On May 1st I conducted the 8,000th coaching session of my career, and my post on lessons learned came to the attention of Ryan Hawk, who's been hosting the Learning Leader podcast for over 9 years. Ryan invited me to join him for Episode 592, and we discussed topics ranging from coaching and leadership to the elements of effective feedback.
Recorded June 6, 2024. Published July 21, 2024.
A theme in my work with CEOs is the necessity of seeing yourself clearly and cultivating the capacity to rigorously assess your weaknesses and your strengths. You have to be both your toughest critic and your biggest fan. This is good advice for executives at any level, but it's particularly important for CEOs because the nature of the role makes it difficult to get candid feedback from people in a position to offer relevant and trustworthy guidance. [1]
The people who have your best interests at heart and who you trust to be candid, such as family and friends, may not be in a position to offer a meaningful critique of your performance. The people who are in such a position, such as Board members, investors and senior employees, may not be candid, or they may have obligations that at some point diverge from your personal interests. And the mentors you relied upon to fill this gap earlier in your career may no longer be available to you. So what can you do?
1. Clarify How You Add Value
You're undoubtedly busy with a great deal to do. And yet in my experience CEOs add the most value and have the greatest impact on the business by leading, not simply by doing. Seeking to add value by merely doing more may actually be counterproductive in your efforts to lead at scale. [2] The goal here is to ensure that any self-assessment is focused on your most meaningful activities.
It's no longer the case (if it ever was) that you can assess your impact by the number of hours you put in or how many items you've crossed off your to-do list. As Andy Grove once wrote, "My day always ends when I am tired and ready to go home, not when I'm done... A manager's work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done." [3]
Instead, if you're like most of my clients, at any given moment you have a relatively small number of responsibilities that are both important and urgent--perhaps three to five. [4] It's tempting to add to that list, but rigor matters here--if too many things are important and urgent, than nothing really is. If you succeed at these key tasks but others slip, you've still succeeded. And if you fail at these key tasks, then success elsewhere won't matter.
2. Make Reflection a Practice
Early in their careers many people imagine they'll finally have a more spacious work life when they obtain a more senior role and have greater control over their calendars. They often fail to realize that the more senior the role, the more people want your time and attention. You likely face some version of this challenge, and it can feel difficult or even irresponsible to dedicate time to yourself. But reflection is like a good night's sleep or regular physical activity--it's not an indulgence, but an investment in your capacity to add value. [5]
It's also not the type of activity that fits neatly into brief segments of free time between other activities. While there's no single best approach, I do recommend making reflection a regularly occurring item on your calendar. Every individual's needs differ, and you will have to experiment to find the routine that's most productive for you. Consider the length of time and the setting that are most conducive to meaningful reflection, as well as the frequency with which you can reliably block off and protect such activities on your calendar. [6]
I know CEOs who do their best thinking on solo retreats over a long weekend, although that may only be feasible several times a year. I've also known a CEO who did his best thinking at the driving range, and he made that a weekly routine. The idea isn't that reflection must occur on a rigid schedule, but like all important-but-not-urgent activities, it won't happen with any consistency if you don't make it a practice.
3. Find the Signal in the Noise
As noted above, it can be challenging to obtain useful feedback as a CEO, but I'm not suggesting that you should ignore others' feedback or fail to solicit it. And yet feedback from others isn't necessarily "the truth" about your performance. As I've written before, "feedback always says as much about the giver as the recipient. It's filtered through their reality-distortion fields, reflecting their personal values and priorities." [7] Many organizations try to correct for that distortion via a 360 assessment, and if that's available to you I recommend taking advantage of it. At the same time such processes can be time-consuming, occur only at periodic intervals, and are subject to some predictable biases of their own. [8]
There's also feedback available to you in the form of organizational results, which likely matter much more than anything else. But here, too, is plenty of noise in the form of what psychologists call the "fundamental attribution error"--we routinely assign leaders more credit for success (and more blame for failure) than they deserve. [9] Further, the feedback loops for a CEO are extremely long, as Jeff Bezos has noted: "When somebody congratulates Amazon on a good quarter, I say 'Thank you,' but what I'm thinking to myself is, 'Those quarterly results were fully baked about three years ago.'" [10]
Ultimately, all of the feedback you might obtain, including but not limited to direct input from others, 360 reports, and organizational results--are forms of data, which is comprised of signal and noise. It's your job to determine which is which.
4. Tolerate the Dissonance
Self-assessment isn't merely an intellectual task--it's also an emotional one. This is true for all executives, but, again, it's particularly true for CEOs because of the obligation to be your toughest critic and your biggest fan. If you're like my clients, there are any number of parties who are watching to see if you stumble, and when you do they'll be quick to find fault. If you shrink from a candid assessment of your weaknesses and missteps, your critics won't hesitate to do so, and you may find yourself unpleasantly surprised by how they leverage that information.
But senior leadership also entails maintaining a high degree of confidence in your capabilities and an optimistic view of what you and others can achieve. As I've written before, "There's a positive correlation between optimism and effective leadership, in part because the optimistic leader has a contagious effect on others, attracting talent and resources and making success more likely." [11] And as you've no doubt experienced as a CEO, there are moments when you can't look to anyone else for encouragement, because everyone is looking at you.
Putting this into practice and acting as your toughest critic and your biggest fan is likely to evoke what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance," a form of stress deriving from the difficulty of holding in mind seemingly incompatible realities. Most people have a low tolerance for such dissonance, to the extent that they may dramatically alter their beliefs and behavior in order to reduce the stress. But as a CEO you can't afford to do that. I've previously discussed how to better manage the dissonance that inevitably accompanies this job, and my guidance is consistent with what we know about emotion regulation more generally: Expect it. Get comfortable with it. And talk about it with people you trust. [12]
Footnotes
[2] How to Scale: Do Less, Lead More
[3] High Output Management, page 47 (Andy Grove, 1983)
[5] Investments, Not Indulgences
[6] How to Think (More on Open Space and Deep Work)
[9] I first learned about the fundamental attribution error as an MBA student from Roberto Fernandez, who described it as "ascribing causality to personal characteristics when causality actually lies with the situation." The original research was done by Stanford psychologist Lee Ross: The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 1977).
[10] Jeff Bezos interviewed by Michael Beckerman (Internet Association Gala, 2017). The passage above begins at the 7:07 mark in this video.
[11] This line is from The Ruling Out of Possibilities (On Failure). For more on the research on leadership and optimism, see Dispositional Affect and Leadership Effectiveness: A Comparison of Self-Esteem, Optimism, and Efficacy (Martin Chemers, Carl Watson, and Stephen May, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2000), and Impact of Leadership Style and Emotion on Subordinate Performance (Janet McColl-Kennedy and Ronald Anderson, The Leadership Quarterly, 2002).
[12] The Cognitive Dissonance of the CEO. For more on emotion regulation, see The Tyranny of Feelings.
Photo by Slim via Pixahive.
The term "transcendence" can evoke some sort of inaccessible mysticism, but it also has a very straightforward meaning: a state in which we look beyond our present concerns, heighten our awareness of the outside world, and feel a greater sense of connection as a result. This definition of transcendence is highly relevant to my work with coaching clients, and to understand why we first need to discuss how people respond to goals and achievements.
While I strive to help clients accomplish ambitious professional goals, it's important to bear in mind that evolution has solved for the adaptation and survival of the species, not for our fulfillment as individuals. As a consequence, the fulfillment we enjoy upon achieving even our most significant goals is invariably fleeting, a process known as "hedonic adaptation." [1] We acclimate so readily to improvements in our life circumstances that we soon take them for granted, and they lose their potency as sources of fulfillment.
This isn't to say that the aspirations we imagine will be sources of fulfillment once achieved are meaningless illusions. They may matter a great deal, and some of them will have a profound impact on the material condition of our lives. But goal pursuit is not the result of a purely rational calculus. We pursue ambitious goals because we want to feel the flush of success, and we want to overcome our fears and anxieties, and we want these emotional states to last.
So it can be something of a cruel joke to accomplish an ambitious goal and realize that the human mind doesn't work this way. We do feel successful--but it's never as comprehensive or sustained as we thought it would be. We do feel at peace--but our fears and anxieties come creeping back with shocking speed. So what can we do about this state of affairs? There are no permanent solutions, but there are steps we can take to ease our discontent, and one of the most effective is what we might call "everyday transcendence."
A useful description of this concept can be found in the work of Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, two of the most prominent figures in the positive psychology movement. In the early 2000s they convened a diverse group of thinkers to document and categorize "the strengths of character that make the good life possible," and the result was the monumental volume Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. [2]
The book identifies six universal virtues, i.e. "the core characteristics valued by moral philosophers and religious thinkers: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence," as well as 24 character strengths, "the psychological ingredients--processes or mechanisms--that define the virtues. Said another way, they are distinguishable routes to displaying one or another of the virtues." [3]
The virtue of transcendence encompasses five of these character strengths, all of which, Seligman and Peterson note, involve a form of connection:
The common theme running through these strengths of transcendence is that each allows individuals to forge a connection to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning to our lives... The prototype of this strength category is spirituality, variously defined but always referring to a belief in and commitment to the transcendent (non-material) aspects of life--whether they be called universal, ideal, sacred, or divine... Appreciation of beauty is a strength that connects someone directly to excellence. Gratitude connects someone directly to goodness. Hope connects someone directly to the dreamed-of future. Humor--admittedly the most controversially placed entry--connects someone directly to troubles and contradictions in a way that produces not terror or anger but pleasure. [4]
The sense of connection fostered through these activities will not switch off our drive to succeed or our attachment to ambitious goals--nor would we want it to. But the cultivation of "transcendence in everyday life" can help us maintain perspective. Drawing on the work of philosopher Simone Weil, theologian Eric Springsted has observed that human beings are subject to a distorting illusion: "It appears to us as if we were at the center of the world. We thus appear as terrifically important, and what else is of value can be ranked by its proximity to us." [5]
As I've written before, "We can readily grasp why evolution has selected for the center of the world illusion--viewing ourselves from this perspective, we typically put our subjective needs and desires above those of others, making our own biological success more likely." [6] But this only heightens our discontent not only when our achievements inevitably lose their savor, but also when we fall short of our aspirations, as all ambitious people must.
And this is precisely where transcendence can serve an eminently practical purpose. The connections we experience through spirituality, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, and humor remind us that we are not the center of the world and that every other human being is facing challenges of their own, including many that make ours seem trivial. We may find support in unexpected places, perhaps in the mere knowledge that we're not alone. We may even take a step further and see ourselves as part of a larger whole and find comfort in community, or humanity, or the universe itself.
Spirituality: "Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort." [7]
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And a compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
~David Foster Wallace [8]
Appreciation of Beauty: "Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience." [9]
A bee
staggers out
of the peony.
~Matsuo Bashō [10]
Gratitude: "Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks. [11]
I'm alive. ☐ I'm not in pain. ☐ I can think clearly. ☐ I can see, hear, and walk. ☐ I'm warm and well-nourished. ☐ I'm protected from the elements. ☐ I was born to parents who loved me. ☐ I've built a loving relationship with a partner. ☐ I feel known and cared for by a number of people. ☐ I derive a sense of meaning and purpose from my work. ☐ ~Gratitude Checklist [12]
Hope: "Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about." [13]
While I certainly wasn’t in denial about the difficulties I might have to face, I knew that I had the capacity to face them. In short, I never lost hope, and not because I told myself a fairy tale that everything would be fine, but because I believed that no matter what happened I could cope with it. We sometimes confuse hope with unfounded optimism, but that's just a form of magical thinking, a sandcastle waiting for the tide to turn. True hope is more robust, rooted not in a wish that things will go our way, but in a confidence that we'll adapt even when they don't.
~On Pain and Hope [14]
Humor: "Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes." [15]
~Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobsen [16]
Footnotes
[1] For more on hedonic adaptation:
The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2014): "Human beings have the remarkable capacity to grow habituated or inured to most life changes... What is particularly fascinating about this phenomenon, however, is that it is most pronounced with respect to positive experiences. Indeed, it turns out that we are prone to take for granted pretty much everything positive that happens to us." [pages 18-19]
The Laws of Emotion, pages 353-354 (Nico Frijda, American Psychologist, 1988): "One must, I think, posit a law of hedonic asymmetry, the law of asymmetrical adaptation to pleasure or pain: Pleasure is always contingent upon change and disappears with continuous satisfaction. Pain may persist under persisting adverse conditions... The law of hedonic asymmetry is a stern and bitter law. It seems almost a necessary one, considering its roots, which, theoretically, are so obvious. Emotions exist for the sake of signaling states of the world that have to be responded to or that no longer need response and action. Once the 'no more action needed' signal has sounded, the signaling system can be switched off; there is no further need for it. That the net quality of life, by consequence, tends to be negative is an unfortunate result. It shows the human mind to have been made not for happiness, but for instantiating the blind biological laws of survival."
[2] Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, page 4 (Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, 2004). For more on Peterson and Seligman's work and its application, see the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.
[3] Ibid, page 13.
[4] Ibid, page 519.
[5] "Will and Order: The Moral Self in Augustine's De Libero Arbitrio," page 92 (Eric O. Springsted, Augustinian Studies, Volume 29, Issue 2, 1998). This essay is also available as a chapter in Springsted's The Act of Faith: Christian Faith and the Moral Self (2015).
[6] We're Not the Center of the World (But We Think We Are)
[7] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[8] This Is Water (David Foster Wallace, 2005)
[9] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[10] Bashō was a Japanese poet and essayist in the 17th century, recognized during his lifetime as one of the greatest masters of haiku. I highly recommend his Narrow Road to the Interior, a book I discussed in my June 2022 newsletter. Here's a sample of his work.
[11] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[12] Gratitude Checklist
[13] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[14] On Pain and Hope
[15] Character Strengths and Virtues, page 30.
[16] Broad City, Episode 1 (written and created by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobsen, 2009)
Photo by Chaval Brasil.
The truly awful thing about success is that it's held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right. And the only thing that makes things even slightly bearable is a friend who knows what you're talking about.~Eve Babitz [1]
A theme in my work with senior leaders is the expectation that some future event will result in a profound surge in positive emotions and a sustained state of well-being, a process often described as "I'll be happy when..."
You probably have your own versions of these scenarios--I certainly have mine--and I'd like you to consider the possibility that your happiness need not be contingent on some external event that may or may not occur. I'm not saying that these events are irrelevant, but I am suggesting, first, that happiness derived from external events is inevitably unsustainable, and, further, that we have a degree of agency and choice in determining our sense of well-being whether or not we achieve our aspirations.
Happiness Isn't Just "Happiness"
Much of what we know about the science of well-being derives from the positive psychology movement, a widespread effort beginning in the 1980s by researchers, clinicians, and educators in a range of fields to understand and promote mental wellness, in contrast to psychology and psychiatry's prior focus on mental illness. [1] Positive psychology has sometimes been dismissed as mere "happiness studies," but in part that's a function of the limitations of language. In English we use "happiness" to describe a broad range of emotional states, including superficial and fleeting pleasures.
But positive psychology is really about the study of what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, which is more accurately translated as "flourishing" or "fulfillment" and differs from mere pleasure. A foundational text in positive psychology is Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, one of the first Western guides to good living, which makes this distinction clear: "Happiness does not lie in amusement...but in virtuous activities." [2]
But I use the term happiness here rather than eudaimonia or flourishing or fulfillment for several reasons. Happiness lends itself to misinterpretation because it is so familiar and accessible, but those qualities also have their advantages. There's also a useful connection with unhappiness, another often-misunderstood word that serves as shorthand for a range of valuable emotional states. [3] Finally, I'm inspired to defend happiness from those who view it with suspicion.
Happiness is not the exclusive province of the naive, the childish, or the willfully ignorant. Pursuing happiness need not entail minimizing or discounting our pain and suffering, or viewing reality through rose-colored glasses. If anything, sustainable happiness requires us to let go of our illusions, starting with the idea that happiness is a function of external events.
What We Think Will Make Us Happy Won't (For Long)
I'm not suggesting that achieving our goals has no impact at all on happiness. It's clear that greater happiness is associated with a host of positive life outcomes--see below. But a reliable feature of human psychology is that our achievements rarely make us as happy as we think they will, and the happiness they generate never lasts as long as we want it to, a process known as "hedonic adaptation." Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky explains this dynamic by noting that emotionally significant events change our expectations by shifting our reference point, and that we habitually adapt to our new circumstances, thus diminishing their impact over time:
Human beings have the remarkable capacity to grow habituated or inured to most life changes... What is particularly fascinating about this phenomenon, however, is that it is most pronounced with respect to positive experiences. Indeed, it turns out that we are prone to take for granted pretty much everything positive that happens to us... We obtain an immediate boost of happiness from the improved situation, but the thrill only lasts a short time. Over the coming days, weeks, and months, we find our expectations ramping upward and we begin taking our new improved circumstances for granted. [4]
Like many confounding aspects of the human mind, hedonic adaptation is a feature for the species that as individuals we often experience as a bug. It's essential to remember that evolution has solved for the ability to pass on our genes by adapting to a changing environment, not for individual happiness. In this context, the late Dutch psychologist Nico Frijda described the unbalanced nature of hedonic adaptation as one of the "laws of emotion":
One must, I think, posit a law of hedonic asymmetry, the law of asymmetrical adaptation to pleasure or pain: Pleasure is always contingent upon change and disappears with continuous satisfaction. Pain may persist under persisting adverse conditions... The law of hedonic asymmetry is a stern and bitter law. It seems almost a necessary one, considering its roots, which, theoretically, are so obvious. Emotions exist for the sake of signaling states of the world that have to be responded to or that no longer need response and action. Once the "no more action needed" signal has sounded, the signaling system can be switched off; there is no further need for it. That the net quality of life, by consequence, tends to be negative is an unfortunate result. It shows the human mind to have been made not for happiness, but for instantiating the blind biological laws of survival. [5]
So our distant ancestors who took their accomplishments in stride and continued to exert themselves were more likely to adapt and survive relative to their contemporaries who felt a greater sense of fulfillment and took it easy in response. Multiply this over 200,000 years and some 10,000 human generations, and we arrive at the present, where I talk with leaders on a daily basis who are surprised when the happiness they expected to feel after a long-awaited accomplishment is neither as strong nor as sustainable as they'd hoped. As one client who toasted just such an achievement with a colleague noted, "The feeling was over before I'd even finished my glass of Champagne."
Yet Happiness Still Matters
Accepting the inevitability of hedonic adaptation doesn't mean that happiness isn't worth pursuing. As noted above, a host of positive life outcomes are associated with greater levels of happiness. For example, happier people earn more, and people who earn more are happier. [6] And happier people live longer, and people who live longer are happier. [7] The list goes on, as discussed by psychologists Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener and Richard Lucas:
Researchers have begun to systematically examine the consequences of happiness beyond simply feeling good. Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener (2005) conducted a meta-analysis of 225 papers on diverse life outcomes in the domains of work, love, and health and found that, in all three domains, happy people did better on average than did unhappy people. For instance, happy people receive higher job performance assessments from their supervisors (Cropanzano & Wright, 1999) and have more prestigious jobs (Roberts, Caspi,& Moffitt, 2003). In addition, happy people earn higher incomes than do unhappy people, even many years after the initial assessment (Diener, Nickerson, Lucas, & Sandvik, 2002). Happy people are more likely to get married than are their unhappy counterparts (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2003), and they are also more satisfied with their marriages (Ruvolo, 1998). [8]
Of course, the arrow of causality isn't clear. We know that there's an association between happiness and these positive life outcomes, but we don't know if people who attain these outcomes become happier as a result, or if happier people are more likely to attain these outcomes. I'm disinclined to wait until researchers can provide us with a definitive answer, largely because I don't believe they ever will. So even as we acknowledge the impact of hedonic adaptation and the complexity of the relationship between life outcomes and our sense of well-being, I believe the pursuit of happiness remains a laudable goal.
But Can Happiness Be Pursued?
For the late Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who can also be viewed as one of our greatest philosophers, the answer to this question was clearly "No":
Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. [9]
Frankl's work has had a profound influence on my approach to coaching and my own life [10], and while I don't entirely agree with his perspective here, I believe he makes an essential point. I don't think it's necessary to "not care" about happiness, or that it must be an "unintended side-effect" derived from adjacent pursuits. But Frankl's fundamental premise is consistent with positive psychology research, not in conflict with it.
One of the most important findings from positive psychology is also the most widely misunderstood: Our level of happiness appears to derive from a combination of life circumstances, a genetic set point, and intentional activities. This finding is often represented by a "pie chart" that is the cause of most of the misunderstanding, and for that reason I'm choosing not to reproduce it here, although I've discussed it at length elsewhere. [11] What's the nature of this confusion, and how might we better understand the implications of this research?
Life circumstances matter, but perhaps less than we think.
Our conventional narratives around happiness view it as primarily a function of life circumstances, such as income level, professional accomplishments, or relationship status. The research shows that such factors do play a meaningful role, but differences in life circumstances explain less of the variation in happiness across a population than we might expect, given these narratives. This is often misinterpreted as "life circumstances are irrelevant," or that they contribute to some predetermined percentage of an individual's happiness. But the research can't tell us anything about the impact of a particular life circumstance on any given individual.
This is where Frankl's guidance and positive psychology are in agreement: It's not possible to guarantee happiness by pursuing it through the achievement of a particular set of life circumstances. This is both because the extent to which any such circumstances contribute to happiness varies widely across individuals, and because hedonic adaptation ensures that the positive impact of these achievements will diminish over time.
Genes aren't destiny.
Genetic differences appear to explain a relatively large amount of the variation in happiness across a population, but, again, this doesn't mean that genes account for a certain amount of any given individual's happiness. The research does not--and cannot--provide such insights at the individual level. And while our genes are obviously fixed, our individual "set point" for happiness is not, due to the impact of formative experiences and our environment on which genes are expressed and how. [12]
Consider the role of genetics in height and weight. Our genes influence both aspects of our physiology, and across the population at large height is understood to be more heritable than weight, which is more heavily affected by environmental factors and individual behavior. Our set point for happiness also appears to be a heritable trait, albeit even less so than weight. [13] Genes influence but don't determine our weight, and the same appears to be true for our sense of well-being. We have agency.
Intentional activities matter, and perhaps more than we think.
Having agency doesn't mean that we can simply will ourselves into a state of well-being. While that may sound like a wonderful way to live, it would actually be quite disastrous, as the late social psychologist Daniel Wegner has noted:
It is clear that emotion should not be very susceptible to willful control. If we could turn off all our emotions, feel no pain, never laugh, not be gripped by fear or despair, stop being excited, and so on, we could easily end up dead... The priority of emotions over will is important for our survival because it allows our plans to be interrupted by the immediate pressures of reality. [14]
Here, too, Frankl's guidance is aligned with positive psychology research. We can't pursue happiness like a like a prize to be won in a contest. But we can intentionally engage in a set of activities that research shows are associated with increased well-being. And unlike large-scale life circumstances, which can be difficult to engineer and may take years to achieve, these intentional activities can be conducted on a daily basis, in many cases with ease. Again, the research can't tell us the extent to which any of these activities will affect the happiness of a given individual. But they explain more of the variance across individuals in a population than our conventional narratives about happiness would lead us to expect, suggesting that we have more agency and choice than we realize.
Creating the Conditions for Happiness
Frankl counsels us to "let happiness happen" through dedication to a cause or a deep connection with another person, and while I certainly agree that these are potential paths to well-being, there are others. Lyubomirsky's research identifies a set of intentional activities associated with increased happiness. These are by no means surefire strategies that will be equally effective for everyone, but by identifying the ones most likely to work for each of us as an individual, we may well create the conditions in which "happiness happens":
Lybomirsky's work indicates that our responses to each of these activities will be contingent on a set of personalized factors. Activities that feel natural to us, are intrinsically enjoyable, and are aligned with our values and identities will have a greater impact on our happiness. Activities that we might pursue out of a sense of guilt or obligation will be less effective. (Lyubomirsky has developed a simple diagnostic tool, which I link to below, to help people choose the activities that will likely be the best fit. [15] She also defines each of these activities in greater detail in her first book. [16])
We Won't Be Happy WHEN. We Could Be Happy NOW.
I close by returning to the wisdom of the late writer Eve Babitz: "The truly awful thing about success is that it's held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right. And the only thing that makes things even slightly bearable is a friend who knows what you're talking about." I see this in the lives of my clients on a regular basis, and I experience versions of it myself. We absorb the conventional narratives starting at an early age, and we come to believe that happiness will be a function of a set of objective, external accomplishments. I'll be happy when...
If we're sufficiently smart, dedicated, hard-working, and lucky, we begin to accomplish those goals and experience success. And while winning is better than losing in any number of ways, we ultimately learn that success does not, in fact, "make everything all right." As my client once said, "The feeling was over before I'd even finished my glass of Champagne." And even if the happiness we derive from any particular accomplishment lasts longer than that, our sense of well-being will inevitably fade as we come to take its benefits for granted. The hedonic treadmill never stops.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we should stop striving toward these goals. Winning beats losing, and there are many benefits to be derived from objective, external accomplishments. But we should not allow our happiness, our sense of well-being, our sense of self-worth, to hinge upon whether or not we attain these goals. I won't be happy WHEN.
And yet even as we continue our striving, we can exert a degree of agency and choice. We can't simply will ourselves to be happy, nor would we want that capability. But we can create the conditions in which we're more likely to experience eudaimonia. We can choose to focus on what we lack, or on what we have. In recent years I've become much more grateful for things I always took for granted--life, a relatively pain-free body, a clear-thinking mind--in large part because I know my time in this existence is finite. [17] I take seriously these tongue-in-cheek lines from outdoor writer Tom Stienstra:
The odds of being born, according to one legend, are the same as if you were to throw a life ring on the open ocean, and at that exact moment, a blind sea tortoise poked its head through the ring. The odds of dying, on the other hand, are 100 percent. [18]
This isn't a recipe for permanent bliss, and I'm as subject as anyone else to fears and anxieties, fits of pique and frustration. But I can also slow down, be present, and feel a sense of gratitude for this existence, and all that I possess as a function of simply being alive. That feeling won't last indefinitely, nor would I want it to--my yearnings and dissatisfactions not only keep me driving forward, they also make me human. But from time to time I remember: I can be happy NOW.
Footnotes
[1] Slow Days, Fast Company (Eve Babitz, 1974)
[2] The most comprehensive volume on positive psychology I can recommend is Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, 2004), which the authors have called a "manual of the sanities," a counterpart to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which categorizes the various forms of mental illness. (This book and the research it represents forms the basis for the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.) Here are some other texts that I've found particularly useful in exploring positive psychology and related developments from fields such as neuroscience, in order of the date of publication:
[2] Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, Chapter 6 (Aristotle, circa 335-322 BC)
[3] For more on unhappiness, see The Art of Self-Coaching, Class 7: UNHAPPINESS
[4] The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does, pages 18-19 (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2014)
[5] The Laws of Emotion, pages 353-354 (Nico Frijda, American Psychologist, 1988)
[6] For more on the relationship between wealth and happiness, see Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year (Matthew Killingsworth, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS], 2021) and Myths in the Science of Happiness and Directions for Future Research (Ed Diener, Chapter 24, pages 493-507 in The Science of Subjective Well-Being, Michael Eid and Randy Larson, editors, 2008).
[7] For more on the relationship between lifespan and happiness, see Subjective Well-being and Longevity: A Cotwin Control Study (Michael Sadler, Christopher Miller, Kaare Christensen and Matt McGue, National Institutes of Health, 2011).
[8] The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?, page 347 (Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener and Richard Lucas, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2007)
[9] Man's Search for Meaning, pages xiv-xv, from the Preface to the 1992 edition (Viktor Frankl)
[10] Viktor Frankl on the Meaning of Suffering
[11] Understanding "The Pie Chart" in The How of Happiness
[12] Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued? (Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2019)
[13] Genetics scholar and journalist Razib Khan provides a helpful explanation of heritability and genetic effects:
When someone tells you that height is 80% heritable, does that mean:
a) 80% of the reason you are the height you are is due to genes
b) 80% of the variation within the population on the trait of height is due to variation of the genesThe answer is of course b. Unfortunately in the 5 years I’ve been blogging the conception of heritability has been rather difficult to get across, and I regularly have to browbeat readers who conflate the term with a. That is, they assume that if I say that a trait is mostly heritable I mean that its development is mostly a function of genes. In reality not only is that false, it’s incoherent. Heritability is addressing the population level correlation between phenotypic variation and genotypic variation. In other words, how well can genetic variation work as a proxy for phenotypic variation? What proportion of the phenotypic variation can be accounted for by genotypic variation? (Genetic vs. heritable trait, Discover, 2007)
[14] White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control, page 123 (Daniel Wegner, 2nd edition, 1994)
[15] Lyubomirsky Person-Fit Activity Diagnostic
[16] The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2007). While I value Lyubomirsky's work immensely, note that this book is the primary source of the "pie chart" that has been the cause of so much misunderstanding, which I seek to clear up here: Understanding "The Pie Chart" in The How of Happiness.
[17] Gratitude Checklist
[18] Cliff collapse shows it’s best to heed nature’s warnings (Tom Stienstra, SFGate, 2015)
Photo by Andrew E. Larsen.
Primates take...a mass of social information into account, and are so finely attuned to the moods and intentions of others, that it has been speculated that their high intelligence evolved in order to deal with an increasingly complex group life. This idea, know as the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, may also apply to the enormous brain expansion in our own lineage.
In this view, technical inventiveness is a secondary development: the evolution of primate intelligence started with the need to outsmart others, to detect deceptive tactics, to reach mutually advantageous compromises, and to foster social ties that advance one's career. Chimpanzees clearly excel in this domain. Their technical skills are inferior to ours, but I would hesitate to make such a claim with regard to their social skills.
~Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics [1]
If you're a leader navigating the challenges of organizational life, it's useful to bear in mind that human beings are really just a special type of primate, and this has significant implications for how people behave in groups. We sometimes focus on our special qualities as a species--our capacity for logical reasoning, our facility with tools, our extensive use of symbols--and imagine that we have little in common with our evolutionary cousins. But then we encounter some curious behavior in a group setting, or we find ourselves perplexed by our own behavior in a group, and we may question just how evolved we really are.
This is where it's important to remember that humans are "primates wearing people masks." We put on clothing, adorn ourselves, and employ any number of symbolic artifacts, from wedding rings and Swiss watches to job titles and even our very names. But these accoutrements don't extinguish our underlying identity as primates. So what are the implications of all this for organizational life?
We're Social Animals
Most people are aware that our success as a species is in some way related to the size and complexity of the human brain, but we often mistakenly assume that our evolutionary advantage was derived from our enhanced cognitive abilities as individual problem-solvers. Instead, research suggests that the greatest benefit of a larger brain was our social intelligence--the ability to conceive of and operate within a vast network of interpersonal relationships. [2]
As a consequence, group experiences loom large in our mental landscape, and the social dynamics operating within any group have a powerful effect on its members. This is sometimes overlooked in contemporary Western culture, given our emphasis on the individual. [3] We readily acknowledge the impact of groups in extreme circumstances, such as when a crowd becomes an unruly mob [4], but we often miss the pervasive influence of groups in everyday life.
We're not herd animals, and another defining human characteristic is the ability to wrestle with and overcome our primal impulses, but we remain acutely sensitive to group dynamics and highly motivated to abide by prevailing norms. This can be dysfunctional at times, causing us to censor ourselves or ignore our better judgment. [5] But as with so many confounding aspects of human psychology, it's a feature for the species that occasionally acts like a bug.
So a starting point in organizational life is simply recognizing that people are are profoundly social and keenly sensitive to the impact of group experiences, for better and for worse. Groups aren't merely collections of individuals (although they are that), but can also take on a life of their own, exerting tremendous influence on individuals' judgment, perception, choices and behavior. Countless leaders have exploited this aspect of human psychology to others' disadvantage in dictatorships, cults, street gangs--and some companies. But group dynamics aren't necessarily nefarious, and thoughtful leaders can harness them in ethical ways. [6]
We're Emotional Animals
Psychologists disagree on whether the affective responses we observe in animals should truly be called "emotions" [7], but it's certainly the case that non-human primates display a wide range of such responses that are analogous on some level to human feelings and which serve as a form of "social information" that enables them to co-exist in groups, as the eminent biologist Frans de Waal notes above. The human experience of emotion may be substantially more complex than that of other primates, but in this sense there's a parallel: group experiences always have the potential to evoke emotions, and this "social information" plays a valuable role in organizational life.
Given the nature of coaching, I often talk with leaders about group experiences gone awry as the result of negative emotions. As a consequence it can be tempting to conclude that emotions are a "problem," and being called "emotional" generally carries a stigma in professional settings and suggests a lack of clear thinking. But this misjudges the nature of emotions and their function.
The idea that emotions are antagonistic to reasoning is a popular misconception, one that's exacerbated when we believe that emotions are some sort of base instinct. But neuroscientists have known for decades that emotion and logic work together in concert, and our feelings are vital inputs in reasoning. [8] Emotions allow us to process massive amounts of data very efficiently in a short period of time. In comparison, logical reasoning is a slow and resource-intensive process.
This doesn't mean our feelings are always reasonable or justified, of course. [9] They're a "quick and dirty signal," as noted by neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux. [10] But we rely on emotions to make sense of dynamic, data-rich environments--and that's exactly what occurs in any group setting. Other people are our most vital resource and, potentially, our gravest threat. It's of the utmost importance that we understand their thoughts and intentions, but explicit communication is often insufficient, particularly when we have concerns that our counterparts might lack sound judgment or be untrustworthy.
Emotions fill in those communication gaps by enabling us to rapidly perceive and interpret a host of factors--tone of voice, eye contact, facial expressions, body language--while simultaneously assessing what we know or can surmise about the other people involved. So we shouldn't view emotions as unerring guides to right action, and it's essential to observe and correct for any patterns in which emotions--both positive and negative--repeatedly result in mistaken conclusions or counterproductive behavior. But we should expect that groups will reliably trigger a host of feelings, and we should heighten our ability to sense, comprehend, articulate and express them in order to make most effective use of them.
Simultaneously, we must also expand our capacity for empathy, which can be defined as the ability to see the world from another person's perspective, understand their feelings, suspend our judgments about them, and communicate our understanding. [11] All this entails substantial effort, made easier when we remember that people in groups will reliably trigger emotions in each other, those feelings are potentially useful data (and occasionally misleading), and our "people masks" aren't always accurate indicators of who's feeling what and why.
We're Competitive Animals
As noted above by biologist de Waal, humans' social intelligence differs from that of other primates not in kind, but in degree. One of the most significant differences is our capacity to operate in relatively large social units, and it was the development of advanced social capabilities that enabled early humans to form groups much larger than their evolutionary rivals. Work by anthropologist Robin Dunbar sets this number at roughly 150 people, and a group of that size contains more than 10,000 one-on-one relationships. [12]
A group of 150 people is a powerful force, capable of securing resources and food, fighting off predators, and coping with environmental challenges. Our ability to operate within such large groups is what has enabled us to become the dominant species on the planet, but this advantage also carries some costs. As UCLA neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman has written, "The downside of larger groups is that there is increased competition for food and mating partners within the group. If you are on your own and you manage to find food, it's yours. The larger your group, the more likely it is that one of the others in your group will try to poach it." [13]
More fundamentally, survival depends on one's ability to remain a member of the group. Although bands of early humans came to dominate their environments, individuals were defenseless on their own, vulnerable to attack and the elements. Being left behind or expelled was a death sentence. As a result, we evolved to be acutely sensitive to our social standing and our relative status in the group. [14]
But evolution has solved for the survival of the species, not for our individual happiness or peace of mind. So this heightened awareness of our relative status keeps us collectively striving toward greater accomplishments, while simultaneously being the source of much personal misery. The key for a leader in organizational life is recognizing that our predisposition to social comparison will reliably trigger status contests and power struggles [15] on a near-constant basis, fueled by the unhappiness people feel when they perceive themselves to be "behind" in some way. [16]
Managing these competitive dynamics among employees is one of a leader's primary responsibilities. This is obvious when it comes to issues such as compensation [17] and titles. [18] But it also applies to more subtle forms of status, like the communication patterns within a group. [19] A common theme in my practice is the surprise many clients express at the range and persistence of the interpersonal competitions they're compelled to oversee. But in addition to managing these dynamics among others, we must also bear in mind that we are subject to them ourselves.
Leaders, particularly the CEOs who comprise the majority of my practice, are shielded from aspects of social comparison within their companies, in part because of the status and autonomy that they enjoy as a function of their role. But that very same role puts them in competition with other leaders outside their companies. Sometimes these contests are direct and explicit, as when two companies are going head-to-head in the same market. But more often such competition is symbolic, as when a leader compares their accomplishments to those of friends, classmates, role models, and even historic figures.
As a leader you're almost certainly making such comparisons, and they stoke your competitive fires. [20] Learning how to harness and manage this drive within yourself is one of your most important tasks. The challenge is that the good feelings that accompany success and the flush of victory are inevitably fleeting. And while you'll put certain concerns and anxieties behind you with each new level of accomplishment, new perceived needs will emerge. It's unlikely that you'll switch off this drive, nor is that necessarily desirable--it has undoubtedly contributed much to your ability to generate value for yourself and others. But it also has the potential to render you permanently dissatisfied, competing at ever-higher levels for ever-scarcer prizes. The key is coming to terms with your fundamental nature as a primate in competition with other primates, while determining for yourself what constitutes enough. [21]
Footnotes
[1] Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, pages 38-39 (Frans de Waal, 1982, 2nd edition 2007)
[2] "Our social nature is not an accident of having a larger brain. Rather, the value of increasing our sociality is a major reason for why we evolved to have a larger brain." From Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, page 33 (Matthew Lieberman, 2013).
[3] "No civilization, as far as I know, has given more scope to individual expression and initiative than the West. Non-Western civilizations have generally tended to subordinate the needs of the individual to those of the collective. Despite important exceptions, including Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel, the prominence of the individual is one of Western civilization’s distinguishing marks. This individualism, as Colin Morris puts it in The Discovery of the Individual, is 'an eccentricity among cultures.'" From A Brief Primer on Individualism in Western Intellectual History (Tamer Nashef, Areo, 2018).
[4] "In a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions of his unconscious instinctual impulses. The apparently new characteristics which he then displays are in fact manifestations of this unconscious, in which all that is evil in the human mind is contained as a predisposition." From Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego , page 9 (Sigmund Freud, 1921).
[5] "We frequently fail to take action in an organizational setting because we fear that the actions we take may result in our separation from others, or...we are afraid of being tabbed as 'disloyal' or are afraid of being ostracized as 'non-team players.'" From The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement, page 6 (Jerry Harvey, Organizational Dynamics, Summer 1974). Also see The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management (Jerry Harvey, 1988).
[6] I discuss how leaders can effectively leverage group dynamics in Loyalty Oaths and Kicks in the Ass.
[7] As a devoted dog owner, I believe that animals' affective responses can be characterized as emotions, but for more on the opposing point of view, see Lisa Feldman Barret's How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Chapter 12: Is a Growling Dog Angry? (2017).
[8] Antonio Damasio on Emotion and Reason
[10] The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, page 163 (Joseph LeDoux, 1998)
[11] A Concept Analysis of Empathy (Theresa Wiseman, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1996)
[12] Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates (Robin Dunbar, Journal of Human Evolution, 1992)
[13] Lieberman, page 34.
[14] In addition to Lieberman's Social, see the following:
[15] Power Struggles Among Nice People
[16] Learning How to Fall Behind
[17] Culture, Compensation and Negotiation
[18] Very Cheap, Then Very Expensive (On Job Titles)
[19] Group Dynamics: Very Loud (and Very Quiet) People
[20] "Most of the time, it's impossible not to compare ourselves with others... Social comparisons arise naturally, automatically, and effortlessly." (Sonja Lyubomirsky, The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does, pages 131-132, 2014)
Photo by Brecht Bug.
I don't work with clients who are being forced into a coaching engagement against their will. In those situations coaching is usually viewed as a last-gasp desperation measure or as a way to mitigate legal risk, and in either case the odds of success are low. But it's not uncommon for a new client to have sought coaching in response to a major setback that has jeopardized their professional future, or for a current client to unexpectedly encounter a similar situation. They haven't yet lost their jobs, or their company, but they're on thin ice. If you are, too, what should you do?
1. Slow Down
If you're in this position you've likely experienced a great deal of success up until now. This may be your first serious professional setback. In these circumstances it's common for events to speed up--or to just feel that way. You may sense an urgent need to take action in some form, to right a wrong or clear your name or do something. But as I've noted before, "The impulse to hurry should often be interpreted as a signal to slow down." [1]
This is particularly true when you're on thin ice, in part because you probably haven't spent much time here during your career, and your past training may not serve you well. In my experience successful leaders and executives often have a high need for power and a low need to be liked [2], a desire for control [3], and a degree of comfort with conflict. [4] If you identify with any of these characteristics, it's possible that the very factors that contributed to your previous success may have also fueled your recent setback. Rather than forge ahead, it may be most useful to pause and reflect on how you got here.
2. Get the Right Help
This is one of the primary benefits of coaching in these circumstances. Being on thin ice often involves a lot of stressful meetings with senior management, HR, attorneys and others who have a wide range of motives and obligations that may or may not align with yours. In contrast with these other events on your calendar, a coaching conversation will proceed at its own pace, leaving ample room for reflection.
And unlike these other figures, a coach is there to help you set your agenda, focus on what's most significant to you, make sense of what's happened, and learn from the experience. Note that this will also involve surfacing your assumptions and preconceptions, questioning your interpretation of events, and challenging you to take responsibility for your contributions to the situation. Coaching begins with empathetic listening, but it doesn't stop there. [5]
All this said, it's understandable if you have some skepticism or uncertainty about coaching, particularly if you're being encouraged to pursue it as a result of this setback. It's important that you feel sufficient autonomy in the selection of a coach, convinced of their competence, and a personal connection. While your organization may recommend that you choose from among a roster of coaches, you should expect to be able to have a discovery conversation with several to find the best fit, and come prepared with questions for them, just as you would with any other candidate for a mission-critical role. [6]
Specifically, be sure to discuss confidentiality with a prospective coach, and clarify under what circumstances, if any, they will be interacting with anyone else in your organization. [7] Without knowing this in advance, it will be hard for you to know what is safe to share with your coach, and it will be equally hard for them to know what is safe to share with anyone else, making it far more difficult for you both to build trust with each other.
3. Hope for the Best
Recovering from a serious setback doesn't happen overnight. Making your way back from the thin ice will likely be a multi-stage process, and it's helpful to set realistic expectations. In many situations your first goal is professional survival--retain your position, keep the company alive, avoid any catastrophic outcomes. And as someone who's experienced a great deal of success, you may feel impatient or even desperate to put this episode behind you.
Here the sense of urgency and bias for action that may have served you well in the past are unlikely to be as useful. Your setback has probably put you, your performance, and even your behavior under a spotlight--or a microscope--and you're now subject to careful and ongoing scrutiny. This is no doubt unpleasant, especially if you believe that you're the subject of unjust accusations. [8] But in this situation taking forceful action can easily be labelled "defensiveness," and note that you don't get to make that determination--the people around you do. [9]
I'm not suggesting that you meekly accept what's happening and seek to avoid giving offense. You may need to apologize, but that may also may be inadvisable. [10] Nor am I suggesting that mere survival is the best you can hope for. It may well be possible to find your way to solid footing and not merely survive, but thrive. And yet that will undoubtedly take time, just like any recovery from illness or accident. In particular, be prepared for some vestige of this episode to cling to your reputation, and to face repeated reminders, implied or explicit, that you were once on thin ice.
Some important skills to cultivate in this context include resilience and emotion regulation in the face of perceived threats [11], the ability to make the most of this experience as a learning opportunity [12], and a view of failure as a source of potential growth. That last point doesn't mean you should passively tolerate failure, but, as I've written before, "Whenever we're pursuing something ambitious--in the business model, the strategic plan, the investment, the hire, the career step--we will fail, repeatedly. But in the process we are also ruling out possibilities as we seek to understand what works." [13]
4. Prepare for the Worst
Even as you work toward a recovery in concert with your colleagues and other stakeholders, you may also need to be prepared for the situation to take a turn for the worse. Assess the extent to which you can rely upon in-house or corporate counsel, who may have obligations that conflict with providing you with the best possible guidance. If there's a risk of legal action directed against you, or if you may need to take action to protect your interests, you will want personal counsel to advise and represent you.
You may be reluctant to obtain counsel because it feels premature or unnecessary. But thin ice can break, and you don't want to be researching your options when you're in the water. At the very least, interview several prospective attorneys who specialize in representing individual executives and get a feel for their approach and communication style so you'll know who to call if needed. Some attorneys are very comfortable with antagonistic litigation, while others prefer mediation. There's no universal best practice, but it can be useful to consider who they'll be facing should legal action be necessary.
Footnotes
[1] The Importance of Slowing Down
[2] McClelland and Burnham on Power and Management
[3] Authority and Control in Organizational Life
[5] Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)
[6] How to Find (and Choose) a Coach
[7] Duty of Confidentiality and Duty to Disclose
[8] Staying Sane When You've Been Falsely Accused
[9] Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
[10] Should You Apologize? It Depends.
[11] Ignoring Bandits and Building Resilience
[13] The Ruling Out of Possibilities (On Failure)
Photo by Owwe.
Although I typically coach clients one-on-one (rather than in pairs or groups), a common theme in my practice is the difficulty a client is experiencing in a working relationship. Below is a set of articles that I've written over the years that comprise a curriculum organized around the following themes:
Note that feedback comes last, and that's by design. Rushing into feedback conversations before both parties are prepared is a reliable way to make difficult relationships even worse. While it's important to get to the point where feedback can be delivered with skill and received with grace, it may be necessary to take some time to get there and to practice a number of interpersonal skills along the way.
If you're having difficulty in a working relationship, optimally you can invite your counterpart to explore this curriculum together. While that may feel daunting, merely expressing your interest in improving the relationship can be a step in the right direction. But even if that's not possible, I hope you'll feel encouraged to make use of these materials on your own until your counterpart is able to join you.
1. FOUNDATIONS
1.1. Better Working Relationships
An issue that comes up frequently in my work as a coach and teacher is how to improve a working relationship in which one person feels disappointed, irritated, or upset with the other. In my coaching practice this typically involves a pair of co-founders or two members of an executive team. While my comments here are by no means comprehensive, they lay out a set of steps you can take to begin to address a working relationship that's faltering or didn't get off to a good start.
1.2. How Great Coaches Ask, Listen, and Empathize
Coaching is about connecting with people, inspiring them to do their best, and helping them to grow. It’s also about challenging people to come up with the answers they require on their own. Coaching is far from an exact science, and all leaders have to develop their own style, but we can break down the process into practices that any manager will need to explore and understand. Here are the three most important.
1.3. The Difficulty of Empathizing Up
We typically associate empathy with agreement, and we act as though empathizing with someone entails endorsing their perspective and their feelings, but this need not be the case. Understanding someone’s perspective and their emotions while suspending our judgments about both does not necessarily imply that we agree with that perspective or believe that the resulting emotions are justified. It simply means that we comprehend their perspective and emotions, and we are able to envision ourselves experiencing that perspective and those emotions under similar circumstances.
1.4. Seeing What's Not There (The Importance of Missing Data)
One of the most significant cognitive errors is what Daniel Kahneman calls What You See Is All There Is, or WYSIATI, which is shorthand for the fact that we find it very difficult to envision missing data. Even when faced with massive gaps in information, we tend to focus on the information at our disposal and rely on it to construct a narrative, as flimsy as it might be. A corollary to Kahneman's WYSIATI might be called WYDSDE: What You Don't See Doesn't Exist. And as a result we're typically overconfident in the validity and coherence of our explanatory narrative.
2. COMMUNICATION
2.1. Learning to Yield (Navigating Tough Conversations)
What does it mean to yield in our relationships? My client was careful to distinguish "yielding" from "capitulating," and I want to emphasize that distinction: I'm not talking about simply letting others get their way, or avoiding conflicts, or being nice. Instead, I see yielding as finding the right balance between deference and assertiveness, between inquiry and advocacy. So what does this look like in practice?
2.2. Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up)
If it feels risky to say, it's important. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't feel risky. And that sense of risk is a critical piece of data, a sign that the conversation is a meaningful one with larger implications.
2.3. Intent vs. Impact (When Communication Goes Awry)
When our efforts to communicate go awry, one of the most common causes is a failure to distinguish between intent and impact. When delivering a message we typically imagine that these two concepts are aligned--it may not even occur to us to view them as distinct. Our intent is transparent to us, so we assume that it's equally clear to others and that our message is being received in that same spirit.
2.4. Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)
Asking evocative questions, ensuring the other person feels heard, and actively conveying empathy remain the foundations of coaching. But there's certainly more to the process, and here's a sequence of steps that I employ frequently in sessions with clients that you may find useful if you're seeking to integrate coaching into your managerial style.
3. EMOTIONS
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?
I don't believe that acknowledging the importance of emotions requires us to think like children, nor must we always privilege our subjective emotional experience in order to realize the benefits of a deeper understanding of emotion and enjoy a broader range of emotional expression at work. So what can we do? Here are some concepts I find useful to bear in mind.
3.3. You Make Me Feel... (On Language and Responsibility)
Saying that someone else "makes us feel" an emotion suggests that they are responsible for our emotional state, and that's highly problematic. When another person's statements and behavior trigger an emotional response in us, it's inaccurate to presume that the other person is the responsible party and that we're an innocent bystander.
3.4. Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
A theme in my practice is defensiveness, which I define as an unwillingness to accept responsibility for setbacks, characterized by a disproportionately hostile, anxious or evasive response to critical feedback. When it arises as a topic I'm usually working with a client who's figuring out how to deal with a defensive employee or colleague, but occasionally I have a client who's been accused of defensiveness and is wondering what to do in response.
4. CONFLICT
4.1. Whether or Not to Fix a Broken Relationship
A theme in my practice is the leader who's struggling to repair a damaged working relationship with an employee. In most cases we start with the assumption that a better relationship is possible and that even a long-running conflict can be resolved. This usually entails the following steps in some form.
We all have our preferred ways of working, and sometimes when we're locked in a conflict with a colleague it's the result of incompatible work styles. When we work with people who share our work style it may feel more comfortable, but homogeneous teams can have blind spots and be prone to groupthink. Teams whose members have a diverse range of styles can be more effective if they develop the ability to manage conflict successfully.
While our social orientation is critical in enabling our success as a species, it also poses a substantial challenge for each of us as individuals. We must navigate in-group competition, which becomes even fiercer in larger groups. We're hyper-aware of our relative social status and our shifting position within group hierarchies. And in order to accomplish these tasks effectively we're constantly scanning our interpersonal environment for potential threats and opportunities, which necessarily involves comparing ourselves to others.
4.4. Resolving a Protracted Conflict
When we're locked in a protracted conflict with another person, there's one critical step that's usually necessary to reach a resolution in which both parties feel a sense of trust and remain committed to the relationship: The higher-status person must express vulnerability first.
5. FEEDBACK
Feedback is a gift. We've been told this over and over, as if it were gospel. I've even preached it myself. But I stopped using this phrase because it fails to acknowledge how difficult the experience of receiving feedback can be. The problem is compounded when we view feedback as inherently true, inscribed on tablets of stone and delivered from the mountaintop. But if feedback isn't a gift, what is it? It's data.
5.2. Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful
We need to recognize that receiving feedback is inherently a stressful experience. As Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone of the Harvard Negotiation Project have written, "Even when you know that [feedback is] essential to your development and you trust that the person delivering it wants you to succeed, it can activate psychological triggers. You might feel misjudged, ill-used, and sometimes threatened to your very core."
5.3. How to Deliver Critical Feedback
If we want our critical feedback to be truly useful to the recipient and not merely an exercise in self-indulgence, we owe it to our colleagues to be more thoughtful and intentional in how we deliver it. A valuable model in this context is known as "supportive confrontation," developed by David Bradford and Allan Cohen and discussed at length in their book Power Up.
5.4. Four Responses to Feedback
It's important to be open to feedback, even--and especially--when you disagree with it or find that it disconfirms prior assumptions. But being open to feedback doesn't necessarily mean that you should simply accept it. So when you receive feedback, whether it's in a formal performance review or an informal chat, here are four potential responses.
5.5. Why Some Feedback Hurts (and What to Do About It)
As with all data, feedback is comprised of both signal and noise. Even the most hurtful feedback usually incorporates some signal--valuable information that presents you with an opportunity to learn and grow, challenging though it may be. But there is almost certainly plenty of noise--unhelpful or irrelevant information that should be ignored. The key with any painful feedback is ensuring that you don't miss the signal while filtering out the noise.
FOR FURTHER READING
Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being (Linda Graham, 2013)
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler, 2002)
Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, 2000/2010
Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time (Susan Scott, 2002)
Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help (Edgar Schein, 2011)
Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (Edgar Schein, 2013)
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, 2015)
Photo by Thoroughly Reviewed via Flickr.
If feedback isn't a gift, what is it? It's data. About our impact on a particular individual at a particular point in time. And while it may be "true" in the sense that the feedback-giver is accurately representing their perspective, that doesn't make it The Truth. Because feedback always says as much about the giver as the recipient. It's filtered through their reality-distortion fields, reflecting their personal values and priorities. [1]
It's important to be open to feedback, even--and especially--when you disagree with it or find that it disconfirms prior assumptions. But being open to feedback doesn't necessarily mean that you should simply accept it. So when you receive feedback, whether it's in a formal performance review or an informal chat, here are four potential responses:
1. Express appreciation for the positive. We almost always overlook positive feedback and focus immediately on the negative. This is an understandable response--negative feedback has the potential to pose a threat, which makes it likely to generate a strong emotional response and capture our attention. [2] But this is a missed opportunity to acknowledge the full range of feedback you've received and make the conversation more productive for all parties. So be sure to pause, acknowledge any positive feedback, and articulate what you'll continue to do (or do even more of) as a result.
It's harder to determine how to respond to negative feedback, but you don't need to agree with it all or treat it like a set of obligatory duties. That's a sure path to overwhelm and resentment. But it's essential to avoid responding defensively or to reject it out of hand. [3] Instead, recognize that every piece of negative feedback contains a request for change and that all change carries a cost. With that as a guideline, you can distinguish among the following:
2. Easy changes you're happy to make. At least some of the negative feedback likely involves certain behaviors or aspects of your working style that you're not attached to and can modify without undue effort. Remind the feedback giver that we all have blind spots, and they don't need to wait for a formal process to give you similar feedback in the future.
3. Hard changes you're willing to attempt. There's probably also some negative feedback on behaviors or aspects of your style that feel more deeply rooted or will be more difficult to change. Invite the feedback giver to partner with you in this process, by offering help, support and understanding, and possibly by taking some responsibility for their contributions to the issue.
4. Changes that will be too difficult or costly to undertake. By no means should you feel compelled to accede to all of the negative feedback you receive. Some of the changes your feedback giver is asking for will either impose an intolerable burden on you or will prevent you from accomplishing your goals. But bear in mind that they're requesting these changes because these behaviors or aspects of your style are imposing a cost on them. You need not grant their request or agree with their point of view, but you can empathize with it.
In addition, note that it may be useful to respond to feedback not only one-on-one, but also in larger groups, particularly if you're a leader and the feedback is derived from multiple employees and other stakeholders:
This is a companion piece to the following:
Adapted from Your 360 Report Is Ready.
Footnotes
[2] Why You Can't Stop Thinking About Something
[3] Defensiveness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
[4] Risk Management (The Importance of Speaking Up)
[5] How to Deliver Critical Feedback
[6] Building a Feedback-Rich Culture
Photo by Nicolas Vigier.
For the GSB's Class of 2019, particularly the 108 members who I was privileged to have as students in The Art of Self-Coaching, but hopefully relevant to anyone who's obtained a competitive graduate degree in pursuit of your professional goals.
Having worked with over 1,000 MBA students during my career at Stanford's Graduate School of Business [1], I've had countless conversations about reunions, and I've concluded that the fifth is the hardest. Why? Because during business school you were artificially compressed into the uniform identity of "student," and this often yields a set of unrealistic expectations about subsequent life paths. And a few years after graduation differences in professional accomplishments become more visible, resulting in a heightened sense of social comparison. [2] The bad news is that this can be a significant source of stress and anxiety at a fifth reunion--but there's good news, too, over the long run.
The shared identity of "student" can become all-encompassing, particularly at a place like the GSB where you not only invested countless hours in group projects and interactive coursework, but also likely spent a great deal of social time together. As a result you may well have perceived yourself as a member of an egalitarian cohort. The GSB enhanced this perception by the school's de-emphasis of intra-class competition for grades. As a faculty member I generally appreciated this aspect of their policies. The primary guideline was that the average grade for all students in a section could not exceed a certain quantitative standard, which prevented grade inflation.
Further, although the members of the top ten percent of your class were designated as Arjay Miller Scholars, and some selective firms made it a priority to hire "Arjays," most prospective employers weren't particularly interested in business school grades, only the fact that you attended a program like the GSB. All of this made it less likely that you and your classmates viewed each other as rivals, which fostered a sense of openness and collegiality in the classroom. But a downside was a degree of obfuscation about the real differences in students' relative capabilities and performance.
Once you left graduate school and returned to the working world these artificial constraints were removed, and as early-career MBAs you began to experience an increasingly divergent range of professional outcomes. Almost all of you enjoy an extremely high standard of living relative to the population at large, but that's not how social comparison works, particularly among ambitious and competitive people. Humans measure ourselves against a comparison set consisting of people we view as similar to us, and how we stack up against others who aren't members of that group isn't all that salient.
I'm certainly not suggesting that our professional accomplishments should determine our sense of self-worth, nor is there a sharply defined and well-understood relationship between, for example, material wealth and well-being. [3] But our predisposition to rely on markers of career success as a source of social status is an impulse with deep roots in evolutionary psychology that can't simply be wished away because we find it problematic. As I've written before,
While our social orientation is critical in enabling our success as a species, it also poses a substantial challenge for each of us as individuals. We must navigate in-group competition, which becomes even fiercer in larger groups. We're hyper-aware of our relative social status and our shifting position within group hierarchies. And in order to accomplish these tasks effectively we're constantly scanning our interpersonal environment for potential threats and opportunities, which necessarily involves comparing ourselves to others--as UC Riverside psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky writes in The Myths of Happiness, "Most of the time, it's impossible not to compare ourselves with others... Social comparisons arise naturally, automatically, and effortlessly." [4]
Changes in relative status as a function of professional accomplishments take some time to emerge, so these distinctions were probably less evident at your first reunion, when you and your classmates may have largely related to each other merely as former students. But in the years since graduation the effects of different professional paths have likely become much more pronounced. Some of this divergence is a function of your individual talent and effort, and some is a function of your industry and your organization. And much is a function of random chance, which is something we hate to admit to ourselves. [5]
I've talked with many GSB alumni who observed this shift in the social dynamic at their fifth reunion and found it challenging. Some felt awkward about the success they had achieved, while many felt the opposite, that they were failing to measure up to expectations somehow. What makes it worse, of course, is the pervasive sense that none of this can be discussed or even acknowledged. Here the GSB's idealistic vision of an egalitarian cohort finds itself severely tested by the realities of intra-elite competition.
As I noted above, there's bad news and good news. First, some more bad news: Intra-elite competition never ends. The status games available to you are infinite, should you have the good fortune--and the desire--to continue playing. When you were accepted into the GSB, you undoubtedly felt that you had "made it," and you enjoyed the status and exclusivity that differentiated you from your then-peers, some of whom may well have been bitterly disappointed by their rejection. And for a while membership in your GSB class was all that was needed to maintain that status. Five years after graduation, that's no longer sufficient, and the inevitability of social comparison and the corresponding need for status distinctions will be keenly felt--although hard to describe with much precision--at your fifth reunion.
But here's the good news: Somewhere between the fifth and tenth reunion, something changes for most people. The status games won't end--they're truly infinite, and some people will feel compelled to keep score as long as they live. And most of us continue to play in one way or another, if only because the prizes are so tempting--but even as we do, we realize how much more there is to life beyond these status games, and that they truly are games, no different from those played by children.
The causes of this shift in perspective vary widely. Some people achieve a lifelong dream, like financial freedom or fame in their field, and find that the sense of fulfillment is far more fleeting than they expected. Some people find professional accomplishments less meaningful in contrast with their experience as parents or caregivers. Some people suffer great setbacks or health problems that lead them to feel a renewed sense of gratitude for existence. Whatever the cause, the alumni I've talked to who felt uneasy or distressed at their fifth reunion uniformly felt much lighter at their tenth. They felt less competitive with their classmates and more connected--not necessarily with everyone, but with the people who mattered most to them.
I'll close with some recent remarks inspired by my work with clients, who must also decide whether and how to play the various status games available to them, and what really matters to them in this life, even as they pursue tremendously ambitious professional goals:
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that you give up your ambitions or settle for achievements that feel insubstantial. Winning offers many benefits over losing, and I want you (and my clients) to win, by any definition you choose. But in the process you're going to have to face a fundamental reality: The more you win, the higher you climb, the tougher the competition. If your definition of "winning" rests upon your ability to obtain "more" than the people around you in order to feel "ahead," you will eventually, inevitably lose.
I'm also not suggesting that you should opt out of conventional competitions and live like a monk--my clients haven't done so, nor have I. And yet it's important to recognize that the yardsticks most readily available to assess your accomplishments--net worth, job title, social prominence, where you live--serve many valid purposes, but they do not, and cannot, measure your sense of meaning and purpose, the depth of your relationships, the feeling of a life well-lived. [6]
Footnotes
[1] Thank You, Stanford, and Goodbye!
[2] For more on social comparison, see the following:
[3] For more on well-being and happiness, see the following:
[6] Learning How to Fall Behind
Photo by Gerry Dulay
My clients often have one or more superpowers. They may be charismatic leaders who readily inspire confidence. Or they may be gifted storytellers who convey a compelling vision of the future. Or they may discern patterns in technical or financial data that escape most people. Or their laser-focus and eye for detail may enable them to catch even the slightest error. Or they may have a seemingly endless capacity for work. The list goes on.
These superpowers have been important factors in my clients' success, and in some cases even form an integral aspect of their identity. But despite the benefits a superpower can confer, they almost always have a shadow side. We see this in most superhero stories--their fatal flaws are invariably intertwined with their incredible gifts. In practical terms a superpower's shadow side can take several forms:
Hubris
One of the earliest "superheros" was Achilles, the greatest warrior among the Greek forces in the Trojan War. According to legend his mother dipped him in the River Styx as an infant, seemingly rendering him impervious to injury. But she held him by his heel, which never touched the mystical waters. Years later, as the Greeks were about to claim victory in Troy, in large part due to Achilles' heroic efforts, he was slain by an arrow that found his one vulnerability. [1]
Today an "Achilles' Heel" might refer to any number of potential flaws or shortcomings, but in all cases there's a degree of hubris that increases the risks they pose. Management consultant and researcher Graham Robinson has studied hubris in business and political leaders and has concluded that it involves "arrogance, unmerited self-belief and self-confidence, an unwillingness to seek or listen to advice, and a readiness to enter domains that are 'the reserve of the Gods,' suggesting a loss of touch with reality." [2]
The antidote to hubris is humility, of course, but that quality becomes harder to obtain the more it's needed. By the time we've fallen victim to our own hubris, it's too late. An important source of humility to cultivate early in our career and sustain over time is a relationship with a trusted ally who can keep us grounded. Robinson describes such a figure as "a mentor, an independent 'friend-at-court,' a jester, or what President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to as a 'toe-holder'--someone not afraid to tell him when he was going too far." [3]
Other sources of humility that I've seen leaders benefit from include: The study of literature and history, replete with examples of leaders blinded by hubris who paid a steep price. [4] A spiritual practice or religious faith that puts professional success and material rewards in perspective. The transcendence that can be realized through exposure to the wonders of nature and great works of art. And a heightened awareness of mortality, which reminds us of the fleeting nature of this existence and the impermanence of all our accomplishments. [5]
Blindness
Because superpowers are so effective they become the tools we reach for reflexively in the face of difficulties. This works under predictable conditions, but it can break down when we fail to appreciate subtle changes in the environment or are surprised by unexpected circumstances. Then, suddenly, the previously reliable intervention fails to yield the desired result or is actively counter-productive. I first heard this dynamic described years ago by Carole Robin, one of my mentors: Our weaknesses are often overused strengths. The challenge is that repeated reliance on a particular set of tools can blind us to alternatives, and we imagine that those superpowers are our only powers.
The first step toward seeing more clearly is obtaining a greater degree of self-awareness and a keener understanding of our preferences and tendencies. This requires some form of reflection, such as journaling. There's ample evidence demonstrating the value of keeping a journal [6], but in my experience most leaders dismiss the idea because it reminds them of a middle-school diary filled with daily ephemera. The point of a journal isn't to document every experience, but to take the swirling, inchoate thoughts and feelings that accompany a particularly meaningful experience and render them more concrete and therefore easier to examine and recall.
Despite the value of reflection, it's essential to gather data from other sources, most notably feedback from people we trust. We need not agree with the feedback, but there's typically something to learn from it, even (and especially) when we find it disconfirming or uncomfortable. [7] The eventual goal is consolidate our own reflections and feedback from others into a set of observations that illuminate our blind spots and invite us to get out of our comfort zones to expand our repertoire of skills. [8]
Fear
Reflexive reliance upon our superpowers can reflect a lack of perspective or imagination--it simply may not occur to us to employ other tools or to look beyond our current capabilities. But in some cases our dependence stems from fear--it's not that we can't envision other possibilities, but that we're scared to try. We may be afraid of change--psychologist and management theorist Edgar Schein described a important barrier to change as "learning anxiety," and, as I've noted before, when we're in the grip of this emotion "our identity and sense of worth are connected to our current behavior, and [we fear that] change will result in a new (and uncertain) identity or a loss of self-esteem." [9]
We may worry that acknowledging limits on our superpowers is an admission of vulnerability, which is often equated with weakness. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston's Graduate School of Social Work, and a popular author on the subject of vulnerability, offers a different perspective: "The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous... To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness... It starts to make sense that we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we've confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities." [10]
Whatever the source of our fears, overcoming them in order to grow less reliant on our superpowers will require a increased capacity for emotion regulation, and to be clear, regulation does not mean suppression. Instead, emotion regulation entails improving our ability to sense, understand, articulate and express our emotions, and we develop those skills by getting closer to our feelings, not by distancing ourselves from them. [11] This enables us to establish a different relationship with our fear, not seeking to suppress it, but no longer allowing it to dictate our choices. At that point we can begin to take some risks, and I'm reminded of some useful guidance from psychotherapist Phil Stutz:
The risk you take has a feedback effect on the unconscious. The unconscious will give you ideas and it wants you to act on them. The more courage you have when you act, the more ideas it will give you. [12]
Footnotes
[1] Achilles' heroics (and his hubris) are on full display in The Iliad, and I recommend this masterful translation by Robert Fagles. The story about his heel isn't referenced by Homer, so presumably it was a later addition to the myth.
[2] Because It’s There: Risk, Reality and the 'Hubris Black Hole', page 2 (Graham Robinson, Daedelus Trust, 2017)
[3] Ibid, page 4.
[4] Two of my favorite examples of hubris in literature are Captain Ahab in Moby Dick and Sgt. Croft in Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. The Vietnam War was an endless display of hubris by American politicians and military leaders--see Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie and David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest.
[5] For more on mortality:
[6] The Value of Journal Writing
[7] For more on feedback:
[8] Conscious Competence in Practice
[10] Daring Greatly, pages 33-35 (Brené Brown, 2012)
[11] For more on emotion regulation:
[12] Hollywood Shadows: A Cure for Blocked Screenwriters (Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 2011)
Photo by John Williams.
