Ed Batista: Executive Coaching & Change Management

The View from Twin Peaks

2010-05-08T17:21:21-07:00

I rode up to Twin Peaks this afternoon, after going through Land's End, out to Ocean Beach and down the path that parallels the Great Highway. It was one of those days when I feel so lucky to live here.

The view above is from Twin Peaks Boulevard--I love how the Transamerica pyramid and the new One Rincon Hill bookend the downtown skyline. And if you look carefully, you can see the Ferry Building gleaming at the end of Market Street.

Neuroscience, Joyful Learning and the SCARF Model

2010-05-04T04:00:00-07:00

What conditions best support learning and personal growth?

1. Judy Willis on "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education"

Stephanie West Allen points to a thought-provoking and compelling answer to the question above in the work of Judy Willis, a former neurologist who obtained her teaching credential after a 15-year career in medicine and now teaches at Santa Barbara Middle School and blogs at Psychology Today.

Willis brings an unusual and highly valuable combination of hands-on experience as an educator and a deep understanding of neuroscience to her writing, and her article in the Summer 2007 issue of Educational Leadership, "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education," is one of the most helpful pieces I've read on the subject of understanding the practical relevance of neuroscientific research.

Willis's article is focused on formal education in a classroom setting, but I believe that the findings she discusses have relevance for any experience in which we're trying to impart knowledge, stimulate understanding and foster growth, from a group workshop to an executive coaching session to an impromptu feedback conversation. I take the liberty of quoting Willis at length here (interspersed with my comments), but I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing:

[W]hen we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged...

My own experience as a neurologist and classroom teacher has shown me the benefits of joy in the classroom. Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain (Thanos et al., 1999). When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience "aha" moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery (Kohn, 2004).

"An atmosphere of exuberant discovery." I LOVE that phrase! It perfectly describes my most fulfilling learning experiences. If I can help to evoke that feeling--in myself and in others--in a workshop or a class or a coaching session, then I know we're on the right path. I'm reminded of my recent post on being an infectious agent of enthusiasm. Like enthusiasm, "exuberant discovery" is a contagious state.

Willis continues:

The Brain-Based Research

Neuroimaging and neurochemical research support an education model in which stress and anxiety are not pervasive (Chugani, 1998; Pawlak, Magarinos, Melchor, McEwan, & Strickland, 2003). This research suggests that superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are enjoyable and relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences.

Many education theorists (Dulay & Burt, 1977; Krashen, 1982) have proposed that students retain what they learn when the learning is associated with strong positive emotion. Cognitive psychology studies provide clinical evidence that stress, boredom, confusion, low motivation, and anxiety can individually, and more profoundly in combination, interfere with learning (Christianson, 1992).

Neuroimaging and measurement of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) show us what happens in the brain during stressful emotional states. By reading glucose or oxygen use and blood flow, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicate activity in identifiable regions of the brain. These scans demonstrate that under stressful conditions information is blocked from entering the brain's areas of higher cognitive memory consolidation and storage. In other words, when stress activates the brain's affective filters, information flow to the higher cognitive networks is limited and the learning process grinds to a halt.

Simply put, stress kills learning--and yet so many settings intended to support learning are needlessly stressful. I'm reminded of Hans Selye's concept of eustress and the resulting awareness that some level of stress--which differs for each of us in different situations--supports optimal performance, but above that level performance declines. The curve below may not be accurate--I suspect that in reality it's quite a bit steeper for most of us, but it serves to illustrate the concept:

Willis's work is an important reminder to pay close attention to the profile of this curve and to insure that we don't push ourselves and others beyond that point of optimal performance where learning ceases. Willis continues:

Neuroimaging and electroencephalography (EEG) brain mapping of subjects in the process of learning new information reveal that the most active areas of the brain when new sensory information is received are the somatosensory cortex areas. Input from each individual sense (hearing, touch, taste, vision, smell) is delivered to these areas and then matched with previously stored related memories...

I'm struck here by the potential importance of all the senses in the learning process and the way in which most learning environments fail to make effective use of any but hearing and vision (and even then rely heavily on monotonous lectures and boring lists of bullet points.) It suggests to me that learning is enhanced when all the senses are stimulated more thoroughly, through movement, vivid imagery and language, and perhaps even taste and smell.

Willis's website is www.RADteach.com, an acronym that stands for "Reach And Discover" but that also has a more specific neurological meaning:

RAD Lessons for the Classroom

A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive input to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students. Lessons that are stimulating and challenging are more likely to pass through the reticular activating system (a filter in the lower brain that focuses attention on novel changes perceived in the environment). Classroom experiences that are free of intimidation may help information pass through the amygdala's affective filter. In addition, when classroom activities are pleasurable, the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the memory centers and promotes the release of acetylcholinem, which increases focused attention.

The acronym RAD can remind educators of three important neuroscience concepts to consider when preparing lessons:

Novelty promotes information transmission through the Reticular activating system.

Stress-free classrooms propel data through the Amygdala's affective filter.

Pleasurable associations linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine...

Planning for the Ideal Emotional Atmosphere

Although it is valuable for teachers to be familiar with neuroscientific research and pass relevant findings along to education stakeholders, it is crucial that educators use classroom strategies that reflect what we know about the brain and learning. So how can teachers create environments where anxiety is low while providing enough challenge and novelty for suitable brain stimulation?

Make it relevant.

When stress in the classroom is getting high, it is often because a lesson is overly abstract or seems irrelevant to students. Teachers can reduce this type of stress by making the lesson more personally interesting and motivating. Ideally, students should be able to answer the question, "Why are we learning about this?" at any point in a lesson...

Give them a break.

...[T]eachers can give students a three-minute vacation to reduce stress. Any pleasurable activity used as a brief break can give the amygdala a chance to cool down and the neurotransmitters time to rebuild.

Create positive associations.

Eliminating all stress from students' lives is impossible. However, even if previous classroom experiences have led to associations that link certain activities, such as memorizing multiplication tables, to a stress response from the amygdala, students can benefit from revisiting the activity without something negative happening. By avoiding stressful practices like calling on students who have not raised their hands, teachers can dampen the stress association...

Prioritize information.

It is helpful for teachers to guide students in learning how to prioritize information—how to decide what facts are worthy of writing down and reviewing when studying. When teachers demonstrate and explain how they determine which facts are important, students see how to make those judgments for themselves as they read texts and study. Helping students learn how to prioritize and therefore reduce the amount of information they need to deal with is a valuable stress-buster.

Allow independent discovery learning.

Thanks to dopamine release and the consolidation of relational memories, students are more likely to remember and understand what they learn if they find it compelling or have a part in figuring it out for themselves. In addition, when students have some choices in the way they will study or report on something, their motivation will increase and stress will diminish. They will be more accepting of their errors, motivated to try again, and less self-conscious about asking questions.

Whenever we're helping people learn, whether it's in a workshop, a coaching relationship, or just a supportive conversation, we can feel tempted to tell, to advise, to provide answers. My experience as a coach has taught me the importance of resisting this temptation, and Willis's final point above helps to explain the neuroscientific basis for this dynamic. Our brains are wired to learn more effectively when we figure things out for ourselves. (There's a connection here to the value of experiential learning and its emphasis on the "perceptual order" of our direct experience rather than the "conceptual order" stressed in most learning, in William James's language.) This isn't to say that we should never tell or advise or provide answers--there are times when that's what's needed. But when we take those shortcuts, we need to be mindful of their potential to undermine learning.

2. Joyful Learning and David Rock's SCARF Model

Willis's perspective on "joyful learning" is embedded in David Rock's SCARF Model, which provides a useful framework for understanding how our brains respond to social threats and rewards. Rock's acronym stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness, five domains of social experience within which we regularly encounter threats and rewards that trigger responses in the brain similar to those triggered by physical threats, such as pain and hunger, and physical rewards, such as relief and satiation.

Rock writes in "SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others," (available as a PDF on the Resources page of the site promoting Rock's new book, "Your Brain at Work"):

[M]uch of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000)...[and] several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008). In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water.
The SCARF model summarizes these two themes within a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations. This model can be applied (and tested) in any situation where people collaborate in groups, including all types of workplaces, educational environments, family settings and general social events.

Willis's work provides an vivid example of the SCARF Model in action. As Willis describes the neurology of learning, it's easy to envision specific aspects of stressful learning environments that trigger social threats: Authoritarian teachers and intimidating leaders who diminish others' status. Unclear lessons and irrelevant exercises that fail to provide certainty around learning goals (or the likelihood of achieving them.) Excessive structure and a lack of choice that rob people of their autonomy. A heightened power distance preventing teachers or leaders from developing a sense of connection and relatedness with others. And favoritism or arbitrary rules that undermine fairness.

Rock's model describes a set of neurological dynamics at work in every social setting, but Willis makes clear their vital importance in learning environments. Whenever we're seeking to promote learning, it's essential that we structure the environment to minimize these social threats and cultivate that "atmosphere of exuberant discovery" Willis describes above by promoting social rewards.

As teachers and leaders, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to raise the status of those around us. We need to provide sufficient certainty without stifling creativity, and we need to provide sufficient autonomy without leaving others feeling lost or alone. We need to foster a feeling of connection and relatedness among the diverse members of a group. And we must always be fair.

3. Safety, Trust, Intimacy and Learning

Finally, Willis's essay reminds me of my own belief in the importance of safety, trust and intimacy in any learning environment. As I wrote recently:

The foundational qualities that define every group are the levels of safety, trust and intimacy: Safety = A belief that we won't get hurt. Trust = We mean what we say and we say what we mean. Intimacy = A willingness to make the private public.

When safety, trust and intimacy are established, these qualities support the actions that lead to greater success as a group: experimentation, risk-taking and a willingness to be vulnerable.

When we feel able to experiment, take risks and make ourselves vulnerable, our ability to learn, to increase our self-awareness (and our awareness of others) and to change our behavior in order to achieve our goals more effectively increases dramatically.

Photo by Phineas H. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

Self-Coaching Guides, One Year Later

2010-05-03T04:00:00-07:00

Next month marks the first anniversary of the publication of my Self-Coaching Guides, six compilations of posts on the topics of Communication, Leadership, Motivation, Change, Learning and Happiness.

The Guides have been well-received--hey, they're currently in the top 10 when you search for "self coaching"--and I'm glad people have found them useful. That said, they're due for an update, and there's plenty of room for improvement--a project I'm planning to tackle this Summer. The main changes I hope to make include:

Integrating my increased understanding of neuroscience and its implications for coaching.
Making more effective use of of the framework that links these topics together.
And transforming the Guides from compilations into more independent narratives on each topic.

If you have any feedback on how the Guides could be made more useful, please take a look and let me know--I'd be grateful for your input.

A final thought: ALL coaching is ultimately "self-coaching." No matter how closely I work with my clients and students, and no matter what useful insights may emerge during our sessions, they do the heavy lifting of understanding themselves, tapping into their strengths, and, when necessary, changing their behavior on their own.

Photo by Theresa Thompson. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

13 Miles in San Francisco

2010-05-01T22:54:01-07:00

Today was an astoundingly beautiful day in San Francisco, and I spent a portion of it on one of my favorite rides around the City, a route that winds for just over 13 miles through Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle, the Wiggle, the Duboce Bikeway (above), Market Street, the Embarcadero, Fort Mason, Crissy Field, and the Presidio before returning to the Richmond.

I've ridden through the Duboce Bikeway literally thousands of times--I worked in downtown SF for a total of 8 years, and I commuted by bike for most of that time--but not once have I ever stopped to take a photo of the mural there, even though it happens to be my favorite piece of public art evah.

But for some reason today I stopped and snapped the pic above. And looking at it now I want to ride out to Ocean Beach immediately.

Pierluigi Pugliese on Agile Coaching

2010-04-29T04:00:00-07:00

Pierluigi Pugliese is an "agile coach and software consultant" based in Germany. I'm familiar with agile software development, a method based on the principles first articulated in 2001 in the Agile Manifesto, and "agile coaching" would seem to be a logical extension of these principles:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

I see many parallels with coaching embedded in this language, and I love that Pugliese has not only made these parallels explicit but also established a coaching practice focused on supporting teams of agile developers--what a perfect fit.

On April 9 Pugliese gave a presentation on a Solution Focused Approach to Agile Coaching at Agile Central Europe, a gathering of developers in Kraków. I encourage you to review his entire presentation posted at SlideShare, but I've taken the liberty of reproducing the slides that I found most meaningful below. (Note that each slide below links to the original presentation posted on SlideShare.)

This slide reminds me of my post on mentoring, training and coaching--and the fundamental differences that distinguish these disciplines, despite their many similarities:

The description below of "Solution Focused Coaching" resonates deeply with me--every bullet in Pugliese's list is a hallmark of my own approach to coaching:

I fully agree with Pugliese's reluctance to ask "Why?", for the very reasons articulated in the slide below. I'd add that "Why?" questions tend to trigger defensiveness--"Why? I'll tell you why!"--and that "How?" questions are much more effective at helping coaching clients better understand themselves. (I'm indebted to Scott Ginsberg for his invaluable list of useful questions.)

The "Miracles" slide below describes a coaching technique that's new to me, and I find it compelling. I look forward to an opportunity to try it out:

Many thanks to Pierluigi Pugliese for an insightful and thought-provoking overview of his approach to coaching.

Attitude, Behavior, Cognitive Dissonance and Authenticity

2010-04-27T04:00:00-07:00

I recently had this Twitter exchange with Tom Peters:

I refer to that quote from St. Ignatius quite often because I believe it illustrates an important truth about human behavior. We assume that our attitude causes our behavior, and that we act as we do because we think or feel a certain way:

But rather than being a one-way causal relationship, it's really a two-way street. Attitude can certainly inform and shape our behavior, but it's a cyclical process, and behavior can also inform and shape our attitude:

This process is rooted in the dynamics of cognitive dissonance--when our attitude and our behavior are inconsistent, we experience discomfort and even distress, and we modify either our attitude or our behavior to reduce the inconsistency. But as St. Ingnatius and Tom Peters remind us, we don't have to let our original attitude govern our behavior. We can choose to act differently, and this new behavior can in turn modify our attitude. "Perform the acts of faith, and faith will come."

These concepts are deeply embedded in the work of Sonia Lyubomirsky and other "happiness researchers," but psychologists and neuroscientists have long observed them at work in other settings as well. As UC Berkeley neuroscientist Vincent van Veen and his colleagues wrote in 2009:

It has consistently been found that [study] participants [who are behaving in ways that are in conflict with their attitudes] change their attitudes to be more consistent with the counter-attitudinal behavior. Dissonance has been shown to be a negative emotional state accompanied by autonomic arousal; it has been shown that people change their attitudes and restore consonance to specifically reduce the negative affect.

(Researchers like van Veen are beginning to explore the neuroscientific basis for this process. The passage quoted above is from a paper by van Veen et al, "Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance." Here's a direct link to the paper [PDF, 443 KB] And another forthcoming paper from Harvard Business School professor Amy J.C. Cuddy entitled "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance" apparently explores similar territory, although I've only read the abstract.)

It's noteworthy that choice and free will are essential to the process of altering attitude through behavior. The passage above continues:

When participants in control groups are able to attribute their counter-attitudinal behavior to payment or coercion, or when the counter-attitudinal behavior has no real-world consequences, conflict between behavior and prior attitudes is reduced, and participants experience less cognitive dissonance and do not change their attitudes.

Some futher thoughts on authenticity in light of Peters' original advice to "fake a good mood": While intentionally counter-attitudinal behavior may have the desired effect on our attitude, beyond a certain point it may also have negative consequences if others experience us as insincere or manipulative, and it's clearly important to be aware of the line that distinguishes "intentional" from "phony." In addition, there are many good reasons to express our negative feelings and to build safety and trust through candor. I'm not in the least suggesting that we should repress or hide negative feelings reflexively.

That said, in my experience as a coach, particularly with people who may be experimenting with more intentional behaviors for the first time, we can get hung up on concerns about authenticity and use that as an excuse to justify our choices, no matter how ineffective or unfulfilling they might be. ("I'm just being honest!" we say, or "I have to be myself.") But as the dynamic described above illustrates, authenticity is more complex than is commonly understood.

In Managing Authenticity (from the December 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review), Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones make the case that authenticity actually requires intentional behavior and, rather than being an innate quality we possess (or lack) on our own, grows out of our relationships with others and our desire to be more effective in those relationships. Goffee and Jones focus on leaders' effectiveness, but their work is relevant to all our relationships and interpersonal interactions:

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

Let us be absolutely clear: Authenticity is not the product of pure manipulation. It accurately reflects aspects of the leader’s inner self, so it can't be an act. But great leaders seem to know which personality traits they should reveal to whom and when. They are like chameleons, capable of adapting to the demands of the situations they face and the people they lead, yet they do not lose their identities in the process. [My emphasis]

Viewing our initial attitude as "authentic" and using that to rationalize any subsequent behavior makes no sense when we see how readily our attitude can be modified by choosing different behavior. By the same logic, behavior chosen for the express purpose of modifying our attitude isn't automatically "inauthentic." Looking through Goffee and Jones' framework, we see authenticity as a quality that we cultivate through lived experience and that we (and those around us) sense subjectively, not the result of a behavioral algorithm that disappears when we act intentionally.

I recognize that these complexities can make it difficult to know what's "right" in a given situation (which, of course, is why we have executive coaches.) But my larger point is that we have much more power than we typically realize to choose behavior that will affect our attitude, and that we can be more effective and feel more fulfilled as a result.

Jonathan Bolden on Values, Culture and Service (Putting Stakes in the Ground)

2010-04-26T04:00:00-07:00

Jonathan Bolden is a Stanford MBA who was among our first class of Leadership Fellows in 2007. I've kept up with him via social media channels, and today a tweet of his led me to a blog post of his from last December. Jonathan has turned his passion for coffee roasting into a small business--a "micro-micro enterprise," in his words--but even at that scale he's had to think about values, culture and service:

Even in a micro-micro enterprise, you must put stakes in the ground.
It is through these stakes that values are declared.
It is on these stakes that a house/a culture is built.
It is by the support of these stakes that customers are served and a brand is established.

That strikes me as not only an astute analysis of the relationship that exists among values, culture and service, but also a call to action to ask myself...

What stakes have I put in the ground?

What values have I declared through these stakes?

What culture have I built upon them?

And what level of service and what personal brand do they support?

Photo by Liber. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.

A Day in San Francisco

2010-04-24T21:36:32-07:00

Today we decided to simply hang out and enjoy a day in San Francisco, which included:

The Small Dog Army at Ocean Beach (pictured above). Every Saturday at 10am, dozens of people with small dogs converge at Ocean Beach, just across from the Beach Chalet, and slowly make their way up toward the Cliff House. Amy and I don't have a small dog (or a large dog, for that matter), but we join the Army every once in a while because it's so damn entertaining. The dogs are like kids at a birthday party, hyped up on cake and ice cream and presents and cake, running around and around like mad, yipping and yapping and wrestling in the sand.
The view from Twin Peaks, an amazing spot locals sadly cede to tourists.
Lunch at It's Tops on Market, an diner/burger joint that dates to 1935.
A spin around the Ferry Building and down the Embarcadero to Cupid's Span.
And finally, a peaceful interlude at the Fort Mason Community Garden (see below) complete with hummingbirds and parrots overhead. (I overhead a guy working on his garden plot say to a woman nearby, "I stay out of the politics here." I'm glad I just visit on the weekends.)

I'm very, very grateful to live here, to have opportunities like today to enjoy it, and to have someone I love to enjoy it with.

Infectious Agents of Enthusiasm (Spreading Teh Awesome)

2010-04-23T18:16:43-07:00

In my last post on my Twitter exchange with Tom Peters I used the phrase "infectious agents of enthusiasm," a concept that has continued to resonate with me and has inspired some practical questions:

What does it mean to be an infectious agent of enthusiasm?

What does it look like in practice?

And what results can we expect?

It occurred to me that one surefire way to spread enthusiasm--an infectious vector, if you will--is a simple expression of gratitude, and that led to the following exchange with a vendor whose services I use:

April 22, 2010 9:27 AM:

I know that people who staff help desks are like cops and lawyers--no one calls you unless there's a mess that needs to be cleaned up.

So I opened this help ticket to tell y'all that...

1) I've really embraced the new [feature], even though I bitched and moaned about it (a lot.)

2) I'm really grateful for (and feel well-supported by) your service.

3) You are teh awesome. Really.

Thanks.

Ed Batista

April 22, 2010 11:02 AM:

Hi Ed,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out and share these kind words with us. We've had sort of a tough week here in Support (full moon? Who knows.) and this really made our day brighter. We wanted to thank you with a 20% off discount on your account, so I've gone ahead and applied that. Thanks again and let us know if there's anything you need help with.

[Awesome user support person]

April 22, 2010 11:18 AM:

Wow--I certainly had no expectation of a discount, and I'm very grateful. Thank you! Teh awesome, indeed. I'm glad I could brighten your day--you and your colleagues brighten mine all the time. Thanks again.

Ed

So, what does it mean to be an infectious agent of enthusiasm? Among other things, it means creating opportunities to focus on the many positive experiences we often take for granted.

What does it look like in practice? It's pretty simple--a heartfelt (and unexpected) "Thank you!" can go a long way.

And what results can we expect? Brightening someone else's day can brighten yours in turn.

Tom Peters, Twitter, Good Moods and Enthusiasm

2010-04-22T08:39:10-07:00

I'm a big fan of Tom Peters. I regularly cite these words of wisdom from November 2007 (intentionally posted in all caps to express his rage):

BOB WATERMAN AND I, IN 1980, DEVELOPED A MANTRA IN THOSE DAYS OF YORE WHEN "STRATEGY [STRATEGIC PLANS] WAS EVERYTHING." WE SAID:
HARD IS SOFT.
SOFT IS HARD.
THE READILY-MANIPULABLE NUMBERS ARE THE TRUE "SOFT STUFF."
THE RELATIONSHIPS-LEADERSHIP-"CULTURE"-"ACTION BIAS" [OR NOT] ARE THE TRUE "HARD STUFF."
PERIOD.
END OF STORY.
[I WISH.]

I've learned a ton from his slides, which he makes freely available. And his tweets are to the point and thought-provoking.

So these two exchanges were a high point of my day yesterday:

A colleague saw this and DM'ed me, "I love the world of 2010. Blows my mind on a regular basis."

Agreed. And these exchanges serve to reinforce my perspective on the issues Peters raised, which I see as closely related. We can be infectious agents of enthusiasm, or of any dynamic we want to express in the world (so choose wisely.) And while enthusiasm--like leadership--can't be "taught," we can help others learn about the sources of their enthusiasm, tap into them and cultivate their ability to access those feelings more readily.