Peak Performance Newsletter #13 | On Content vs. Context, Mental Tools for Startup Founders
What's the difference between content and context and why does it matter?
Hey All,
This edition of the newsletter is coaching-heavy, focusing on a few fundamental coaching concepts. As you read, I encourage you to consider:
How does this apply to your coaching relationships? Is there something you'd like more or less of? Is this something to keep track of moving forward?
How does this apply to domains outside of coaching?
I've been feeling under the weather this week so apologies if this edition is less tightly edited. I'm also starting to reflect on what I want to create in 2022, and that includes ideas for how I'd like to leverage the newsletter. Let me know if there's any content you've found particularly valuable or would like to see more of!
I. Content vs. Context in the Coaching Container
There are endless ways to coach. Coaching is a multi-faceted action, encompassing part-expert, part-advisor, part-therapist, part-cheerleader. You can say the same for leadership of any kind.
One way to differentiate between these different roles is to consider if, in a moment, you are relating to the content or context of a situation.
Coaching on content is coaching inside of the material that is being presented. If the topic of conversation is fundraising strategy, coaching on content means talking about the fundraising strategy itself with the goal of creating or improving the strategy.
In contrast, coaching on context is coaching around how you are being in relationship to the content. In our fundraising example, this would mean discussing how you're feeling about fundraising. Is the process stressing you out, clouding your vision, compromising your judgment, or driving you into avoidance? Is it adrenalizing you, leading you to act quickly and rashly with the goal of getting through it?
When coaching on context, you examine how you are in relationship to something, the potential origins and implications of that pattern, where that pattern may exist elsewhere, and what you might be able to do to move through it.
To be clear, there is no "right" or "better" approach. Coaching on context tends to be more directly developmental to the individual, but there are times when the content is so challenging that the opportunity for development isn't there. Diving into context at this point is putting the cart before the horse. It might even be damaging to development; akin to asking someone how someone is feeling when a lion is chasing them on the savannah. Much better to shut up and help them deal with the lion.
Sometimes, however, you may find yourself (or someone you're working with) favoring the content in avoidance of the hard work of looking at context. When this happens, there is a huge developmental opportunity to be had by examining the context. Reactive avoidance of context is a sign that there is growth-inducing discomfort in it.
Conversations might include content, context, and the overall relationship between and to the two. This is the most frequent case. A healthy conversation oscillates between the different components as is appropriate.
Note that this applies to far more than coaching. Many relationships and businesses suffer from being too one-sided on the content-context spectrum. While the traditional business bias is on the side of all-content no context, I've seen companies go through significant ruts during phases of being overly contextual to the detriment of moving the business forward. The same can be said for any intimate relationship, whether with a business or romantic partner.
Your location on the content-context spectrum can be examined at nearly every abstraction layer: the person, conversation, team, business, industry, and over varying periods and scopes of time.
Knowing what is right is very intuitive, and can be managed via a simple homeostatic heuristic:
What are we talking about right now? Would surfacing more context help the conversation? Do we need to focus more on content? Do we need a blend of each?
II. Podcast: Navigating the Content of Building a Startup
Alisa Cohn, a prominent startup coach, was recently on the Tim Ferriss Show. The podcast covered a lot of ground, including:
The devastating power & value of 360 reviews
The value of "Pre-mortems"
The process of giving someone feedback on underperformance
The “three words that you think about when you think about me” exercise
A series of scripts for common yet difficult conversations to have as a leader, including:
Quick, positive feedback
Developmental feedback to junior employees, managers
Constructive Criticism
Repeated bouts of constructive criticism
Firing
Soliciting feedback
Setting or resetting expectations
Hiring a manager over someone
And more!
Alisa illuminated two huge points of value for me that I hadn't considered before:
The Value of a Pre-mortem
Strategic planning is valuable, but execution rules. The question becomes: How can we red team our plans to make them reinforce execution rather than distract from it?
Introducing the concept of a pre-mortem: Once you have a plan you feel good about, ask yourself: If this fails, how? Envision a future where your project didn't work out. Consider the weaknesses of your plan and gaps in your ability to execute that would lead to failure. Use these insights as feedback to improve your plan.
The Value of Scripts in Coaching Conversations
Bear with me here. During the episode, Alisa mentions that one big value add she provides for client is giving them scripts for challenging conversations. This was a bit of a mind-bender for me to process. Here’s why:
If you're a leader, you'll inevitably find yourself playing the role of coach. At the center of coaching lies a unique challenge: how do you facilitate an individual's development without "giving away the answers", thus robbing them of development?
Imagine you're mentoring a junior employee at your company and they ask for your advice. One thing that differentiates the role of manager versus mentor is your relationship to the question.
A manager is looking to drive the best outcome, and is therefore likely to share precisely what they think should be done.
A mentor, on the other hand, is likely to be more withdrawn with their opinions. They're likely to inquire about what the employee thinks is best and why. They may ask about what process the employee would enact and explore strengths and weaknesses of that process.
The manager's goal is to achieve the best outcome for the project. The mentors goal is to facilitate the continued development of the individual, enabling them to better tackle projects on their own going forward.
Over the long-term the manager facilitates codependence. The mentor facilitates independence.
This is a dilemma central to coaching in particular because it begs the question, what constitutes "giving away" the answers?
Based on the above, it’s clear that anything that facilitates a codependent relationship by transferring power to the coach when the individual was capable falls into this category. What about when the individual has an obstacle to tackle but genuinely doesn't know what to do?
At this point I believe it is the coaches responsibility to step in as teacher, adding value by proving a foundational framework (or reframe) for how to approach the challenge. Whether it be scripts for what to say in a challenging conversation or the bones of a plan, sometimes people simply need models where they don't have them. It doesn't make any sense to make a student struggle to calculate the area of a triangle when they don't know the equation for it. What they need then is an explanation of the equation and why and how it works, not to struggle with the problem in solitude for longer.
It takes time to develop an intuition for when this is helpful vs. when it takes away from developmental opportunities. The point is not to fall into the trap of thinking that providing information or opinions necessarily robs someone of developmental opportunities.
III. 1 Question
What would you do if you weren’t worried about being right?