Ed Batista

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

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

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

1) Cognitive Training Can Lead to Behavioral Change

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

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

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

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

Dr. Beck is also interviewed in the Guide:

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

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

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

2) Experiential Learning Has a Neurological Basis

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

SharpBrains: How does learning happen?

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

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

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

3) Structured Learning Supports Peak Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4) Cognitive Training Enhances Attention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SharpBrains: Please summarize your research findings...

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

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

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

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

Crying at Work

Is it OK to cry at work?

Bret Simmons had a great post yesterday on crying in the office which prompted some further reflection.  I've had many clients, students and colleagues cry with me in my work as an executive coach, and I've cried myself, many times.  I think it's important to create a working environment and working relationships in which it's acceptable for people to acknowledge stress, frustration, grief and the wide range of other emotions that can lead to tears.  In my experience tears are almost always cathartic, and when they're expressed people feel better afterward as long as they're not stigmatized for doing so.

Bret's post critiques a video from Howdini on "How to deal with crying in the office" that Bret and I both take issue with.  An author interviewed in the video states that "work is about facts, not feelings."  That's a dangerously naive view of how we operate, even (especially) in the workplace, and the suggestion that we can (and should) simply repress any negative emotions we feel at work strikes me as outdated and unhelpful.

That said, the video features two women and seems to be aimed at women, with a reference to running mascara, and I think it's important to acknowledge that women can pay a greater price than men for crying at work, particularly in certain organizations and industries where crying is stigmatized, and especially in fields where women are underrepresented.

In my role as a coach, I typically encourage people to acknowledge and express their emotions more freely in ways that will support their goals.  I firmly believe that the ability to do so allows us to be more effective, more influential and healthier to boot.  And I'd like to support the development of a business world in which people can cry as freely as they do in my coaching practice or in my classes with graduate students.

But I also know that my clients and students need to succeed in the world as it exists today, and that includes organizations and industries where people who express emotion, particularly tears, pay a price.  So with any individual client or student, I believe that it's essential to understand the context in which they work and whether they will pay a price for expressing their emotions.  That doesn't mean they shouldn't cry, of course, but it does allow us to fully assess the implications of doing so, to weigh the costs and benefits, and to strike the right balance between (at one extreme) passive acceptance of an environment in which emotional expressions are taboo and (at the other extreme) a quixotic effort to resist a culture that's not going to change.

I'm reminded that in December 2006, the tears of former President George H. W. Bush made news.  Bush was addressing legislators and state workers at the final leadership forum convened by his son Jeb, who was soon to leave office after two terms as governor of Florida.  It was the sort of routine political function that would ordinarily be ignored by everyone except those in attendance, but Bush's tears turned it into a national story.

Bush was describing how Jeb handled his defeat in the 1994 governor's race when he broke down.   As he struggled with his emotions, he stopped speaking for a moment, and the audience burst into applause.  Jeb rushed to his father's side, as shown above, comforted him with an arm around his shoulder, and handed him a bottle of water before Bush continued.

Interviewed after the forum, Bush said, "I'm the emotional one... I don't enjoy breaking up, but when you talk about somebody you love, when you get older, you do it more."  So as a powerful figure, as someone discussing his son, and as an older person, Bush had the freedom to cry without fearing the repercussions--and hopefully his doing so made it more acceptable for those of us who lack his advantages.

On Growth and Renewal: An Update

How do we invest in our own growth and development?  What do we do to renew and revitalize ourselves?

These questions have been on my mind today.  Last April Eric Lapp sent me the photo on the left of a tree in his neighborhood that refused to die, an image that struck both of us as a powerful symbol of growth and renewal.  Eric just sent me the updated photo at right, and I'm thrilled to see it thriving--it obviously had a good growth spurt this Summer.  So what have I done over the past few months to support my own growth and renewal?

Being A Better Coach Means Getting Better Coaching

In a sense, coaches are always being coached.  Coaching is an approach to interacting with others--at its simplest, I'd say it's an awareness that I don't have "The Answer" coupled with an ability to ask thought-provoking questions--that we bring to relationships with colleagues as well as to engagements with clients.  So my discussions with the other coaches here at Stanford and with my colleagues in the larger executive coaching community often have a certain "coaching feel" to them that can be very helpful.  But despite this dynamic there's something uniquely powerful about being in a formal relationship with a coach--which is why my colleagues and I exist in the first place.

So this Summer I began working again with Mary Ann Huckabay, a coach and therapist who recently retired from the Stanford faculty.  Mary Ann not only was my prof in the GSB's "Interpersonal Dynamics" course 10 years ago (!), but she also served as my coach in my first Executive Director position after my graduation from business school.  I initially approached Mary Ann because I wanted to be better prepared to support students coping with mental illness, particularly depression, but our conversations have extended into a range of other topics related to my effectiveness as a coach, not only with students but also with my private clients.  It's been incredibly stimulating and challenging and a lot of fun, and it's certainly the best investment I've made in my own development this year.

Reading, Writing, Reflecting...and Unplugging

I spent a good amount of time in the first half of the Summer reviewing the work I've done here over the past 5 years and reflecting on the themes that emerged.  This process resulted in the creation of six Self-Coaching Guides, edited compilations of posts on the topics of Change, Communication, Happiness, Leadership, Learning and Motivation.  I didn't select these topics in advance--they seemed to grow naturally out of my writing--and further reflection led me to see them as elements in a larger framework that I'm calling an Operator's Manual for understanding and addressing our professional challenges.

It felt great to have gained this perspective on my work.  I understood myself and my approach to coaching more deeply, I felt better prepared to assist my clients and next year's students, and I had a conceptual framework to support continued thinking along these lines.  And then I really needed to take a break, which at first was easier said than done.  I worried about whether I should be more "productive" over the Summer, and I wondered whether I'd be able to get my momentum back in the Fall.  But eventually I realized that I needed to listen to the deeper voice advising me to slow down for a bit, and to let go of the anxieties that were keeping me from doing it.

So in the second half of the Summer, I did a little professional reading--but I read a lot more John O'Hara (my current fave.)  Aside from my work with my coach, I had some very rewarding conversations with colleagues--but I spent a lot more time just hanging out with Amy, enjoying her company.  I'm looking forward to reading more deeply and writing more frequently again, but simply unplugging for a while has been very invigorating and a great investment in my long-term growth.

The Continued Pursuit of Happiness

Although I dialed back my work here a bit, I've stayed very active in a number of ways, in keeping with the happiness strategies I adopted last Winter: "Taking Care of Your Body," "Increasing Flow Experiences," "Practicing Acts of Kindness" and "Expressing Gratitude."  I've certainly been physically active, exercising 70 days in June, July and August.  (I've also eaten quite well this Summer, so all that activity hasn't translated into a slimmer profile.)  And I've maintained a keen sense of gratitude over the past few months--grateful for the most important people in my life, grateful for the wisdom of David Foster Wallace, grateful even for just a little perspective on a bad day.

I haven't been as successful at cultivating (non-athletic) flow experiences, or at performing (non-trivial) acts of kindness, so I have plenty of room for improvement.  But given that I was somewhat down and frustrated a few weeks ago, I feel that my commitment to these practices has helped me develop a more resilient, deeper happiness that allows me to bounce back more readily--and that feels like an important area of growth.

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None of this is to say that I feel a sense of complacency about myself or my development--I'm acutely aware of my shortcomings as a person, a husband, a coach, a friend.  But that awareness of my shortcomings is, in part, what's inspired my focus on growth and renewal.  And it's because I know that I can do better, in so many ways, that it's so gratifying to look back over the past few months and think, "Hey, not bad!"

Which brings me back to the questions I asked above, and I pose them to you:

How are you investing in your own growth and development?  What are you doing to renew and revitalize yourself?

A Long Weekend in Point Reyes

I've made a concerted effort this past month to unplug, disconnect and de-blog.  (Hey, I've barely even tweeted.)  I haven't been idle, but I've given myself plenty of leeway to just do whatever I felt like doing--which has included a lot of exercise but not much writing.

As part of that strategy, Amy and I just spent a long weekend in Point Reyes.  It wasn't exactly restful--I returned to SF slightly worse for wear, having pushed it a little too hard on the trails and at the dinner table.  (Yes, you can eat too much Marin Sun Farms steak.)  But it was still deeply satisfying to be there, exploring new corners while returning to some old haunts.

One change from past trips was staying in a cottage right on Tomales Bay.  The distant hill lit by the setting sun above is Barnabe Peak, which I climbed 3 years ago.

This was the first time we've been all the way out to Limantour Beach--the point at the far left in the background is Chimney Rock.  Layers of "monsoonal moisture" resulted in some unusually dramatic clouds rather than the typical Summer fog (for a night, at least.)

We didn't make it to the end of the 3.5 mile Limantour Spit, but we got far enough to look across the estero at Drake's Head (on the right).  That's the hill we climbed in June, the end of an amazing, desolate ranchland hike.

Tule Elk on Tomales Point, with Mt. Saint Helena in the background.  These two males are from the "bachelors herd," a somewhat sad group of adolescent and declining males who've been ousted from the main herd by the dominant male (whose reign can last just a single mating season, apparently.)

The tip of Tomales Point, draped with sea lions and cormorants.

The walkway behind our cottage, leading out into Tomales Bay.  At the end you can just make out a loveseat where we enjoyed a warm and starry evening under the monsoonal moisture before the fog rolled in.

A final, solitary view from Limantour Beach.  I've said it before: Thank you, Phil Burton.

I suspect the urge to write'll return once Summer's over and classes at Stanford have begun.  See you here again soon.

Bad Leader! Stifling Dissent

In short order Bret Simmons of the University of Nevada, Reno, has become one of my favorite thinkers on management; he's in Bob Sutton's class as an academic who clearly gets the web, and his blog is a lively and informative read.

Today Bret has a great post on how bad leaders stifle dissent:

1) Your people never see you say no.  You never disagree or challenge the people you work for, so your people never learn from you how to do this with purpose.  You send the very clear message that “no” is not acceptable around here.

2) People that have told you no are gone.  You have systematically removed from your inner circle everyone that disagreed or challenged your policies and decisions.  But that’s ok, because everyone knows they were not team players, or were disloyal or disrespectful.  This is the rhetoric of conformity and exclusion.

I'd add a third behavior to this list: Failing to accept differences of opinion and pushing beyond a reasonable point to obtain uniform public agreement.  Your people don't feel free to voice disagreement because you hound them until they change their mind (or at least that's what they appear to be doing.)

There will always be times when leaders need to override their team members--and making that decision wisely is a key element of effective leadership.  When a leader makes that choice, it's usually advisable to devote some time to discussion to see if common ground can be found and/or to persuade the team.

But if common ground can't be found, and persuasion's not effective, and the leader still believes that overriding the team is the right way to go, they need to accept their team's right to disagree and trust that the team can still deliver on their mandate.  Pushing further to extract (superficial) agreement demonstrates a lack of trust (in them and in your own authority), leads to intractable arguments and/or hypocrisy, and insures that you'll hear fewer honest opinions in the future.

(And if you don't recognize Humprey Bogart as Captain Queeg, get The Caine Mutiny on your Netflix queue ASAP.)

Happy Birthday To Me

I'm 42 today.  Yay me!  As I wrote in March, 42 is "too young to feel truly old, but old enough to no longer feel young."  Forty was just a number--I really didn't feel much different as a result.  But 41 was a quite a bit heavier because Amy and I lost several family members that year, and that process has continued this year, leading to thoughts about mortality while laid up or caring for Amy after surgery.

Andy Chan, the former Director of Stanford's Career Management Center, once provided me with a great framework for thinking about where we are in a given journey or experience by asking, "Are you in the first half or the second half?"  And it's safe to assume that I'm in the second half of this existence.  (Although hopefully it's still the third quarter.)

As a result of my reflections over the past few months, I'm comfortable with this.  Being sick and helping Amy recover made me realize how little I know about aging and infirmity, but, paradoxically, learning how unprepared I truly am has helped me prepare.  Funny how growing old (up?) works that way.

So a sense of my mortality doesn't leave me feeling gloomy--but it does cause me to take stock, to look around and assess where I am and what I'm doing.  And last night I wrote to a friend that "I've been feeling down lately, wondering whether I'm making enough of a difference, feeling a little frustrated and envious as I get glimpses down other paths."

This is largely a result of the absence of our students over the Summer, those from the Class of 2009, who have graduated and left the GSB behind, and those from the Class of 2010, who are in the midst of their internships all over the world.  I have more time to see private coaching clients when classes aren't in session, but on balance I spend less time coaching and more time on administrative work and other projects at Stanford over the Summer.  Coaching is my vocation, it sustains and feeds me--but the rest is just stuff that needs to get done.  It's not drudgery, but it's not my passion, either.

So knowing that expressing gratitude is one of the keys to my happiness, I've been reflecting on what I'm grateful for, what I appreciate--which is to say who I'm grateful for, who I appreciate:

• Amy, first and always.  I'm so grateful for the chance that brought us together and all the hard work we've put in over the last 23 years to stay together.  More than anything else, my love for you and your love for me give my life meaning and purpose.
• My Mom and Dad.  In some ways I was a really easy kid to raise; in other ways I know I was unbelievably difficult.  Thank you for putting up with me through the difficulties.  I don't tell you enough how much I love and appreciate you.
• My brothers David and Matthew.  See above--in some ways I think I've been a pretty good older brother; in other ways I know I could do better.  Time with you is one of the rarest treasures in my life, and I wish there was more of it.
• My friends.  The friend I mentioned above emailed me just to say how much she was appreciating my writing here, which was incredibly powerful and uplifting to hear.  I have a lot of people in my life like that, and I am truly lucky to call you my friends.
• My clients and students.  Second only to my marriage, my work with you fulfills me and gives me a purpose in life.  I'm deeply grateful for every opportunity to talk with you, to share your challenges and your joys, to be a part of your journey.  Thank you.
• All the little moments that remind me what a privilege it is to be here, like the one captured above, atop Drake's Head in Point Reyes with Amy in June.  Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.  That's me.

On Being Noticed And NOT Being Crushed

I recently heard Walter Mosley interviewed on NPR, and one of his comments jumped out at me:

People are very small in the modern world.  We could get crushed, and no one would notice.

Certain aspects of modern life--such as the ability to have a voice in a global network--make me feel a lot "larger" and more noticeable as an individual.  (I blog, therefore I am?)  But the global nature of this network also threatens to overwhelm me--I can feel lost in its vastness.

And I'm recognized by modern institutions--as a citizen, say, or as a customer--in ways that weren't possible in earlier eras.  But, of course, the increasingly massive size of those same institutions can make me feel quite small and insignificant.  How much do I really matter to them?  (Customer service, anyone?)

So even as the modern world empowers us, it undermines that empowerment.  We still have to strive to be heard, to assert our existence, to say that we do matter.  And we still have to struggle to protect ourselves, to insure that we are noticed, to avoid being crushed.

Helping people achieve these goals is actually at the heart of what I do as a coach.  Finding meaning in our work and being as effective as possible in our chosen field is one of the most powerful ways to discover and express our identities, to be heard, to be noticed.  And balancing professional success with personal fulfillment may be the only way to survive the modern world intact, to not be crushed.

Photo by Mark Coggins.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

What Are You Paying Attention To?

What's your most valuable resource?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by hellosputnik.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Teaching Leadership with Stanford's Leadership Fellows

Can leadership be taught?  More specifically, can it be taught by peers?  (And what does William James have to do with it?)

At Stanford I work closely with the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program, in which a cadre of second-year students leads the first-year class through a series of small-group workshops known as the Leadership Labs.  Both the Leadership Fellows program and the Leadership Labs themselves are examples of experiential learning, where conceptual theories provide a frame for hands-on, face-to-face activities.

Last year I did some thinking about experiential learning after reading Robert Richardson's William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism:

In the book's penultimate chapter, Richardson quotes from James's Some Problems of Philosophy:

The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substituting a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.

The profound meaning of this quote for me is rooted in the fact that my work hinges upon the unique ability of experiential learning to expand both our self-awareness and our behavioral repertoire, and (by extension) upon the inability of conventional modes of instruction to achieve the same results.  Richardson continues:

For this aspect of his later thinking, James has been called anti-intellectual.  A better description of his real position would be anti-abstraction; best would be to recognize it as the culmination of a lifelong protest on behalf of experience.  This is not a new position for James, of course.  It is the same clear opposition to Plato, who denigrates perceptual knowledge as mere sense impressions, and contrasts them with ideas, which are true and eternal.  Jame's life work had been to reverse this polarity, to answer Plato...

[But the Platonic] model is much less useful in a field where there are few (if any) universal truths, which is the case in my areas of expertise: executive coaching, leadership development and group facilitation.  I can't tell anyone anything and have confidence that real learning will occur.  I can disclose my own sense-impressions, but the choice to view them as relevant and meaningful remains in the hands of the learner.  Ultimately all I can do as an instructor is act on hunches, ask questions, and make observations, and hope they register with the learner as lasting sense-impressions and that the learner infuses them with meaning.  And that meaning must be created out of their own, personal experiences as a leader or in a group.

So back to the question at hand: Can students teach leadership to their peers?  Absolutely--but I'd highlight 3 important issues:

1) Leadership Is Learned, Not Taught

Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and currently a professor of management at Harvard Business School, has said:

I don't think you can teach leadership, I think you can learn about it.  I think you can learn about yourself.  It comes from within, from who are you inside and what makes you tick, and what are those tapes playing in your head about what you want to be and what your limitations are...

What we can do [in leadership development classes] is cause people to come together and learn about themselves through dialogue... You learn about who you are, and if you go inside yourself, you find out, "What are my passions?"...

Do you seek out honest feedback from people about who you are?  The hardest thing we have to do is see ourselves as others see us.  And do you gain that self-awareness?  Some people think they have it, but they've never really tested themselves, and that is crucial.

This is exactly what we seek to do with the Leadership Fellows, and what we train them to do with their peers: Provide experiences that will allow them to understand themselves better--their strengths, their passions and their limitations--and engage in discussions that will expand their self-awareness through candid feedback.

2) Peers Are Guides and Facilitators, Not Teachers

If leadership is learned rather than taught, then it stands to reason that our Leadership Fellows aren't teaching, even though their students are learning.  The Fellows do present some conceptual material to their peers to frame the exercises in the Labs, on topics such as active listening, emotional intelligence, or the stages of group development.

But the real value provided by the Fellows in the leadership development process comes not from their mastery of abstract concepts but from their ability to guide a small group of their peers through a series of experiences, ranging from highly structured exercises to open-ended role-plays based on business scenarios, and to facilitate discussions in which the participants get candid feedback on their effectiveness and reflect on their performance.

Having a highly differentiated authority figure--i.e. a teacher--leading an experiential learning process can actually inhibit learning, because the students will aim for the "right" answer and seek to win the teacher's approval, which can distort their authentic reactions to the experience.  But there's rarely (if ever) one right answer when it comes to effective leadership, and if students aren't acting authentically in an experiential process, whatever they learn isn't going to stick.  In contrast, a peer guide/facilitator, like one of our Leadership Fellows, has just enough authority and expertise to provide some structure, but not so much that it distorts their peers' response.

3) Leadership Is Everywhere, Not Just at the Top

Leadership isn't derived from titles or status, and being in a leadership position doesn't automatically make you a leader.  (You may be able to use positional power to enforce your will, but I wouldn't call that leading.)  Conversely, the lack of a formal position doesn't mean you lack opportunities to lead.  Organizations need leaders at every level, not merely among the ranks of senior management.  (David Bradford has noted that the idea of "middle management" gets all the attention when "middle leadership" is arguably far more important--although not as catchy.)

Our Leadership Fellows exemplify this type of "middle leadership"--they're in a differentiated role, and at the beginning of the Labs they have some authority on the basis of that role, but within a few weeks that differentiation erodes and their students come to see them more as peers than as authority figures.  So their ability to lead rests not on their positional power but on their success at motivating and influencing--in other words, actual leadership.

And I'd argue that the experience of having a peer as a leader and seeing "middle leadership" in action may be one of the most important aspects of the Leadership Labs--because our first-year students realize that even in the relative absence of positional power, even when you don't have years of experience, you can still be a leader.  Are all our Fellows equally successful at this?  No, and that's why experienced coaches like me are here--to be a backstop, a safety net, to help them through the rough spots.  Can the program be improved?  Yes, and that's something we focus on every year.  But I'm confident that every one of the Fellows I've worked with personally over the past 3 years has helped his or her students develop their leadership potential in some new and unexpected ways.

Photo of William James by Psychology Pictures.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Holly Ross is Awesome: The Nonprofit Times Top 50

Holly Ross, the Executive Director of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) is one of the smartest, most caring, and most genuine people I know.  She's the definition of a community leader.  But she's also one of the most self-effacing people I know, quick to deflect attention from her accomplishments and to credit her peers and colleagues, and at times I don't think she's gotten the recognition she truly deserves.

Not anymore.  This week Holly was listed among the Nonprofit Times Power & Influence Top 50, along with 49 other key leaders from the nonprofit sector, and it's hard to keep a low profile when you're standing next to people like Bill Gates and Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America.

As the first Executive Director of NTEN, I had the privilege of working alongside Holly for 4 years, first as a leading community member and a consultant and then as the second member of our staff.  I'm really proud of what we accomplished as an organization, but one of my most lasting memories of that experience is simply how rewarding it was to work with Holly.  And knowing how rarely she takes credit for her talents, it's particularly meaningful to me to see them recognized by the NP Times.

Kudos, Holly!  It couldn't have happened to a nicer person--or a better leader.