Tuesday, December 7, 2010
More on the "Social Network"
I stand corrected, but not totally, after watching the December 5th "60 Minutes" piece featuring the real Mark Zukerberg and Facebook. Observationally, Zukerberg could still use some help in how comfortable he appears when featured in the media; however, Zukerberg has been described by Kara Swisher, editor of Boom Town and a website about high tech, first, as being a "Toddler CEO" and later as a prodigy, who has done a great job from a business standpoint. So be it. Apparently, he needed no coaching to grow his business whatever the motivation.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
"Social Network" - Mentoring and Coaching to Align Values and Goals
Last night I went to the movies and saw "Social Network." Not only was it a wonderfully paced, exciting movie about the developers of Facebook, but markedly pointed out to me that being a genius is not good enough to to gain true satisfaction from making tons of money from an idea. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept and development of Facebook (FB), Mark Zukerberg, a programming genius at Harvard, scorned by his girlfriend in 2003, purportedly 'stole' an idea from other Harvard students and together with his best friend (Eduardo Saverin) came up with a social networking idea that revolutionized how we seek and maintain contacts and social information in the world. Zukerberg, never interested in the financial aspect of it, wanted to maintain its purity; his best friend, and first CFO of the company who provided the start-up capital, was interested in ways to monetize FB. The entrance of Sean Parker (founder of Napster who moved the operation to Silicon Valley and found the venture capital for its growth) triangulated the friendship of three brilliant men with three different visions. A TEAM GONE WRONG, at least from an operative standpoint.
What resonated with me was the obvious sadness emanating from Zukerberg throughout the movie, first rejected by a girl he was interested in, then being ostracized at Harvard and eventually losing the one friend (Saverin) who was most likely least motivated in using Zukerberg's talent for his own gain. Throughout the legal battles described in the movie is an unhappy Zukerberg and an unhappy Saverin, most likely about their estrangement. While everyone makes money from FB, no one in the movie leaves happily. So much for self-actualization of these brilliant young men.
This group could have been helped, however, to avoid the loss of friendship. What went wrong? The answer is obvious. They were "clever" young men in a potentially "clever" organization that needed an infrastructure to not only manage the business growth but also the relationship development. Had they had the insight (or advice of their venture capitalists) to help align their company values and goals, perhaps their strong relationship might have been preserved. And social networking is all about relationships, isn't it?
Traditional intelligence (the "g" factor) is not a be-all, end-all.
This movie highlights the need for emotional and social intelligence, which are under-developed in these brilliant young men. Had they received assessment and coaching to develop emotional and social competence in leadership positions, they would have found a way to align their differing values and to preserve a wonderful friendship.
So sad. What do you think?
What resonated with me was the obvious sadness emanating from Zukerberg throughout the movie, first rejected by a girl he was interested in, then being ostracized at Harvard and eventually losing the one friend (Saverin) who was most likely least motivated in using Zukerberg's talent for his own gain. Throughout the legal battles described in the movie is an unhappy Zukerberg and an unhappy Saverin, most likely about their estrangement. While everyone makes money from FB, no one in the movie leaves happily. So much for self-actualization of these brilliant young men.
This group could have been helped, however, to avoid the loss of friendship. What went wrong? The answer is obvious. They were "clever" young men in a potentially "clever" organization that needed an infrastructure to not only manage the business growth but also the relationship development. Had they had the insight (or advice of their venture capitalists) to help align their company values and goals, perhaps their strong relationship might have been preserved. And social networking is all about relationships, isn't it?
Traditional intelligence (the "g" factor) is not a be-all, end-all.
This movie highlights the need for emotional and social intelligence, which are under-developed in these brilliant young men. Had they received assessment and coaching to develop emotional and social competence in leadership positions, they would have found a way to align their differing values and to preserve a wonderful friendship.
So sad. What do you think?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Why I think "Good Enough" is Important ....
Let me begin with a story and a bit about my background to give some context.
I am a licensed clinical and health psychologist who has practiced in academic and clinical medicine, along with conducting research in developing and validating testing assessments in my 25 year career. I am a certified life and executive coach with a coaching practice. I am also the mother of two boys, now ages 33 and 34. I have successfully used the concept of "good enough" in my clinical therapy practice, my coaching practice, and in my child-raising practice. The impact of the 'good enough' philosophy is that it incorporates the developmental stage of whomever you are seeing (or in the context of parenting, raising) in addition to all the popular constructs of social and emotional intelligence, the "g" factor in general intelligence, and IQ, be it measured with standard assessment devices such as the WAIS-R or Stanford Binet, or by 'guess-timating' intelligence via standardized scores on the SATs, GREs, LSATs, MCATS, GMATs or others. One of my core beliefs about personnel excellence is that you can take a person in the 50th percentile and with mentoring, coaching, or other types of development, create a performer who is equivalent to someone at the 75th percentile. This could be considered the business equivalent of the old, ever-changing controversy of the relative contributions of nature vs. nurture that has confounded psychologists for over a century.
How does this philosophy apply to my own personal life and to how I parented my children? Growing up, my parents' life goal for me was matriculation into a good college; everything I did, including extra-curricular activities, and studies was focused on this outcome. Well, I guess I peaked at age 18 when Northwestern University accepted me and I enrolled in their liberal arts program. However, this presented a problem. Other than being told by my parents to graduate being able to "do something," I had no idea what that something was or what it meant. It ended up with a fun-filled rather than educationally-filled 4 year experience and a degree in Art History. I was very fortunate that I had taking typing in high school so that I could get my first job. Now mind you ... it wasn't that I wasn't 'smart enough' or tested 'well enough' to take better advantage of the opportunities for learning presented to me at Northwestern; rather, my experience there was out of my developmental stage: I simply was unprepared to know what I wanted to do. This is a common occurrence in industrialized nations. There was even an article about it in the American Psychologist entitled "The Theory of Emerging Adulthood." I actually copied that article to send to my parents when they complained that my children were not utilizing their intellectual talents. We are now living in an environment where children in the 20's and even 30's are leaving home, returning home, going to school, leaving school .... all after receiving a bachelor's degree. So how did my 'good enough' self maximize my potential? I'm bright, but not the brightest bulb on the chandelier; I have 'average' emotional intelligence; I have fairly well developed social competence. The answer is simple. I was ready to do something different. That readiness occurred after the birth of my second child when I decided to become a psychologist, having taken only one or two psychology courses at Northwestern. The answer includes patience, motivation, and being mentored but also being left alone to do research in what I was interested in.
Patience, as defined by me, as it applies to development, is the ability to define a goal and to take the time to reach that goal, be it one year or 5 years; patience includes breaking down a huge goal, such as a doctoral degree into smaller components, and focusing only on accomplishing that component (hopefully with success) before moving onto the next component.
Motivation is also an important aspect of success. One has to really want that goal and one has to have enough resilience to plug on when there are obstacles towards reaching that goal. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be very successful. You MUST be motivated, especially if you are not in that 10-15% of 'top talent.'
Mentoring is the most important external factor in success. Someone has to believe in you and believe that you are 'good enough' to be successful in your endeavor. Your mentor can be a friend, a parent, a coach, a colleague, or a professor. What makes a good mentor will be discussed in a later blog. Suffice it to say, a good mentor will know when to be available, how to be available, and even more important, when to trust you enough to leave you to do your own creating or work with the knowledge that he or she will 'have your back'. A good mentor will positively glory in YOUR achievements.
I was fortunate to have the "intrapsychic" factors of patience and motivation. I was also very fortunate to have a wonderful mentor in graduate school who let me do my own research in an area that was not terribly interesting to him and the knowledge I gained in the struggle to do complete my dissertation was invaluable. I was also very fortunate in having a wonderful mentor in my first post-graduate job in a teaching hospital who allowed my to use his research assessment to, again, follow my own research interests, which have been published in national peer-reviewed journals.
All this in a person, who describes herself as merely "good enough."
I am a licensed clinical and health psychologist who has practiced in academic and clinical medicine, along with conducting research in developing and validating testing assessments in my 25 year career. I am a certified life and executive coach with a coaching practice. I am also the mother of two boys, now ages 33 and 34. I have successfully used the concept of "good enough" in my clinical therapy practice, my coaching practice, and in my child-raising practice. The impact of the 'good enough' philosophy is that it incorporates the developmental stage of whomever you are seeing (or in the context of parenting, raising) in addition to all the popular constructs of social and emotional intelligence, the "g" factor in general intelligence, and IQ, be it measured with standard assessment devices such as the WAIS-R or Stanford Binet, or by 'guess-timating' intelligence via standardized scores on the SATs, GREs, LSATs, MCATS, GMATs or others. One of my core beliefs about personnel excellence is that you can take a person in the 50th percentile and with mentoring, coaching, or other types of development, create a performer who is equivalent to someone at the 75th percentile. This could be considered the business equivalent of the old, ever-changing controversy of the relative contributions of nature vs. nurture that has confounded psychologists for over a century.
How does this philosophy apply to my own personal life and to how I parented my children? Growing up, my parents' life goal for me was matriculation into a good college; everything I did, including extra-curricular activities, and studies was focused on this outcome. Well, I guess I peaked at age 18 when Northwestern University accepted me and I enrolled in their liberal arts program. However, this presented a problem. Other than being told by my parents to graduate being able to "do something," I had no idea what that something was or what it meant. It ended up with a fun-filled rather than educationally-filled 4 year experience and a degree in Art History. I was very fortunate that I had taking typing in high school so that I could get my first job. Now mind you ... it wasn't that I wasn't 'smart enough' or tested 'well enough' to take better advantage of the opportunities for learning presented to me at Northwestern; rather, my experience there was out of my developmental stage: I simply was unprepared to know what I wanted to do. This is a common occurrence in industrialized nations. There was even an article about it in the American Psychologist entitled "The Theory of Emerging Adulthood." I actually copied that article to send to my parents when they complained that my children were not utilizing their intellectual talents. We are now living in an environment where children in the 20's and even 30's are leaving home, returning home, going to school, leaving school .... all after receiving a bachelor's degree. So how did my 'good enough' self maximize my potential? I'm bright, but not the brightest bulb on the chandelier; I have 'average' emotional intelligence; I have fairly well developed social competence. The answer is simple. I was ready to do something different. That readiness occurred after the birth of my second child when I decided to become a psychologist, having taken only one or two psychology courses at Northwestern. The answer includes patience, motivation, and being mentored but also being left alone to do research in what I was interested in.
Patience, as defined by me, as it applies to development, is the ability to define a goal and to take the time to reach that goal, be it one year or 5 years; patience includes breaking down a huge goal, such as a doctoral degree into smaller components, and focusing only on accomplishing that component (hopefully with success) before moving onto the next component.
Motivation is also an important aspect of success. One has to really want that goal and one has to have enough resilience to plug on when there are obstacles towards reaching that goal. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be very successful. You MUST be motivated, especially if you are not in that 10-15% of 'top talent.'
Mentoring is the most important external factor in success. Someone has to believe in you and believe that you are 'good enough' to be successful in your endeavor. Your mentor can be a friend, a parent, a coach, a colleague, or a professor. What makes a good mentor will be discussed in a later blog. Suffice it to say, a good mentor will know when to be available, how to be available, and even more important, when to trust you enough to leave you to do your own creating or work with the knowledge that he or she will 'have your back'. A good mentor will positively glory in YOUR achievements.
I was fortunate to have the "intrapsychic" factors of patience and motivation. I was also very fortunate to have a wonderful mentor in graduate school who let me do my own research in an area that was not terribly interesting to him and the knowledge I gained in the struggle to do complete my dissertation was invaluable. I was also very fortunate in having a wonderful mentor in my first post-graduate job in a teaching hospital who allowed my to use his research assessment to, again, follow my own research interests, which have been published in national peer-reviewed journals.
All this in a person, who describes herself as merely "good enough."
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