that we use to overcome resistance. To defeat the self-sabotaging habits of procrastination, self-doubt, susceptibility to distraction, perfectionism, and shallowness, we enlist the self-strengthening habits of order, regularity, discipline, and a constant striving after excellence. [p 103]

We all have our "self-sabotaging habits," so it's essential to understand how routine practices influence our state of mind and either exacerbate our demons or help us overcome them. This is particularly important for leaders given the contagious effect of their emotions on others, for better and for worse. One of the most significant requirements of a leadership role is the ability to inspire confidence and calm in others, even--and especially--when the leader is wrestling with doubt and anxiety. I'm not suggesting that leaders should be deceptive or strive to appear invulnerable at all times, but leadership is a performance, and sometimes that obligates a leader to manage their emotions and regulate their behavior accordingly. Investing in a consistent set of "self-strengthening" habits is key.

---

A practice implies engagement in a ritual. A practice may be defined as the dedicated, daily exercise of commitment, will, and focused intention aimed, on one level, at the achievement of mastery in a field but, on a loftier level, intended to produce a communion with a power greater than ourselves. [p 108]

Leaders operate under intense scrutiny--in every interaction their behavior is being carefully assessed and interpreted. As a consequence leadership is a constant process, not an occasional one, and leaders must be capable of dedicating themselves to this "daily exercise of commitment, will, and focused intention." This is depleting--and yet another reason why self-care is so important.

Pressfield's reference to "communion with a power greater than ourselves" is also relevant, and it need not be limited to the spiritual realm. A powerful motivator for many of my clients is the sense of communion they enjoy with the people they lead at particular moments in the organization's life. These experiences--both successes and failures--are characterized by strong collective emotions, and what's required of a leader at such moments is the ability to be vulnerable in just the right way at just the right time. And the mastery of these interpersonal skills requires a commitment to leadership as a professional practice.

---

A practice has a space.

A practice has a time.

A practice has an intention.

We come to a practice as warriors.

We come to a practice in humility.

We come to a practice as students. [pp 109-114]

The precise nature and definition of these qualities in each leader's professional practice will differ, but they apply to everyone. Every leader requires dedicated space and time to pursue their craft, which often involves creating the right environment for meaningful thinking. Every leader, at some point in their career, must summon their warrior energy and have a good fight. Every leader, at many points in their career, must humble themselves and acknowledge their incompetence. And every leader must be a committed student--of leadership and of themselves--in order to grow.

And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest.

---

Photo of Boxer at Rest by Carole Raddato. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

To learn more about this magnificent work of art: The Boxer: An Ancient Masterpiece and The Boxer.

Thanks to Richard Winters for introducing me to the work of Steven Pressfield.

The Friendship of Wolves

There is nothing more degrading than the friendship of wolves; avoid that above all.

~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, XI.15

Most of my clients are CEOs, and an important aspect of the role that few people consider before launching a venture or pursuing a career in senior leadership is that it's lonely. Leaders must be friendly with employees, investors, customers, and other stakeholders, and yet in all of those relationships there are inevitably factors that complicate or even preclude true friendship. Leaders often begin their career with a rich network of friends from school and work, but as they grow more senior these relationships can founder as differences emerge in professional trajectories. And leaders can find important sources of interpersonal support by working with a personal coach like me or with a peer group such as a YPO chapter, but by definition these relationships exist in structured circumstances, at specific times, with defined boundaries.

As a result, leaders can find themselves engaged with a large number of people over the course of a given day and yet feel profoundly alone. This can leave leaders vulnerable to the friendship of wolves--insincere expressions of care and interest from people whose agendas may not be aligned with the leader's best interests. And this danger is compounded in tightly-networked industries where people socialize frequently with colleagues and confidential information is highly valuable and travels quickly. (Sound familiar?)

And yet we're intensely social creatures who struggle--and even suffer--when we lack the requisite amount of interaction with people who we trust. So if you're a senior leader, what can you do?

• Get out of the role: Cultivate relationships in groups and settings where people have a common interest outside of work, where job titles are irrelevant, and where status derives from sources other than professional accomplishment. Be known for your skills (or lack thereof) as a rock climber, ballroom dancer, horseback rider, weightlifter--anything other than leader.
• Treat family like family: A leader's need to discuss work can easily extend beyond family members' capacity to listen. (This is one reason why coaches like me have a job.) I'm not suggesting that work shouldn't be discussed at home, but insure that family members feel empowered to set limits on those conversations in order to make room for other topics and other ways of interacting.
  
• Treat friends like treasures: Some of the most important people in a leader's life are those few individuals who are A) successful enough to avoid feeling threatened by or jealous of the leader's status, B) sophisticated enough to understand and empathize with the leader's challenges, C) invested in the leader as an individual and NOT invested in the leader's company, and D) completely trustworthy. Over the course of your lifetime you may meet just a handful of people who fit all of these criteria--when you do, recognize how rare and valuable they are.
• Beware the wolves: Leaders attract people with a wide range of motives, and while the cost of cynicism is isolation, there's also a cost to naivete. It's important to test for trust and to admit people into closer confidence over a series of repeated interactions. You may have to work with wolves at one time or another, but successful co-existence requires you to see them for who they are, with no illusions about their professed friendship.
• Start now: A theme in my practice is the price leaders pay when they wait too long, and it's particularly steep when it comes to the activities discussed here. You can't magically create true friends in a time of need if you haven't been investing in those relationships--only wolves will heed that call.

Actual wolves--the four-legged-kind--are spectacular creatures, and the world would be poorer without them. Join me in donating to the International Wolf Center.

Photo by Ronnie Macdonald. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Self-Coaching Is SOCIAL

This is a point I stress when I teach The Art of Self-Coaching at Stanford, but I want to make it even more explicit here, both to better prepare my students for their experience in the course and to clarify my terminology for others who've expressed interest in the concept:

Self-coaching is not a solitary process but a highly social one.

Self-coaching is a self-directed process, in that we're taking active responsibility for guiding our own growth and development, but other people play extremely important roles in this process at every step.

There is certainly value to gained from solitary activities such as journaling, reflection, and an ongoing dialogue with ourselves on matters large (e.g. What should I do with my life?) and small (e.g. What am I feeling at this moment?). And it's essential to cultivate the ability to engage in these practices more effectively and to build routines that support them into our lives.

Students in my course do an extensive amount of solitary work outside of class. Each week they read the materials on the syllabus, reflect on the meanings and implications of these materials, and complete a written assignment. It's my hope that this experience will help them determine how best to continue these activities in their career after business school, when they'll be responsible for creating their own "syllabus" and for determining how to reflect upon and write about those materials without anyone's input or oversight. (This is why the content of these weekly assignments is determined by each student as an individual, beyond the constraint of looking ahead to the upcoming class.)

But these solitary activities are just one aspect of a self-coaching process that also involves meaningful relationships with others. A dilemma that many of us encounter when seeking support is that even well-meaning allies can respond in ways that we find unhelpful. Frequently this takes one of three forms: My problem's worse... or Look on the bright side... or Here's some advice... This isn't to say that shared experiences, encouragement and advice are never useful, but they can convey counterproductive meta-messages, even when unintended: You don't have it so bad, so stop complaining... or If you were smarter, maybe you would have figured this out on your own... The solution is to employ coaching tools and techniques that enable us to have more effective helping conversations.

Thus the classroom experience in my course is highly social and interactive, not solitary, and each week my students work with classmates in pairs and small groups. In addition to preparing them for the solitary work noted above, it's my hope that this experience helps them better understand how to develop and sustain relationships in which they can build trust, discuss meaningful issues of importance to them, and offer and receive coaching support. Note that these conversations are intentionally brief, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes, and my goal here is to replicate real-world conditions, when my students will often face significant time constraints in their working relationships. While more extensive unconstrained conversations always have a role to play, being able to address a significant topic quickly and economically is a valuable skill.

Given all this, I don't make a sharp distinction between self-coaching and coaching conversations with others, because the former necessarily involves the latter. My course does not provide in-depth coaching training, but a basic understanding of coaching tools and skills allows students to get more out of the conversations they'll have with classmates. This is why I offer some brief instruction on how to coach others at the very beginning of the course and include some of the resources below on our syllabus.

Resources on Coaching and Being Coached

• How Great Coaches Ask, Listen, and Empathize (Ed Batista, Harvard Business Review, 2012)
• Helping: How to Give, Offer, and Receive Help (Edgar Schein, 2009)
  • Chapter 3, pages 30-47: “The Inequalities and Ambiguities of the Helping Relationship”
• Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (Edgar Schein, 2013)
  • Chapter 3, pages 39-50: "Differentiating Humble Inquiry from Other Kinds of Inquiry"
• Scott Ginsberg on Asking (Better) Questions (Ed Batista, 2008)
• Hammering Screws (Bad Coaching) (Ed Batista, 2011)
• The HBR Guide to Coaching Employees (2nd edition, 2015)
• A Challenge to Leaders: Help Others Self-Coach (Ed Batista, 2013)
• Coaching, Advice, and Feedback (Ed Batista, 2011)
• Coaching Your Employees (HBR Webinar Video and Summary) (Ed Batista, 2014)
• Coaching and Feedback Tools for Leaders

Resources on Reflection and Journaling

• The Value of Journal Writing (Ed Batista, 2008)
• How to Think (More on Open Space and Deep Work) (Ed Batista, 2017)
• Conversations with Ourselves (Self-Coaching and Self-Engagement) (Ed Batista, 2012)
• Reflecting on Work Improves Job Performance (Carmen Nobel, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2014)
• Why You Should Make Time for Self-Reflection (Even If You Hate Doing It) (Jennifer Porter, Harvard Business Review, 2017)
• Does Journaling Boost Your Well-Being? (Pelin Kesebir, Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin, 2017)

Photo by Heinrich Böll-Stiftung. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

The Obstacle Is The Way

The obstacle IS the way.

I was reminded of this by John Stephenson, who was responding to the conclusion of my piece on Comfort with Discomfort:

We tend to view discomfort adversarially, as a foe to be vanquished or avoided, but an alternative is to view it as a sign of something important for us to learn, or an indicator of a meaningful growth opportunity. When something feels daunting, we can get curious. When something feels scary, we can step forward.

John was drawing upon a passage from Book Five of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius:

Now it is true that [people] may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my affects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally and changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us on this road.

It's been useful to reflect on these ideas as I've faced some obstacles of my own recently. When I first encountered them it was disconcerting to see how readily I experienced them not only as "impediments to my action," but also as "impediments to my affects and disposition." I was hurt and upset and angry.

It's taken some effort to step back from my immediate response and view these situations from a broader perspective. They are obstacles, and my action is impeded. And yet they have something important to teach me--not despite the difficulty and discomfort I'm experiencing, but because of it. So what am I learning?

Attachment brings suffering, and suffering is a choice

As I've written before, there’s a powerful scene in David Simon’s dramatic series The Wire in which an anxious store security guard pleads with a dangerous gang leader who’s just shoplifted, asking him to appreciate the difficult situation in which the guard now finds himself. The gang leader is unmoved. "You want it to be one way," he murmurs, "but it’s the other way."

My attachment to wanting these situations "to be one way" when in fact "it's the other way" is the ultimate cause of my hurt and upset and anger here. While our emotions can be valuable inputs in the reasoning process, they're not unerring guides to right action, and it's been necessary for me to interrogate these feelings and to understand their origins. My emotions aren't being inflicted upon me--I am triggering them through my attachment to an alternative reality, one in which these obstacles I've encountered don't exist. But they do exist, which means I face a choice. I can remain attached to my vision of an obstacle-free path and suffer when reality intrudes upon my fantasy, or I can accept these obstacles and see them as integrated with my path. Rather than choosing to suffer, I can choose to learn.

Some growth requires struggle

I first learned this lesson nearly a decade ago as I watched groups that were experiencing difficulties benefit most not when the leader took action to resolve the problem but when the leader did nothing and allowed the group to struggle toward its own solution. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that leaders should always stand back, but it's important to recognize when a leader's efforts to help a group avoid difficulties can actually serve to block the growth that will come only through struggle.

Today I can see that the same principle applies to my own development as an individual, and that my efforts to avoid difficulties--to navigate around these obstacles--will prevent me from growing in important and perhaps even necessary ways. Rather than viewing them as "obstacles" in the first place, I can see them as sources of growth.

Resilient self-care matters

I try to exercise and meditate every day. I pay close attention to my sleep habits and adjust them as needed to insure that I'm well-rested. I like good food and drink, and I aim to consume both in moderation. And I occasionally throw these routines out the window, because a perfect attendance record has never been one of my goals in life. Over the last few weeks it's been particularly important to both invest in these routines and to relax them.

We sometimes equate "resilience" with "toughness," and we fail to appreciate that many "tough" materials are brittle and subject to failure under stress. Truly resilient materials are sufficiently elastic to allow them to absorb a blow, deform under pressure, and return to normal after a brief interval, and that's how I'd characterize my approach to self-care during this time. Rather than feel demoralized because these obstacles have disrupted my smoothly running routines, I can trust in my resilience and return to a state of equilibrium over time.

A final thought: I'm reminded that I often tell my students in The Art of Self-Coaching that self-coaching is not a solitary process, but a highly social one, and it's essential to develop and maintain relationships with trusted partners we can rely on during times of difficulty. I'm deeply grateful to the people I've been able to discuss these situations with, not just (or even primarily) for their advice, but for their ability to listen, to empathize, to bear witness. These obstacles have served to remind me of the importance of these relationships with my most valued fellow travelers. Once again, the obstacle IS the way.

Thanks to John Stephenson for the inspiring reminder.

Photo by Dan Cook. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.