Ed Batista

Comfort Struggle

I recently bought these smiley-face stickers, which are produced by a company called Teacher Created Resources, and this message on the back of the package caught my attention:

Imagine the great things you can do with these fantastic stickers!

Reward Success!

Encourage Progress!

Notice Accomplishment!

Restore Confidence!

Compliment Effort!

Decorate Completion!

Recognize Good Conduct!

Observe Exellence!

Honor Attempt!

Comfort Struggle!

While it's slightly exhausting to read--so many! exclamation points!--I also find it inspiring.  I'm reminded of the many wonderful teachers I've had, and I recall with gratitude the many ways in which they expressed not only their commitment to my learning but also their investment in me as a person.  I hope I have a similar impact on my own clients and students, and while I trust in my abilities as a coach, I'm also prompted to wonder how I could do an even better job.  It's important to me to go the extra mile, just like a teacher who might pay for these stickers out of their own pocket to augment their limited classroom supplies.

Finally, I see a clear parallel between the impact of a smiley face sticker on a child and the many small ways in which we can convey our support and caring to each other as adults.  Research shows that activities such as expressing gratitude or practicing acts of kindness have a surprisingly large impact on our happiness.  This research reinforces what I see in my work as a coach every day--the little things really do matter, and it's important to look for and step into opportunities to encourage progress, restore confidence, comfort struggle.

The Meaning of Mindset

Yesterday's post on setbacks and mindset (as well as last month's post on mental models) resulted in some further thoughts on just what we mean by "mindset," and I've provisionally arrived at the four definitions below.  By no means are they mutually exclusive, and the overlap is intentional; each definition simply provides another way of looking at and making effective use of the central concept.

1) As I mentioned yesterday, mindset refers to the overarching idea that what we think--and particularly what we think about ourselves--influences how we perceive the world around us and how we experience that world.  Our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions shape our reality.  A perfect example of this is the placebo effect; quoting again from yesterday's post, recent research has shown that "A particular mind-set or belief about one's body or health may lead to improvements in disease symptoms as well as changes in appetite, brain chemicals and even vision..." 

2) A second definition of mindset is the process of understanding cognitive biases and principles of neuroscience in order to leverage them and turn them to our advantage, rather than be buffeted about by them.  Yesterday I wrote about a cognitive bias called the "fundamental attribution error"--ascribing causality to personal characteristics when causality actually lies with the situation--and how awareness of this bias and its impact on our mindset can allow us to cope more effectively with setbacks.  I've also written about other heuristics that can lead us astray, such as availability bias--"the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant examples come to mind"--and affective errors--"the tendency to make decisions based on what we wish were true."  Recent research on neuroscience and brain function provides additional insights into why we act the way we do, and one of the best examples is David Rock's SCARF model, which "captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations."

3) On a more personal level, a third definition of mindset is an awareness of our existing mental models, beliefs and assumptions, many of which are the result of past learning experiences and which may not have been re-examined or updated in the interim.  Such awareness allows us to see how these concepts influence our actions and, if we choose, to update them to reflect our current circumstances and subsequent learning.  In turn, this process allows us to make different choices based on more recent information and better suited to current circumstances.  Last month I discussed the impact of my self-image as a public speaker: "I had trapped myself in my own mental model: believing I was a poor speaker led me to avoid speaking opportunities, which prevented me from ever improving.  Today I still get nervous before a speech or presentation, but I view that response simply as a manifestation of my desire to do well, not as damning evidence of my ineffectiveness."

4) Finally, a very specific and highly useful definition of mindset is the idea at the heart of the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who sees a pivotal distinction between a "growth" mindset and a "fixed" mindset.  As I noted yesterday in a citation from Dweck's website:

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

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

As I noted above, these definitions are intentionally overlapping; I'm not seeking to distinguish them as entirely separate concepts but rather trying to get sufficient clarity on the threads and themes woven into the concept of "mindset" in order to make use of all of them more effectively.

Photo by Alex Valli.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Setbacks, Mindset and the Fundamental Attribution Error

Thinking about some recent personal and professional setbacks--both mine and others'--has led me to reflect on the intersection of two topics that often come up in my coaching practice: mindset and the fundamental attribution error.

By "mindset" I'm referring to the tremendous power exerted by our beliefs, assumptions and mental models.  What we think--and particularly what we think about ourselves--exerts tremendous influence over how we perceive the world around us and how we experience that world.  To take just one example, recent research on the placebo effect has shown that "A particular mind-set or belief about one's body or health may lead to improvements in disease symptoms as well as changes in appetite, brain chemicals and even vision..."  (Of particular importance is the ability of positive expectations and conditioning to create an openness to change.)

The concept of a "fixed mindset" vs. a "growth mindset" is at the heart of the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck:

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

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

Having a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset can have a profound impact on how we cope with setbacks and mistakes.  In a recent post on Learning from Mistakes I cited a reference by science writer Jonah Lehrer to Dweck's research:

[P]eople with a fixed mindset see mistakes as a dismal failure--a sign that we aren't talented enough for the task in question--[while] those with a growth mindset see mistakes as an essential precursor of knowledge, the engine of education...

But while I believe firmly in this research and can attest to the power of mindset both in my own life and in the lives of my clients and students, I'm not suggesting that the biggest challenges we face can be resolved merely by adopting a "positive attitude," or that our mindsets are at fault when we struggle.

And this is where the second concept I've been reflecting on comes in--the "fundamental attribution error" is a common cognitive bias originally named by Stanford psychologist Lee Ross.  It was taught to me in business school (by the outstanding Roberto Fernandez) as:

Ascribing causality to personal characteristics when causality actually lies with the situation.

As I've written before, "We see it at work most clearly with high-profile, archetypal leaders--presidents, CEOs, coaches, quarterbacks--who are hailed as geniuses when their organizations accomplish their goals and derided as bums when their organizations stumble."  But it's at play in our own daily lives as well.  While we surely bear some responsibility for our failure in almost all cases, it's inaccurate to put the blame solely on our shoulders while ignoring the context (interpersonal, organizational, cultural) in which it occurred.

I think the intersection of mindset and the fundamental attribution error is critical when it comes to how we deal with setbacks.  The same cognitive bias that leads us to ignore our good fortune and take more credit than we should when we succeed also leads us to ignore those situational factors that contribute to our failures.  Our ignorance of the fundamental attribution error (or our reluctance to apply it to our own lives) can cause us to see setbacks as solely our responsibility, feeding into a negative mindset and making it more difficult to recover.

I realize there's a slippery slope here that could easily be abused by the unscrupulous and irresponsible.  By no means am I suggesting that we avoid holding ourselves accountable.  But it's significant to me that the research by Michigan State's Jason Moser on learning from mistakes cited by Lehrer suggests that those who learn best from mistakes spend a substantially higher amount of time and energy focusing on and reviewing what they did wrong in order to learn from it.  They don't shirk responsibility or fail to hold themselves accountable--just the opposite.

I believe that the judicious application of the fundamental attribution error can give us a fuller, more accurate perspective on our setbacks, which can have a meaningful impact on our mindset.  If we're able to clearly distinguish between those factors that are truly our responsibility and within our control to change, and any situational factors--or even just bad luck--that we have no control over, we'll be able to focus our energies where they'll be most useful and to maintain a mindset that will support recovery, learning and growth.

Photo by dfinnecy.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Coaching Is A Journey

Recent reflections on bad coaching have prompted some further thoughts on good coaching, and I find myself returning to the metaphor of coaching as a journey at sea, a concept I first discussed last year after the loss of Roanak Desai, one of my students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  Although I'm a confirmed landlubber and don't enjoy the literal experience of being out on a small craft, it's a compelling metaphor for several reasons:

It's Not My Boat

Coaching inevitably involves helping a client reach a destination, and as a coach it can be easy to fall prey to the illusion that it's my boat, I've invited the client on board, and after we've reached our destination they'll step ashore.  But that gets things exactly backwards: it's the client's boat, they've invited me on board, and after our work is done I'll go ashore while they continue on to the next leg of the voyage.

This framing helps me view both the coaching relationship and my role in it from the most useful perspective.  I'm no mere passenger along for the ride, but I'm not the captain or even the navigator.  I don't choose the destination or chart the course--that's up to the client.  I do ask a lot of questions on those topics and occasionally offer advice and feedback, but responsibility for decision-making rests firmly in the client's hands.

Tradewinds and Currents

The tradewinds and currents that surround us make it easier to follow certain courses, and knowing where they lead allows us to make informed decisions about whether to follow or resist them.  This is particularly important at sea, where there are no predetermined routes and we must ultimately select a course to make progress--unless we decide to drift along, which is also a valid option.

This dynamic exists both within a single coaching conversation and over the arc of the coaching relationship.  The client and I both bring to the process a set of experiences and preferences that will influence our choices.  In addition, our work is taking place within the context of our respective professional and personal lives, which will further influence our shared experience.  Everything in a coaching relationship is affected by these factors, from the issues a client seeks to address to our responses in any given moment.  The more we know about these factors, the better we'll be able to understand their effect on the coaching process and harness them to further our progress rather than be driven off course.

Deeper Waters

All journeys begin in the shallow confines of a safe harbor, and some are destined to skirt the coast, staying within sight of the shore and never going too far out to sea.  This is fine if we don't have far to go, or if we're content to take a long time to get there.  But in some cases we need to venture out over deeper waters, which ultimately requires taking some risks.

Like all relationships, coaching relationships are built on a foundation of safety and trust.  A client can feel vulnerable simply sitting down with me, particularly if they haven't worked with a coach before, and this can be true even with my students at Stanford, where coaching is commonplace.  As a coach I have to attune myself to the client's perspective and earn their trust, and this is a highly variable process.  A certain level of trust is established within minutes, but it may take days, weeks or even months to progress to deeper levels.

While safety and trust are being established, coaching conversations will proceed in ways that involve less risk for both the client and myself, and this is both natural and desirable--we're just starting our journey together.  Only after we feel a sufficient sense of safety and trust can we venture into discussions that are more emotionally intimate or touch on more challenging topics.  As a coach it's important to avoid steering for these deeper waters to prove my effectiveness--that's a form of bad coaching--but it's equally important to help the client feel safe enough to travel them with me and to let them know that we can go there when and if they choose.

Photo by Jule Berlin.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Please Don't Validate Me

A friend sent me a link to the 2006 short film Validation, a 16-minute parable that wraps a conventional boy-meets-girl story around a novel idea: A parking lot attendant re-interprets his job description and rather than just stamp customers' tickets he truly validates them with heartfelt positive feedback.  People respond so avidly that the line for validation stretches out of the parking lot.  The attendant embarks on a global effort to spread the love, and widespread happiness ensues...except in his own life, because he can't win over the (improbably beautiful) driver's license photographer at the local DMV.  He tries, fails, eventually succeeds.  The End.

"Validation" did make me smile, as expected, and it also made me think.  Validation is central to my work as a coach, and what the film gets right is how hungry we all are for it.  But what the film gets wrong is that, despite this hunger, validation makes most of us feel very uncomfortable.  We don't stand in line to get it--we run away from it.  These two responses are interrelated, of course: We resist validation so much precisely because we want it so badly.  The depth of that desire makes us incredibly vulnerable--so much so that we're willing to avoid any validation in order to insure that we're never embarrassed by our hunger for it or--even worse--by falling prey to inauthentic validation from manipulators or phonies.  When we say we want candid feedback, we typically expect that it's going to be hard to hear criticism--and it can be--but it can be even harder to hear (and truly acknowledge) real praise.

I belong to a group of 12 people that meets for an evening once each month.  We're all current or former facilitators in Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics class (aka "Touchy Feely"), and most of us are professionally involved in helping people grow and develop in one way or another.  We began last month's session with an exercise that involved one person volunteering, and then the rest of the group speaking up and sharing affirmative words or phrases that came to mind as we reflected on that person.  In the abstract it sounds so simple and easy as to be meaningless--but in person it was surprisingly difficult.

I found the idea stimulating, and I volunteered to go second.  And it was rewarding, at first.  People said things like "direct," "genuine," "savvy," "loving," and "loyal," and that felt great to hear.  But I soon grew so uncomfortable my palms began to sweat, and I actually felt embarrassed.  Bear in mind that I was sitting comfortably with a handful of people I know well and trust implicitly.  I honestly appreciated everything they said, and the whole process probably took less than 2 minutes.  But even in those circumstances, I almost couldn't bear to be validated; it's no wonder that we usually find the experience practically traumatic.

I don't have a pat answer to this dilemma--it's been nearly 5 years since I first wrote about The Problem with Positive Feedback, and it's still an issue I wrestle with, both personally and in my work with clients and students.  But I have learned that our refusal to accept validation, like all resistance, should invite our curiosity, not our collusion.

It's also noteworthy to me that had I asked the group to stop when I began to feel uncomfortable, I would have missed out on the most meaningful piece of feedback I got: One of the very last things someone said to describe me was "walks the talk."  I can't think of any higher praise than that, and I feel a little surge of pride just remembering it.  I also feel myself pulling back from sharing it here, as though I were boasting--but I'm not going to collude with that feeling.  I do try to walk my talk, and while I certainly don't always succeed, it means a lot to know that I succeed often enough that people take notice.

Postscript: My friend and colleague Inbal Demri-Shaham, who led the exercise described above, was thoughtful enough to write down the list of words and phrases the group shared with each person.  I brought my list home and put it up on the fridge, like a kid's report card.  And, like a kid, I felt both proud and sheepish showing it to my wife the next morning.  She enjoyed reading it, until she came to "savvy," which she mis-read as "sexy."  "Sexy?  What the hell???"

Hammering Screws (Bad Coaching)

If good coaching feels like a trip in a tandem kayak, or a belay on a tough climb or even a trapeze catch--all meaningful experiences shared with a trusted partner--then bad coaching feels like hammering screws--a solo effort on the part of the coach that can make a lot of noise but accomplishes very little.

As a coach it's been my privilege to take plenty of kayak rides with my clients and students, but over the years I've done my share of hammering screws as well, and I've realized that bad coaching typically results from underlying needs of my own, particularly a need for the client to experience progress or to achieve some sense of closure.  This may sound paradoxical.  Don't coaches want our clients to experience progress?  Isn't closure a desirable outcome of the coaching process?  Generally, yes...but there are some important caveats.

My interest in my clients' progress is usually aligned with my desire to an effective coach.  And my interest in achieving closure--whether that means resolving a particular issue or ultimately concluding the coaching relationship--usually supports both my clients' progress and, more importantly, their independence and self-sufficiency.  To be clear, while these interests primarily serve my clients' needs, they also allow me to feel a sense of fulfillment and efficacy, and I believe that having this personal stake in the coaching process actually makes me a better coach because I'm not a disinterested bystander--I care deeply about my clients, and I'm invested in their success.

But it's important for me to monitor these interests and to gauge their intensity; if I'm feeling a sense of urgency around them, it may be that my need to be seen as effective or another personal motive has kicked into overdrive, and it's masquerading as support for my client.  The telltale evidence that this dynamic is at play is my client sensing that I'm pushing a solution on them, relying on a single framework or strategy in my approach, or simply rushing toward closure before they're ready to move on.

It's worth noting that bad coaching can happen within the context of a good coaching relationship--or even in the middle of an otherwise good coaching conversation.  I've been privileged to work with people who trust me enough to tell me when we've gotten off-track, when our coaching relationship no longer feels like a true partnership.  This feedback has been essential in allowing me to understand these dynamics and to see how my legitimate needs as a person usually support my effectiveness as a coach--and occasionally get in the way of my client's needs and the coaching process.  I haven't mastered any of this (and don't expect to anytime soon), but I'm grateful for the many opportunities I've had to keep working on it.

Thanks to Cathy Carmody and Coert Visser, whose thoughtful response and thought-provoking question prompted me to dig deeper and mine a couple of tweets for some more meaningful learning.

Photo by Justin Baeder.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Corn Mazes and Mental Models

A few weeks ago a family became lost in a corn maze in Massachusetts and called 911 in a panic.  Police rushed to the scene and found them, unharmed, just 25 feet from the entrance to the maze.  A brief flurry of media coverage resulted, in which the family were generally portrayed as dimwits lacking common sense.  But mocking these people obscures the fact that we've all had similar experiences; their predicament was just an unusually literal example of being trapped by a mental model.

Many commenters wondered why the family didn't simply walk through the corn to escape the maze.  They could have easily pushed aside the cornstalks, headed for the exterior and rescued themselves.  But they didn't think they were in a cornfield; they thought they were in a maze, and while their failure to recognize the difference says something about their crisis management skills, it also says something about the power of mental models.  They couldn't simply walk through the corn, because that would involve walking through walls, and that's impossible.

We habitually view the world through a series of mental models that shape our understanding of our circumstances, our relationships and ourselves.  And while these mental models are essential tools in allowing us to navigate through life, they can easily lead us astray.  Philosopher Alford Korzybski said "A map is not the territory it represents," and a mental model is not the reality it seeks to depict.  But we can easily mistake our mental models for reality and apply them inappropriately.

We construct our mental models out of the meaning we extract from experience, and there's inevitably a loss of fidelity as we focus on certain aspects of an experience (while ignoring others), interpret that data, and then conceptualize it as a general principle.  And the gap that exists between our mental models and reality will continually increase over time unless we compel ourselves to test our assumptions, gather new data and update our models--which requires consistent effort.

A mental model I held about myself for years was that I was a poor public speaker.  I'd get nervous before a presentation or speech, I interpreted my sweaty palms and the pit in my stomach as evidence of my ineffectiveness, and my expectation that I would perform poorly became a self-fulfilling prophecy which, of course, reinforced my mental model.

But while I was getting my MBA I took a public speaking course at Stanford's School of Engineering.  The rationale for the course was that engineers are often brilliant technical thinkers whose poor communication skills prevents them from promoting their ideas more effectively, and the methodology was utterly simple: Prepare a short speech or presentation and deliver it to the class each week for ten weeks.

I quickly came to realize that it's easy to improve as a public speaker if you do it often enough, and that I had trapped myself in my own mental model: believing I was a poor speaker led me to avoid speaking opportunities, which prevented me from ever improving.  Today I still get nervous before a speech or presentation, but I view that response simply as a manifestation of my desire to do well, not as damning evidence of my ineffectiveness.  And I still make plenty of missteps as a speaker, but I view them as correctible mistakes, not as character flaws.

I don't mean to suggest that all our limitations derive from our mental models; we're surrounded by any number of real constraints that can't be altered merely by viewing them from a different perspective.  But even in those cases our mental models often amplify those constraints and make them seem more daunting and more powerful than they truly are.  And in many other aspects of life the limits we place on ourselves derive from outdated or inappropriately applied mental models.  We see solid walls instead of flimsy cornstalks, and we allow ourselves to feel trapped instead of simply walking through the corn.

Photo by Carmelo Speltino.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

High Signs

One of the more challenging--and interesting--aspects of any leadership role is sensing the group's emotional state and responding accordingly.  This can involve conveying enthusiasm to address discouragement, or expressing empathy to acknowledge sadness, or simply not snapping back in the face of anger.

But we tend to focus on negative emotions as the key signs that merit our close attention and care.  Neuroscience research confirms what we know from direct experience: we have a keen sense for others' negative emotions, which activate a whole host of physiological and mental responses that allow us to manage both ourselves and the group dynamic more effectively.  In tense or fraught situations, our focus sharpens and our reflexes quicken, allowing us to act with clarity and decisiveness.  (Of course, when a situation becomes too stressful we may experience a threat response that will undermine our effectiveness; this is one reason why our leadership development curriculum at Stanford emphasizes experiential learning in settings that can evoke meaningful but manageable levels of stress, from role-plays to T-groups.  Experimenting in these relatively low-risk environments prepares us for situations when the stakes may be higher.)

However, a potential blind spot we can experience as leaders is forgetting about this responsibility when the group's emotions are positive.  We've just had a big win, hit a major milestone, or achieved our ultimate goal; people are happy, even giddy, and everyone feels great.  What's the problem?

When things are going particularly well and people are feeling particularly good, group norms and display rules can change dramatically.  And usually this is a wonderful experience.  Groups need this relaxation of everyday constraints in the wake of a big success or at the end of a meaningful experience; it provides an outlet for the wave of positive emotions people are feeling and creates a sense of release and closure.

But it can also lead to a sense of disinhibition that's important for leaders to be aware of and, if necessary, respond to.  The modified norms and suspended display rules that can play such an important role in heartfelt, enthusiastic celebration can also result in wide range of unintended consequences.  I think of them as "high signs"--indicators that the group is going so well or has achieved such a successful outcome that people are feeling a surfeit of positive emotions, which are both essential to the meaningful celebrations we crave at such moments and yet which can also result in misunderstandings, inadvertent insults and, well, lawsuits.

Heifetz and Linsky's metaphor of the balcony and the dance floor is helpful here: if we can't join our team on the dance floor and celebrate, we'll miss out on vital opportunities to connect.  (We'll also live much duller lives.)  But if we can't simultaneously step back and see the bigger picture from the balcony, we'll miss important patterns in the group dynamic--those modified norms and suspended display rules that usually signify good times, and on rare (but memorable) occasions are hallmarks of trouble.

Photo by EAWB.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Significance Junkies

Writer and comedian Seth MacFarlane--the creator of the animated series Family Guy--was recently interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.  Here's the very last question they discussed:

Terry Gross: One more question, and I know you've been asked this a lot, but, on September 11th you were supposed to be on that plane that was supposed to fly from Boston to L.A. but instead was hijacked and flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center, and you were late, your travel agent gave you the wrong time, so you missed being on that catastrophic flight.  Do you ever think of the rest of your life as being this kind of gift, because you, you just, it could have all ended for you that day?

Seth MacFarlane: One of my favorite quotes by Carl Sagan is that we are as a species, and as a culture, we are significance junkies.  We love attaching significance to everything, even when there really is no significance and something is just a coincidence, and this is a perfect example to me of something, you know, really, in all honesty, not to sound cold, but, you know, I don't think of it that way.  I, I think of it as, you know, I'm living the same way in 2011 as I was in 1999, and the reason for that is that, you know, I had missed a lot of flights for being late, I'm a perpetually late person, you know, every flight that takes off, you gotta figure somebody's missing the flight or somebody's late, and on top of that, you know, who knows how many times a day we have similar close calls as the one that I had, you know?  I mean this morning, crossing the street, if I had crossed five minutes later I would have been hit by a car.  I, I, who knows?  So, in my case, you know, obviously the day itself was a tragedy and a disaster, but if we're just talking about my case, um, it doesn't strike me as something that I am attaching an unbelievable amount of significance to because of those reasons, because I, I've missed a bunch of flights.

In 1997 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan co-authored The Demon-Haunted World, a "passionate plea for scientific literacy," according to Publishers Weekly, and one of the book's last chapters, titled "Significance Junkies," addresses the many ways in which we misinterpret statistics and willfully substitute magical thinking for clear-headed understanding.  One example they cite is the common attribution of "hot" and "cold" streaks and other aspects of athletic performance to quasi-mystical sources:

We seek meaning, even in random numbers.  We're significance junkies... So what?  What's the harm of a little mystification?  It sure beats boring statistical analyses.  In basketball, in sports, no harm.  But as a habitual way of thinking, it gets us into trouble in some of the other games we play. [p 349]

Sagan's use of the term "junkies" is apt; we crave significance just as any addict craves their drug of choice.  And when it's not readily available, we invent it--we imagine significance all around us.  This is harmless entertainment when we're talking about certain topics--but as Sagan and Druyan suggest, it can also pose a real problem.

Why am I talking about this on a site focused on executive coaching and change management?  Because I think one of the areas where our "significance addiction" does pose a real problem is in our working relationships, particularly when we're in a leadership role.

Our craving for significance leads us to see meaning in randomness, to hear signals instead of noise.  We mistakenly believe it's all about US--that people are thinking about US, noticing US, responding to US--when, from their perspective it's really all about THEM--and they're thinking about something else, noticing someone else, and responding to a whole host of factors, ranging from what they ate for breakfast to the state of their retirement portfolio.

We matter less than we think we do, and the universe is more random than we want it to be--and those can be painful truths to accept.  (Sagan and Druyan open their "Significance Junkies" chapter with an epigram from mathematician and philosopher Henri Poincaré:  "We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.")

We crave significance and invent meaning not because we're stupid, but because we're brilliant; it hurts like hell to admit our insignificance, and we find consolation in endlessly inventive delusions of relevance.  But it's really not all about us, and once we realize that we can enter into a different kind of conversation with the people around us.  Instead of simply assuming that our actions are the basis for their reactions, we can get curious about what they really are thinking about and noticing and responding to.  It may be humbling, but we'll undoubtedly learn a lot in the process.

I'm all too aware of a paradox at the heart of this post: While it's never entirely about us, sometimes, in part, it truly is about us, particularly when we're in a leadership role, and something we said or did innocuously has had a significant and unintended impact on someone else.  I'm certainly not suggesting we ignore that dynamic--increasing awareness of our impact on others is at the heart of my work as a coach.  But I would draw a distinction between improving our ability to discern when we've had an impact on others on the basis of observed behavior, and letting go of the assumptions and imaginary scenarios that spring from our craving for significance.

Photo by Ella's Dad.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Learning from Mistakes

What is a mistake?  When we make a mistake, what do we think that says about us?  How do we feel about ourselves?  And how does that framing affect what we learn from the experience?

In a recent article for Wired Jonah Lehrer discussed a soon-to-be-published study by Michigan State's Jason Moser that provides a neurological basis for understanding why some of us learn from mistakes more effectively than others:

[T]here are two distinct [neurological] reactions to mistakes… The first reaction is called error-related negativity (ERN). It appears about 50 milliseconds after a screw-up and is…mostly involuntary, the inevitable response to any [mistake].

The second signal, which is known as error positivity (Pe), arrives anywhere between 100-500 milliseconds after the mistake and is associated with awareness. It occurs when we pay attention to the error, dwelling on the disappointing result. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that subjects learn more effectively when their brains demonstrate two properties: 1) a larger ERN signal, suggesting a bigger initial response to the mistake and 2) a more consistent Pe signal, which means that they are probably paying attention to the error, and thus trying to learn from it.

[The Moser study] applied a dichotomy first proposed by Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford. …Dweck distinguishes between people with a fixed mindset--they tend to agree with statements such as "You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it"--and those with a growth mindset, who believe that we can get better at almost anything, provided we invest the necessary time and energy. While people with a fixed mindset see mistakes as a dismal failure--a sign that we aren't talented enough for the task in question--those with a growth mindset see mistakes as an essential precursor of knowledge, the engine of education...

It turned out that those subjects with a growth mindset were significantly better at learning from their mistakes… Most interesting, though, was the EEG data, which demonstrated that those with a growth mindset generated a much larger Pe signal, indicating increased attention to their mistakes… What’s more, this increased Pe signal was nicely correlated with improvement after error, implying that the extra awareness was paying dividends in performance. Because the subjects were thinking about what they got wrong, they learned how to get it right...

...[U]nless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong--that surge of Pe activity a few hundred milliseconds after the error, directing our attention to the very thing we’d like to ignore--the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence.

What I find most interesting and useful about Lehrer's analysis of this research is the connection it allows me to make between (on the one hand) the neurological evidence that people who devote more attention to their mistakes learn from them more effectively and (on the other hand) my own empirical experience as a coach that fixating on mistakes can be demotivating and lead to feelings of worthlessness, while focusing on successes can stimulate feelings of optimism and resilience, even (especially) in light of recent struggles.

Carol Dweck's research provides me with the missing link; the essential factor isn't the relative amounts of attention we devote to our mistakes and successes, but whether we're holding a fixed mindset or a growth mindset about ourselves and our capabilities.  In the former case, we view mistakes as manifestations of our intrinsic character, as de facto evidence of our unworthiness--and so focusing on our mistakes generates feelings of shame and embarrassment and undermines our self-confidence.  We go to great lengths to avoid these feelings under the best of circumstances, so it's no surprise that when we make a mistake while holding a fixed mindset, the very last thing we want to do is devote more attention to it--and so we lose the opportunity to learn from it.

But in the latter case, we view mistakes as external events, as unfortunate things that have happened.  This isn't to say that we're avoiding responsibility for our mistakes, or that we don't feel bad as a result.  As Lehrer notes, those of us who learn best from our mistakes actually have a bigger neurological response to a mistake.  But we don't view mistakes as personal defects, and they don't carry such a negative emotional charge.  I'd suggest that those of us who hold a growth mindset are able to forgive ourselves for mistakes and let go of (or at least mitigate) any feelings of shame or humiliation.  This forgiveness allows us to continue to focus on the mistake that much more intently, without losing confidence in ourselves, and as a result to learn from it more effectively.

The underlying question then becomes: What can we do to cultivate a growth mindset that will allow us to focus on our mistakes without feeling shame or losing confidence?  Many of my experiences with clients and students (and myself!) suggest that the first step is simply acknowledging any shame and embarrassment we do feel in the aftermath of a mistake, both to ourselves and to those around us.  At the very least, getting those uncomfortable feelings out in the open tends to diminish their power and allows us to choose what to do with them, rather than feeling driven in some way to escape their covert influence.

I know that particularly when I'm in a leadership role two of the most important things I can do are 1) quickly admit a mistake once I've made one, and 2) own up to my resulting feelings of shame or  embarrassment.  This makes it much safer for those around me to do the same, and the group's potential to support learning increases dramatically.  (And it's one reason why I encourage leaders to embrace mistakes, failure and surprises.)  That's not to say I find this easy, even though I get plenty of opportunities to practice--but it is a value I try to uphold.

For a discussion of specific steps that support the process of learning from mistakes, see my 2009 post on the same topic, based on Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein's The Power of Resilience.

Thanks to @DanielCoyle for the initial reference to Lehrer's article.

Photo by Alex E. Proimos.  Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.