Tag: startups

How startup founders use cognitive behavioral coaching to master their toughest conversations.

On By drchristinavillarrealIn abundance mindset, anxiety, career development, co-founders, coaching, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Communication Skill Building, conflict resolution, conversation starters, developing leaders, education, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, female leaders, founders, goal setting, growth, growth mindset, leadership, management, mental skills training, mental toughness, peak performance, performance, Positive Psychology, productivity, professional strategies, psychology, relationships, san francisco, silicon valley, solution strategies, startups, teamwork, Uncategorized, work strategies

Executive coaching was developed to help people make the most of their abilities, gain deeper self-awareness, build people skills and resiliency for mastering the challenges of work life. Startup founders, senior management or leaders with significant responsibilities enlist coaches to help them bring new insights and skills to their relationships and broader life picture. 

 Coaching startup founders through crucial conversations isn’t just serving as a sounding board while they pitch investors, work through co-founder conflict and make hiring and firing decisions as their company scales. Founders undergo a great deal of personal transformation on this journey. They are also responsible for elevating early employees into leadership roles in which they likely have little to no experience. When founders use coaching to learn evidence-based cognitive behavioral tools for personal growth and in their management practices, they internalize a coaching mindset. This leadership style positively impacts the overall health and stability of the organization’s interpersonal climate.

This week while working with a client on communication skill building, she asked me:

“Why are crucial conversations so much harder for some people than others? Giving negative feedback to my employees is the least favorite part of my job as a CEO.” –Startup founder

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Here’s a truth I’ve learned from having thousands of therapy and coaching sessions with people about their toughest crucial conversations: everyone experiences heightened, uncomfortable emotions. So unless you’re a psychopath (which is a different article!) it’s not realistic to expect to remain emotionally unchanged when facing high-stakes, crucial conversations. Humans evolved to experience this ‘Fight or Flight’ Response as a survival instinct in the face of perceived threat. When we anticipate having a high-stakes conversations, our brains can get railroaded by our emotions, mimicking the addiction response and diminishing our ability to think critically and generate effective responses. Without developing a practice to manage effectively this pattern, founders are at high risk for making poor management decisions and eventually burnout. 

The premise of Cognitive Behavioral Theory is that our emotions are triggered by automatic thoughts that serve to alert us to the possibility of imminent danger. People’s perceptions occur as spontaneous thoughts, which directly influence their emotional, behavioral, and physiological reactions. Our perceptions are often magnified or distorted when they are distressed, making it difficult to see things objectively. By examining our “automatic thoughts” and identifying the factual evidence that refutes them, we are more capable of seeing a view that more closely resembles reality. With practice, our distress will decreases considerably, allowing us to make behavioral choices with higher functionality.

 

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Billionaire investor, author and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Howard Marks discusses risk assessment and the psychology of investing on The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish. He attributes his success with high-stakes decision-making to his ability to confront the evolutionary emotional programming that automatically drives human behavior. He shares that by adopting a mindset of ‘dispassionate observation and examination of thought‘ before acting, people can learn to accept the impossibility of predicting or controlling the future with 100% accuracy. This mindset reduces the risk of making decisions that overshoot a situation, out of instinctual enthusiasm or fear. In essence, putting cognitive behavioral tools at the helm of his investment decision-making. Founders can use this approach for their toughest, crucial conversations to stabilize their emotions, conserve mental energy and improve the odds of a successful outcome.

How to Use Cognitive Behavioral Tools in Crucial Conversations:

Practice writing out evidence-based thought records to dissect past situations that have lead to uncomfortable feelings. This simple but powerful exercise trains your brain to re-examine how your thoughts, feelings and behaviors are all interconnected.

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Practice observing behaviors and listening for the ‘content versus conditions’ of a conversation as a way to spot the risk of a conversation turning into a conflict. The instant people perceive disrespect in a conversation (a hostile condition), the interaction is no longer about the original purpose (the content)- it is now about defending oneself, further escalating emotions.

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Our emotional responses naturally turns into a ‘storyline’ or narrative in our head when we perceive hostility that feels like an injustice, shaping how we ‘make meaning’ of the person’s actions. Look for the factual evidence that supports your storyline and identify the emotional response tied to it.

With the understanding that rarely is any situation 100% factually true, look for the evidence that does not support your ‘story’. Practice questioning your conclusions – look for evidence that supports other possible perspectives with the goal of identifying multiple perspectives.

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Keep practicing the habit of identifying your emotional response and stories, developing a more balanced point of view rather than accepting your own without question. Learn to understand and take into account multiple perspectives before engaging in crucial conversations.  This mindset will translate into more effective exchanges in your relationships, and ultimately help you become a more successful, well-respected leader.

Can you tell the difference between a cult and your startup? Take the test.

On By drchristinavillarrealIn leadership, management, psychology, relationships, silicon valley, startups, technology, true crime stories, Uncategorized

 

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The tech community and startup culture has a long, widely-recognized history of romanticizing a cult-like approach for building successful companies.  Popular tech media publications like Wired have published pieces on the topic: You Should Run Your Startup Like a Cult. Here’s How, Inc.‘s The Cult-Like Cultures of Amazing Startups,  Forbes Are Successful Companies The New Cults?, Fast Company‘s Facebook VP’s Leaked 2016 Memo Betrays Cult-like Obsession With Growth, and Fortune‘s Fired Google Engineer: Tech Company Is ‘Like a Cult’.  It goes without saying that the rapid rise  and influence of technology companies have changed nearly every facet of the world as we know it.  Living and working within Silicon Valley’s tech ecosystem, I see firsthand how the ubiquitous mantra “our mission is to change the world” permeates organizations.  Have we lost sight of the line between cult and ‘cult-like’?  Is the over-use of the cult-inspired phrase “drinking the kool-aid” in tech pop culture a sign we have become numb to the real differences that exist between cults and startups?

Many years ago I had the privilege of completing coursework taught by renowned forensic psychologist Dr. Margaret Singer, a world expert on brainwashing, cults and psychopathy.  In her long career, she investigated and testified about techniques used by North Koreans against American soldiers in wartime, the Symbionese Liberation Army‘s influence over the kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst, David Koresh in Waco with Branch Davidians, and countless other criminal cases examining psychopathy, cults, and serial killers.  Dr. Singer helped several people leave the San Francisco-based religious group Peoples Temple before 900 of the members committed mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978 by drinking kool-aid flavored cyanide.  Even in her late 70’s, Dr. Singer remained a formidable speaker and made a deep, long-lasting impression on me about the irresistible charisma of cult leaders, and the lure they had over their members.  I’ve outlined the key principles she taught as fundamental to a cult’s ability to successfully wield power over others.

Read through the following 15 tactics and ask yourself, can you tell the difference between a cult and your startup?

Submission:

  • Complete, nearly unquestioned trust is bestowed to the leadership.  Doubt and dissent are highly discouraged and may be met with uniquely tailored forms of punishment.
  • Leaders are given prophet-like power within the group, and embraced as special, visionary, ‘highly gifted’ individuals with unusual connections to a critical higher purpose or higher power.
  • Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.

Exclusivity:

  • The group is the only ‘true’ belief system, and members are encouraged to think of themselves as elite and enlightened for their involvement in the group’s membership

Persecution complex:

  • ‘Us against them’ mentality is encouraged as a means to unify the group, and reinforce the group’s mission against outside thought or influence.  Extreme efforts to protect and shield the group from outside threats are manifested by expecting members to devote inordinate amounts of time to group-related activities, including recruiting.

Control

  • Keep members unaware of what is going on and how they are being changed a step at a time.  Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group.  The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to ‘invest’ in the group, or make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader’s aim and desires.
  • Total control of members’ thoughts, feelings and actions through repeated indoctrination and/or threats of loss of affiliation with the group’s special purpose. Members are rewarded for their expressions of loyalty, and are made to fear negative consequences for expressing autonomy of thought.
  • Members are encouraged to believe that they will experience deep loss (of love, financial opportunity, respect from a revered community) or danger should they lose their group affiliation.

Isolation

  • Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in group members.  This is accomplished by getting members away from the normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members.  The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviors of the group and speak an in-group language.
  • This facilitates further control over the thinking and practices of the members by the leadership.

Love Bombing:

  • Showering great attention, , gifts of affirmation and love to a person in the group (especially newcomers) by others in the group, to help transfer emotional dependence to the group.
  • Threats of loss of love and severing of meaningful in-group relationships are used to maintain loyalty.

Special Knowledge:

  • Special knowledge and instructions comes from the empowered leader who is thought to have rare gift for predicting the future. This leader then instructs the members how to carry out plans according to this vision.
  • The special knowledge may be received through visions, dreams, or new interpretations of revered content from past adored thought leaders and their teachings.

Indoctrination:

  • Control of a person’s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person’s time.  Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.
  • Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person’s former social identity. Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, induced states of physical taxation through sweat lodge sessions, fasting, hard labor.
  • The teachings of the group are repeatedly drilled into the members, but the indoctrination usually occurs around a system of ‘special knowledge’.

Salvation:

  • Salvation from the judgment of a higher power is maintained through association and/or submission with the group, its authority, and/or its special knowledge.

Group Think:

  • The group’s coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority.
  • There is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward “proper” behavior, and those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion, increased power and acceptance by the group.
  •  If one expresses a question, he or she is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning.

Cognitive Dissonance:

  • Avoidance of critical thinking and/or maintaining logically impossible beliefs and/or beliefs that are inconsistent with other beliefs held by the group.
  • Avoidance of and/or denial of any facts that might contradict the group’s belief system.

Shunning:

  • Those who do not tightly align with group policies are shunned and/or expelled, and remaining members are encouraged to see their exit as a personal failure and/or irreversible damnation.

Gender Roles:

  • Control of gender roles and definitions are maintained by the group’s power hierarchy to maintain rank and order.
  • Gender differences may be used for sexual exploitation of those with less power within the group by those with higher group rank.
  • Sexual favors may be encouraged to display group loyalty or affiliation with group leadership.

Appearance Standards:

  • A common appearance that signifies group membership is strongly encouraged or required.  There may be appearance differences that draw attention to group rank to reinforce the group’s hierarchy.
  • Differences in appearance among group members are created to convey special achievements in upholding the group’s tenets or purpose.

Lack of Accountability:

  • Group leaders are not held accountable for any mistakes or wrongdoings because of their special status within the group.
  • Group leaders are often protected from negative evaluation by other group members through systematic secrecy, and are treated according to special rules that free the leaders from accountability.
  • A closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure is used, permitting no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order.  The group has a top-down, pyramid structure.  The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.

 

References:

(Singer, 1995)

Cults in Our Midst, The Continued Fight Against Their Menace

How startups use psychometrics for leadership development can make or break them: 4 major principles to follow

On By drchristinavillarrealIn career development, co-founders, coaching, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Communication Skill Building, conflict resolution, developing leaders, education, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, female leaders, founders, goal setting, growth, growth mindset, leadership, management, peak performance, Positive Psychology, productivity, professional strategies, psychometrics, relationships, silicon valley, solution strategies, startups, teamwork, technology, Uncategorized, work strategies

A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management estimates that at present, 18% of companies use psychometric testing for a range of purposes, most commonly recruitment and hiring.  According to Harvard Business Review, skillful application of cognitive and personality tests (also known as psychometrics) help companies avoid hiring and managerial mishaps, which are estimated to cost a company at least one year’s pay.  Poor management can be especially fatal for startups, making skillful leadership critical to a startup’s early growth and success.  Ray Dalio founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world managing $160 billion discusses the value of psychometric use for leadership development in his widely recognized bestseller Principles: Life and Work.  Dalio and his employees use psychometric observations and evaluations to identify and minimize derailing behaviors among high potential leaders.  In sum, leaders who lack self-awareness and fail to learn from their experiences contribute to their own derailment.  Honing self-awareness is the prevailing objective among clients in my executive coaching practice aiming to mitigate the derailing pitfalls that new challenges bring.   Applied research findings in this area reveal the most common derailments among faulty leaders:

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  • Problems with interpersonal relationships
  • Failure to build and lead a team
  • Lack of self-awareness
  • Inability to learn from feedback and experience
  • Trust/integrity issues
  • Inability to change or adapt
  • Poor composure under stress
  • Over-reliance on strengths

Unfortunately, many organizations choose the wrong psychometric assessments to use in their leadership development efforts, or use them in the wrong way.  Expert application of psychometrics can be a costly investment for small startups.  Typically the luxury of employing an esteemed management company like McKinsey for psychometric use in leadership development is far outside of the budget of early stage startups.

My professional experiences teaching and utilizing a range of psychometric assessments and later coaching tech leaders through challenging transitions provide a framework for offering these guiding principles on how startups can optimize psychometrics for their leadership-development.

Four major principles to follow:

Consider applicable laws.  Stay in legal compliance whenever employing psychometric tests. in your organization.  Anti-discrimination laws apply to psychometric assessment tools (particularly cognitive tests) stating they must be job-relevant and demonstrate internal and external validity.  The Americans with Disabilities Act provides specific guidelines for using psychometrics within organizations- they must respect people’s privacy and not aim to “diagnose” potential hires or employees in any way.  Historically organizations have used clinical psychometric assessments like the MMPI-2 for employment decision-making, though it was designed for the purpose of diagnosing mental illness and identifying traits common in those with personality disorders.  Because the MMPI-2 was developed for use with psychiatric and prison populations,  some employers have been taken to court for using it in their organizational decision-making and lost.  Using psychometric tools designed for use and application in industrial/organizational settings is a safer bet for company decision-making.

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Choose your tests wisely.  Aim to build an evidence-based approach for evaluating leadership growth and performance, with specific purpose in mind. If using psychometrics for hiring, aim to demonstrate that your hiring tools predict how you’re defining ‘success’ in a given role using rigorous statistical analyses.  Relying on interesting but random psychometric outcomes will at best waste time and resources, and at worst lead managers to make faulty decisions.  If using psychometrics to increase self-awareness in leaders, select assessment tools designed for this purpose, proven to be scientifically valid by experts in the field, and have demonstrated utility in identifying and redirecting problematic behavioral patterns.  Whenever possible, get support from experienced organizational consultants to help your company select appropriate tools for your company’s specific needs.

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Follow test administration protocol or risk invalidating outcomes.  “Proctoring” assessments ensures they are being taken according to the test’s protocol, either by having people take the assessments in front of an informed test proctor, or through video conference monitoring if they are remote.  Be sure that test takers are given clear directions according to the test developer or risk invalidating test results.  Be aware that some people may feel compelled to influence their results in order to appear more competent for a particular role, or may be more guarded in their responses as a way of presenting themselves in the most favorable light to potential employers.  Some psychometric tests have built-in measures that indicate whether a candidate’s pattern of responses reflect an effortful attempt influence their test outcomes, or if their responses are inconsistent with one another.  Using outcomes from multiple psychometric tests (referred to as a ‘test battery’) can help to gather a more accurate, comprehensive testing profile.

Leadership development initiatives with opportunities for privacy and self-directed learning enhance engagement.  When participants are allowed to maintain a sense of privacy over their psychometric assessment outcomes, they are more likely to engage in deeper, lasting growth.

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This practice provides a safer space for leaders to do a deep dive into understanding their own personal challenges.   Innovative venture capital firms like Alpha Bridge Ventures are investing in startup founder success with an on-boarding process that uses psychometric surveys to determine leadership style, then tailors support through an inter-disciplinarian team of coaches and wellness professionals.  Other venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz recognize the limitation of time and resources executives have to spare for developing their own employees.  Outsourcing leadership skill-building through founder retreats, externally facilitated consultation groups modeled after Stanford’s T-groups, or providing a broad and deep alumni support network à la Y-Combinator are all ways startup founders are achieving leadership success.   Larger organizations are investing in employee development through bespoke leadership programs like Potentialife, which provide participants access to strategic, self-directed leadership growth modules through the convenience of an interactive app.

Startups that invest in their leaders self-awareness will benefit from the long-term gains that self-knowledge delivers.  Appreciate that no matter how much progress we make, there’s always more to learn.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

– Albert Einstein

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Millennial managers leading startups: their generation’s new face of management.

On By drchristinavillarrealIn career development, Communication Skill Building, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, growth, management, millennials, performance, solution strategies, startups, Uncategorized

According to Pew Research center the millennial generation (born 1983 – 2000) now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (born 1946 – 1964) and Generation X’ers (born 1965 – 1984).  More than one-in-three American workers today are millennials, and have become the largest share of the American workforce.

In today’s current work climate, it’s not enough for millennial-aged managers to focus on productivity for their company’s success.  Employees who share their generational employment outlook expect them to drive the company’s mission with clarity and inspiration, embody a leadership style that supports their work/life balance and self-care routine, and provide opportunities for them to do work that fulfills their passion for making a positive, meaningful impact.  Millennials widely embrace thought leaders like Simon Sinek who encourage them to marry their values and intentions to their work endeavors for lasting fulfillment in their life.  Amid these formidable expectations, it’s easy for a manager who understands the values of the millennial generation to feel conflicted about how to drive productivity while still supporting her employees work paradigms.

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Any manager who leads without a strong sense of direction is destined to fall short of their targeted goals.  A millennial manager I coach in the venture capital space suggested I write an article based on the headway we’ve made in developing her leadership approach to managing her millennial-aged team.  The following Q & A is based on questions she and other millennial managers have expertly hashed out through their leadership coaching work.

“How can I screen potential candidates during the hiring process to reveal their true work ethic?  The nature of our work is deadline driven, and it’s hard to know who will prioritize work objectives over personal objectives.”

How to hire them:  Work ethic fit is critical to a company’s success, because a candidate with mismatched work ethic will negatively impact productivity, disengage other employees, and create inefficiencies for the rest of the team.  Early stage startup culture has influenced new hire expectations – it’s not unusual for employees at startups to serve in multiple roles to sustain rapid company growth periods.  Experienced millennial managers ask potential hires to share how they’ve handled shifting workflow and multiple role responsibilities in prior positions.  “Can you tell me about a time when you’ve asked a manager for guidance on how to prioritize your workload?  Particularly when you’ve thought meeting a deadline was going to be difficult or impossible because of the high volume and pace of the workload.”  This gives hiring managers a chance to learn if the person has experience identifying and solving workflow prioritization with others. By being transparent about their company’s work style and pace, and sharing specific examples of how team members typically ‘get shit done’ they reduce the the risk of hiring a poor fit for their company culture.  Millennial managers recognize the need to reconcile workload with self-care routines, and have learned to ask revealing questions like “How do you deal with burn out or work fatigue?  How have you managed times when you’ve had conflicts with team members?  What are your expectations for personal time off, working overtime, or through holidays?”

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Experts in psychological personality assessment use tactical questions like this to measure what they refer to as ‘faking good’, to detect a person’s willingness to be forthcoming or tendency to present themselves in an unrealistically positive light.  If given multiple opportunities, can a potential hire share a well-rounded work history that naturally includes unmet challenges, times of burn out, and how they’ve learned from those experiences?  Or are they consistently defensive and unwilling to acknowledge when they’ve been challenged or experienced conflicts at work?  Millennial managers seek to hire people who are willing to be direct and forthcoming, understanding this communication style lends itself to effective problem-solving with others.

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“What can I do to inspire my team members to take initiative in their own professional development?”

Millennial startup founders-turned managers understand the desire for personally meaningful work as a motivating principal behind professional development.  Based on this core value, millennial managers can inspire their employees to invest in their own development by encouraging them to cultivate their personal vision of career growth and success.  Managers seeking to inspire their employees ask “What do you enjoy most about their role?  What would you like to eventually do more of, and less of in your career path?”  By understanding what personally motivates someone, what is most rewarding, and how they’d like to see their professional opportunities take shape, a manager can provide support based on that particular vision.   Further, supporting employees in this way and holding them accountable for progress in their role performance will resonate on a deeper, more meaningful level.

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“How can I set the standard for work ethic with my team?  My employees get overwhelmed by deadlines, and it seems to be influenced by low self confidence and their desire to protect their work/life balance.” 

How to drive high performing employees:  When managers find they have an employee struggling to meet deadlines, the situation can put everyone on the defense.   The dilemma of many millennial managers in startups is that most if not all of the employees are highly valued for their unique abilities and everyone’s individual contributions are critical to company progress.  Further, the time and resources it takes to replace an employee and the risk of destabilizing team morale makes opting to solve the problem a frugal first approach.  While some employees may be failing to complete work as a result of prioritizing personal time, others may be failing to meet work expectations for other reasons.

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Through coaching, a millennial startup founder I support resolved how to effectively manage one of her highest-performing employees who’d begun struggling to meet his production deadlines.  After processing her emotions and generating a communication action plan, she began by conveying her high regard for his contributions to the company’s success, giving examples and recognizing his overall growth.  She listened to his perspective about why his productivity had declined without jumping to conclusions, with the intent to support him in finding a resolution that fit both of their needs.  This encouraged him to share openly about what his challenges and mental roadblocks were, and what changes could lead to a return to consistently high productivity.  This inquiry-led communication style led to both of them making a shift in thinking about how he could best operate in his role without compromising future leadership opportunities, provided new ways for him to contribute to deadline completion, fostering a solution-focused dynamic between them as manager and employee.

Many of the millennial managers I’ve supported have found inspiration for their managerial style based on the wisdom of their favorite leaders in tech, turning up their employee productivity and balancing idealism with practicality by:

  • making changes to the types of work an employee is responsible for completing (e.g. shifting an employee from working autonomously on projects to working in a support role to others)
  • providing alternative options for employees’ work evaluations based on their preference (e.g. brief periodic check-ins to ‘debug’ work progress rather than a longer final project critique)
  • building a work culture that encourages employees to take part in decision-making in how they solve problems rather than dictating how problems get solved

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Olympic athletes and entrepreneurs share one critical trait to conquer pressure under fire.

On By drchristinavillarrealIn anxiety, bay area, career development, celebrity mental health, coaching, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Communication Skill Building, conflict resolution, education, empowerment, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, founders, goal setting, grit, growth, growth mindset, homosexuality, mental toughness, optimism, peak performance, performance, performance anxiety, Positive Psychology, productivity, professional strategies, psychology, san francisco, silicon valley, solution strategies, startups, Uncategorized, work strategies

In sports, mental toughness is defined as “the ability to consistently perform in the upper range of your talent and skill regardless of competitive circumstances.”  The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea have been rife with performances by athletes with well honed mental toughness, giving them the competitive edge over athletes with matched or even higher ranking talent.  Two-time U.S. champion figure skater Nathan Chen was the gold medal frontrunner heading into the 2018 Winter Olympics, only to crumble under pressure during his Olympic debut, underscoring how critical it is for young athletes to harness mental toughness under extreme pressure.  It was a devastating outcome for Chen, the most talented US men’s figure skater to compete in the sport in recent memory. 

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U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon’s incredible grace under pressure has been widely recognized during this winter’s Olympic Games, especially given the level of criticism he’s received for being the first openly gay American figure skater to ever compete at the Olympics.  His positive attitude, willingness to lead with charisma and humor, and champion performances have catapulted him beyond just physical mastery as an athlete.

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If anyone in the business world ever needed mental toughness at their disposal, it’s an entrepreneur.  Investors and other tech industry insiders all agree that startup success is all about mental preparedness, tenacity, and skillful pitch execution under high stakes circumstances.  Entrepreneurs regularly face cutthroat competitors and critics, and must be able to push their ideas and products past consumers resistance to change.  In his most recent book “Executive Toughness,” Dr. Jason Selk discusses mental toughness and other shared traits between sports and business high performers.  Given the self-driving nature of entrepreneurial work, startup founders must exemplify this critical trait to prevail.  In his Harvard Business Review article “How the Best of the Best Get Better,” sports psychologist and former consultant to Olympic and world champions Dr. Graham Jones says, “Obviously, star athletes must have some innate, natural ability — coordination, physical flexibility, anatomical capacities — just as successful senior executives need to be able to think strategically and relate to people. But the real key to excellence in both sports and business is not the ability to swim fast or do quantitative analyses quickly in your head. Rather, it is [mindset] mental toughness.”

After living and working in and around Silicon Valley for more than 20 years I’ve seen firsthand the underpinnings of mental toughness, the stamina it takes to succeed here, and the price those people pay to stay at the top.  Through executive coaching I’ve supported top organizational leaders through pivotal growth periods in life and business, leveraging best practices from peak performance psychology, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral design and critical communication skill acquisition.  

Top 5 best practices for augmenting mental toughness:

  1. Notice the subtle shifts in your physiology and thought patterns, and where they drive your emotions, behaviors and decision-making.  Cultivate control over this chain reaction through mindfulness training, and commit to embodying your most unflappable self in high stakes situations.  Use tools like visualization, auditory prompts and self-directing phrases to tap into deep learning through habit formation.
  2. Prepare confidence-boosting engagement and response scripts to the three most challenging interpersonal situations you face.  This is especially helpful for those who aren’t naturally charismatic, because they serve as a guideline for how to best interact with people. Well-developed and practiced interpersonal responses work to center you, bringing you back to a place of familiarity, reducing socially anxious reactions that can interfere with peak performance.
  3. Develop a relentless and optimistic ‘solution focused mindset’. It is so irresistible to ride the wave of emotion that surges when facing a hard problem. Our brains can get railroaded by our emotions, mimicking the addiction response and diminishing our ability to think critically and generate effective options.  Approach all potential solutions one step at a time, giving yourself time to process your emotions first.  Even mapping out a single step completion is progress and an improvement to the current situation. Remember you can’t solve all problems at once, so choose one and stay focused on it until measurable progress is made.
  4. When you set your mind to do something, find a way to get it done, no matter what. While a relentless solution focus is the mental step, behavioral discipline is the action step that makes effective solutions materialize. In this way, discipline delivers success. Make discipline a habit by looking out for triggering temptations and planning accordingly.

  5. Be willing to embrace change.  Mentally tough people are flexible, constantly adapting in order to solve for best possible outcomes.  Fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to one’s progress towards broader goals for fulfillment and happiness. 

A backbone of mental toughness is essential for providing the courage and internal compass that top competitors rely on to steer through the challenges they face. It also emboldens them to take on new opportunities for learning and growth- healthy life habits for effectively navigating stress, conflict and crises.  If you can develop mastery in this, you win!

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Winning together: conflict resolution tactics for startup founders

On By drchristinavillarrealIn co-founders, coaching, Communication Skill Building, conflict resolution, education, entrepreneurs, executive coaching, female leaders, founders, goal setting, grit, growth, growth mindset, peak performance, performance, productivity, professional strategies, relationships, san francisco, silicon valley, solution strategies, startups, teamwork, Uncategorized, work strategies

As a executive coach I support startup founders, CEOs, senior executives and other tech leaders in their pursuit of entrepreneurial success in Silicon Valley.  Their leadership development goals prioritize enhancing emotional intelligence, improving interpersonal communication and honing conflict resolution skills for managerial effectiveness.  The startup life is often grueling as co-founders face high pressure, high stakes decision-making during the rapid growth of their company.  Harjeet Taggar, former Y Combinator partner, once wrote, “The relationship between co-founders is usually the single biggest risk to a startup in the earliest stages, it’s certainly the most common reason for failure we see at YC.”  According to Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, successful conflict management requires skillful self management, and the ability to separate self-interest from winning solutions “You have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea.”

Seasoned entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley recognize that it’s not just the idea, product or timing of a startup that sets the stage for success, but arguably the founders’ ability to work together to tackle emerging problems as a company scales.  It means working through differences aligned in partnership rather than at odds with one another.  Just like the honeymoon phase of romantic relationships, early startup success can mask a lack of effective conflict management skills between founders.  When things are going well, it’s tempting to believe that major conflicts can be avoided.  While the gambling spirit is worn like a badge of honor among successful entrepreneurs, this is one gamble they can’t afford to lose.  Without practicing conflict resolutions skills early and often, they risk losing time and resources battling each other instead of leveraging their collective strengths when they need them most.  Gary Tan, former partner at Y Combinator shared with TechCrunch “Successful co-founders actually embrace conflict, and are constantly in the process of resolving it. If you can’t argue and arrive at the best solution, you’re not doing the work to actually have a real, healthy working relationship.”

So what works?  Evidence-based strategies like those developed by psychologist John Gottman are applicable beyond marital relationships, and have been successfully utilized by other respected startup coaches in Silicon Valley.  Gottman’s research has a proven track-record for both relationship success as well as predicting relationship failure with scientifically rigorous precision.

1.  Aspire to ‘win’ as a team, not as individuals.  

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When your team is busy arguing over every minor detail your competitors are busy winning, and your company is busy failing.  

There’s a saying in Silicon Valley that it’s better to have an A team with a B idea, than a B team with an A idea. Dedicate yourself to operating as an A member of an A team.  Each member of your A team has lived their life aspiring to win on an individual level, using tactics that work best for them as individuals.  The hardest part of submitting to a team is accepting others’ differences and shortcomings gracefully, and carrying on with your best work ethic and respect for others regardless of who’s slowing company progress.  You think “I never would have made that mistake!  This problem could have been avoided if they’d listened to me.”  When oversights, insufficient planning, unclear communication, failed efforts, personal problems, and fatigue set in, they can lead to setbacks in your combined efforts to succeed as a team.  Adopt the mental framework that ‘winning’ is modeling cooperation and flexibility, ‘losing’ is fighting to get your way all the time.  Winning is practicing humility and accepting constructive feedback because it sets the best stage for improvement.  Are you using tactics to succeed as a team or are you using tactics that are better suited to individual success?  Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make progress as a team?

2.  Recognize that company success is tied to your team’s willingness to trust one another.  By working as part of a founder team, you are acknowledging you are better off working together versus alone.  If you agree to build something with someone you are agreeing to rely on them, and you must also be reliable.

Founders of a company are gambling on each other, and there is no way to gamble without trust.  Partial trust begets mistrust.

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Can you trust that your cofounder has the best interest of the company at heart? Are you both committed to making the relationship work and the company successful?  If you are not all in, you introduce risk to the foundation of your company.  Trust functions to give team members a “reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.”  By agreeing to work with and rely on one another, you’ve accepted that each person adds important value, unique insights, and specialized abilities that compliment yours.  By giving this to one another you maximize the time and attention you have for your own contributions instead of using your energy to raise doubts or second guess others’ work.

 

3.  Attempting to track and keep score of who’s working harder or contributing more ‘worth’ wastes time, fosters animosity and reduces positive synergy. 

Everyone’s best effort looks different, so spending time making comparisons rarely produces progress for the relationship or the company.

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According to University of Illinois psychologist Brian Ogolsky and Texas State University’s Christine Gray, people who keep score in their relationships damage their potential for healthy relationship maintenance because the very act of counting implies a lack of trust, rigidity, and negativity.  Co-founders and team members should aim to delegate responsibilities based on ability and expertise, and if a continual imbalance in the workload emerges, plan to discuss this as a team to solve for more efficient allocation of tasks that factors in individual strengths, resources and availability.  Avoid placing blame when ever possible, and focus on actionable solutions that are tied to current circumstances.  The potential for success is maximized when everyone’s strengths are being efficiently utilized in real time.

 

4.  Create space for differences in opinion- exploring these differences will generate the most ingenuous solutions.  Aim to facilitate a wide range of possibilities, and take an objective approach to problem-solving.

Even if you don’t agree with a particular solution, it’s more effective if everyone shares their vision how this solution could result in success or failure.

This style of debate fosters constructive involvement and reduces power struggles.  If you oppose a decision, it’s not sufficient to point out a suggested plan’s low probability of success.  Research and prepare an outline of alternative action-oriented solutions to share with the team.

5.  Pay attention to people’s feelings.  Conflict will naturally give rise to emotional expression that can work in your team’s favor.  Strong emotional overtones are bound to emerge during a heated debate- take this as a sign that people care deeply about the work, about the team’s success, and that everyone at the table wants to avoid pitfalls.  Identify what people are feeling and why.  Let their answers inform how to proceed based on the expressed ideas.  If the discussion doesn’t lead to an agreed upon direction, rely on people’s primary areas of expertise as a guide for who has the most insight for the final call.  If the plan doesn’t work as out, take part in supporting a change in course quickly to minimize stalled productivity.

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6.  Ignoring reoccurring bad vibes between team members will only lead to bigger problems- resolving conflict is one problem startup founders CAN control.  The sooner you address them, the sooner you can get back to business.

Lastly, if all diplomatic efforts fail, agree to seek outside advice. I always recommend that founders and executive teams establish a range of outside resources (experienced mentors, business advisors, legal counsel) to give your team the insight it needs to resolve conflict.  Having an outsider broker your disagreement will end the gridlock- it’s like couples therapy for co-founders.  This might be what saves your startup from sinking.  Your team should agree in advance to take the advice with the goal of moving past this stage with finality.

 

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And don’t lose your sense of humor!  At fast-growing startups, the sheer magnitude of work should be complemented with some light-heartedness.  Laugh in solidarity at the crazy, silly things that you face together as a team- it will help lighten the mood.  When you look back at this time in your life, those are the things you’ll remember with a sense of gratitude and character-building strength.

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