Improve your Emotional Intelligence

I am meeting a lot of people who feel helpless to do anything in this economic onslaught.  As I say to them - “there is always something you can do” - even small things that get you rolling again.

The benefits of high Emotional Intelligence have been well catalogued. Emotional Intelligence accounts for more than 85% of exceptional achievement. While technical skills can be necessary for productivity, these are insufficient to explain the differences between high and mediocre achievers. High performers show emotional intelligence as task complexity increases. 

The best leaders have found effective ways to handle their own and others emotions. Understanding the powerful role emotions play in the workplace sets great leaders apart from the rest. Also leaders emotional resonance sets the tone in the group effecting the outlook of all those around him. Having and developing high emotional Intelligence is therefore also key in the area of leadership.

What about our current economic climate? We are seeing the need more and more for Transformational (charismatic, personable, lead from the front)  rather than Transactional (work for reward only) Leadership skills. As always occurs  when things are volatile. And guess what - our friend Emotional Intelligence is even more important and more impactful on Transformational Leadership because its personality led with people skills to the fore.

So what can you do about this? Well you can improve your EQ (Emotional Quotient) through training. You can improve your Organisations EQ through training also - improving their ability to achieve what they need to achieve.

Now thats something you can do.
Talk to these guys www.adeo.ie

Aidan Higgins

Holistic Perspective

Leaders are often able to make judgements and form opinions quickly and so give advice quickly.  This can be a blessing in turbulent times particularly. However a down side of this is sometimes missing or not appreciating others perspectives and not taking them into account when making decisions. There are overlaps here with Emotional Intelligence, Leadership in context and motivation of your team. It is particularly important to take the time, particularly for “black and white” thinkers to look at a problem as a whole and ensure you see the whole piece.

I thought this poem by American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) was illuminating. It is based on a fable which was told in India many years ago…….

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Old wisdom but current too.

Aidan Higgins

Success in hard times.

Is it always true that if we work harder we will do better? In times like we are passing through now, if we put our heads down and push are we doing the right thing? What happens if we are already working very hard and if we are already expending more of ourselves than we like and leaving nothing for our personal lives  - the wringings from a dishcloth. Is this sustainable?

The term work smarter is very old. However the term applies still to the concepts of using your efforts more wisely.  What about working more intelligently? A friend of mine once said to me - smart is short term - intelligence is long term. I see a lot of well meaning managers and leader, leading by example, burning the candle at both ends and bringing their people with them. For a time the work culture in  Japan for instance precluded you leaving the office before the boss left even if it meant staying until midnight. Corporate in Japan had to turn off the lights in their buildings to make people go home. Bosses mean well and often lead this way - “work harder and we’ll get through this!” 

But what about working more Intelligently. What about waking up your people to Awareness and making them more Emotionally Intelligent? What about using training to improve the success of your people, who properly motivated use these new skills to be better in all facets of their jobs. We have been hearing for years that we need to engourage people to be leaders and to strive independently for their team in their own interests as well as the teams. Well what about giving them the tools to develop their Self Awareness, Self Regulation , Empathy and Social Skills, all of which are directly related to success.

In 2004 Stanford’s Graduate School of Business stated that “Emotional intelligence skills such as vision, building relationships and developing people are more important to leadership success than typical leadership traits, such as external/market orientation, financial acumen and planning“. This study involved 265 corporate executives, directors, managers, business owners, and consultants.  Sir John Egan, former head of the Confederation of British Industry, BAA and Jaguar is quoted as saying that “It is the really inspirational leaders who stand out in a crisis…Emotional intelligence is a big plus in hard times“.

I met someone the other evening - a small business owner  - who said that becoming aware of his personality type made an immediate difference to the running of his business. He said he was able to re-organise his and others work to match his strengths. I have watched how the processes that improve awareness and Emotional Intelligence build better teams, comradeship and networks in business.

Better still its something we can do something about. Its not “out there” with the financial difficulties, its internal. We can get our people awake and working better together by applying simple techniques and opening up their awareness of themselves and others quite readily.

And success breeds success.

Aidan Higgins

A trip through Gestalt

I just spent nearly a week with Dick McHugh doing Gestalt. Wonderfull stuff. Gestalt is a therapy that focuses on ones experience in the present moment and on taking personal responsibility for our thoughts and actions. The course focused on the work done by Fritz Perls and Laura Perls with whom he worked in the US.

Again around one of my favourite themes, personal mastery we covered a lot of ground and many ideas new to me. Dick summarised it nicely when he said it was about “living life in the present because thats where the power is”.  Gestalt theory offers that Freudian Psychotherapy models of looking at historic events were not as effective as looking at the ”now”. This emphasised to me the continuing importance of Awareness and Presence of course, themes we touched on with Emotional Intelligence, NLP and the Enneagram in earlier posts.

A most important part of Gestalt is seeing one’s behaviours are Holistic in that there are many parts but they work together in a Whole. Further this behaviour is understood only in context (the events surrounding the behaviour) and this is termed Figure and Ground - behaviour and background or context. What was interesting is that this relates to the basic Taoist theory of Ying and Yang- foreground and background - one element only existing because of the other  (the mist does not exist without the mountain) and given that the originators were of German origan, far removed from Taoism in the early 1900’s its interesting that there was an overlap in concepts. Behaviour and Context can be likened also to Leadership in Context, however thats for another article I think.

So moving into opposites existing together we explored Polarities within us, which was very interesting.  Polarity theory is based on exploring two sides of one element of ones behaviour. An example might be when troubled or stuck on something to examine the emotional and logical resoponse to it as opposites. Dick had a great exercise. One sits in a chair looking at another chair and imagines the opposite sitting there, so taking the example you play the emotional role and make your point to the Logical. Then you swap roles and speak to the emotional as the logical. The argument is brilliant, bringing out both sides until there is a powerful consensus or resolution in the centre. As Dick said “thats where the power is”.

Gestalt is used to help people become real - from “paper people to real people”. For a personal journey for managers, leaders or employees this can lead to greater things, not least important, happiness. 

Great working with Dick again too.

Aidan Higgins

Social and Emotional Learning

It was Daniel Goleman that first brought my attention to Social and Emotional Learning.  This is a new field being explored in the US which uses the obvious corollary that if EQ is more important than IQ and it makes a huge impact on success in life then perhaps steps should be taken, in addition to the existing curriculum for children, to offer learning that develops EQ. One organisation that is working in this area is CASEL.

One story he told us was of school bullying.  Studies have shown that young bullies have a difficulty telling threatening facial expressions from non threatning so that anyone who is not engaging with and smiling at them is a threat an likely to be attacked. This is often from the learning at home where there may be a history of physical attacks from family members who have neutral expressions. The SEL program teaches these children to recognise peoples expressions with the resultant measured improvement.

Of particular interest was Golemans claim that SEL training has a hugely beneficial impact which become discernable at University entry level where those who had completed the training got on average much higher test results that those of equivalent background and class. Further he told us that the impact of the SEL training was so large that is was a bigger differentiator that any made by the aforementioned social background or race. It has also been shown that SEL learning provides students with basic skills such as good decision-making and refusal skills, which help them to avoid engaging in high-risk behaviors such as drug taking and to participate in behaviors that support their positive development.

So reversing the corollary back to the Organisation what can we expect from improving the Emotional Intelligence of your people. Better teamwork, leadership and results can be expected.The Emotionally Intelligent Organisation is an organisation with a high number of emotionally intelligent leaders, managers and high profile employees and generally stands to be at the forefront of organisational practice and performance. An Organisation that promotes openness and diversity, encourages honesty, transparency and spontaneity is also more innovative and responsive and quite importantly it is more likely to be an employer of choice.

Aidan Higgins

Real Emotional Intelligence

Someone asked me last week what exactly Emotional Intelligence was. I explained that its a combination of factors namely (Goleman) Self Awareness (to be aware of ones own emotional state, emotional reactions and focus of attention), Self Management (the ability to regulate those emotions and reactions), Motivation (the ability to rise to a challenge and maintain the energy required), Empathy (the ability to understand other peoples emotions and be present for/to them) and Social Skills ( the ability to interact with others and build social networks).  I explained that it was totally seperate from IQ in that it was not Intelligence in the normal sense that we have come to know over the years and that it seems that Emotional Intelligence is very important to success in life.

The response was “So?”. “Well” I continued - “people who are successful and particularly business managers are shown to have high Emotional Intelligence and the higher the Emotional Intelligence the more chance of being really good at your job and moving up the organisation.” The response was “So you’re telling me that people with better motivation and social skills basically make better managers”. “Yes” I said, happy my point had gotten across. “But” the reply came “That’s common sense. We all know that. Whats new about that?”

Oops - I was stumped for a sec - so I said ”Well now its proven to be true” and winced inwardly. I deserved the look I got from my inquisitor. So I stopped for a bit and I thought it out before saying - “I suppose its about the old rule, you can’t improve what you can’t measure, so the fact that the factors have been identified and are now measurable means you can tell what someones EQ level is and work on its improvement.” I explained the EQ was the Emotional Quotient that is the measure of one EQ (as IQ is for Intelligence).  For this I got a nod which said “Maybe this guy does know what he is talking about”….”Maybe!”.

But its an excellent question and one which brings into focus the question of competencies and their measurement. There are more definitions of Emotional Intelligence than Golemans. Two of the most respected are those of Higgs and Dulewicz and Mayer and Salovey (more on those anon), but the measurement instrument that is most popular is the Rueven Bar-on model which was named after its developer and provides an EQ-i score from a test based on 133 items. These questions are sectioned to address: Intrapersonal - comprising Self-Regard, Emotional Self-Awareness, Assertiveness, Independence and Self-Actualization; Interpersonal comprising Empathy, Social Responsibility and Interpersonal Relationship; Stress Management comprising Stress Tolerance and Impulse Control; Adaptability comprising Reality-Testing, Flexibility, and Problem-Solving; General Mood comprising Optimism and Happiness.

Given the EQ-i measure of Emotional Intelligence has been around for a while there have been a few interesting trends evolving - particularly where there is a suitable base for research - North America. One such trend is that Emotional Intelligence tends to improve as you get older. And peaks - on average - in ones late 40’s. A form of wisdom perhaps. Also interesting is that there is no difference between ethnic groups. Most fun of all however - definitely for the social dinner gathering this one - is the finding that females are more aware of emotions than males while the latter are more adept at managing emotions than the former. I don’t know about you but there are definitely a few times and places where I wouldn’t bring that up without wearing my motorcycle helmet.

Aidan Higgins

The Enneagram in Business - Barriers to Acceptance

I have been using the Enneagram with business for over ten years now and it get clearer and stronger to me every day. Its general acceptance among the business community is becoming a reality - but slowly. Some of this is I believe is to do with the way it is taught and the language that is used to teach it. I know that if someone rolled into a business training session I was a part of, with their own spiritual agenda (whatever that might be) and tried to force it down my throat it would taint the taste of whatever I was taught and perhaps put me off it for life.

The fact that the Enneagram originated in Philosophical tradition (as did Psychology) and was taken forward initially by Jesuits in the US  (such as Don Riso of Riso and Hudson ) means that it has been taken by the spiritual community and has emerged from there to the business world. Having come from the business world to the Enneagram myself (the opposite route) it is obvious to me that the language used for teaching must be adapted to the new audience.

I have also come across attitudes that suggest that the business community does not need the Enneagram and in fact it may be harmful in the wrong hands. I would point out that there is a greater need than ever for the Enneagram in business and not just because of its impact on Emotional Intelligence and on the performance of the bsuiness. What about people being happier with their lives and their lot? Most Business is about dealing with or working with other people. Its 30% of our waking time so surely its a good place to start. Also the Enneagram is the sort of learning that is taken home from work and lifts the lives of others at home and in ones social circles too.

When I was researching the Enneagram for my dissertation I interviewed a lot of Enneagram trainees and almost all of them who were introduced to the Enneagram at work continued the learning on their own time outside work, perceiving its value. However when I broach the subject of the Enneagram to business people who have never seen it, I see a suspicious glint in their eye and the question that most often comes out is “is that like the Belbin thing or that Myers Briggs thing” and I have to say yes….but NO! There is a lot of history with those two models (fine for their time) of being labelled with no real benefit. Coupled with that is their immediate fear of being ”found out”.

However they do get found out - by themselves. The Enneagram is about self realisation first and foremost and about self improvement. When you can identify the colour of the lens through which you view life you comprehend things very differently. As Helen Palmer repeats regularly “you can see things as they really are”. Often the most powerful of the revelations are based around the fact that the focus of attention is different for each type so you selectively perceive your own truth. Further you crave different certainties in life than other types - so you focus on getting them. It takes time and it takes awareness but the rewards are the understanding of what drives you, your resultant actions and reactions as a result and the understanding of how others differ from you in these respects. So you drive up your Emotional Intelligence and the resultant rewards can be considerable.

Heavy stuff ? It can be. Enjoyable? Certainly. But it requires change and this creates fear initially. So the language must be carefully chosen when the invitations are sent out. This is important stuff. Hardly Sales skills 101.

Aidan Higgins

The Emotional Intelligence advantage

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
Horatio Walpole (1729)

I remember doing a course at the Irish Management Institute on communication. As I am a problem solving type I was sure and confident of my skills and when I took a test on Empathy I was confident of doing well. I did not do well.

I was of the opinion that people who had personal or emotional problems need to have it fixed and be motivated to either “get on with it” or work to fix the problem – with as much help from me as was required. This however was not empathic - which is defined as one’s ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. This of course involves listening to and “being there” for someone rather that immediately focusing on the problem. This introduced me to a world of emotion that I had assumed needed to be avoided to make clear logical decisions and make things happen. Clearly I lacked a natural appreciation of Emotion in others and probably myself.

Emotional Intelligence was simply defined by Savoley and Mayer as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them … to guide ones own feelings and actions”. They further explain the benefits of Emotional Intelligence thus:

“When people approach life’s tasks with Emotional Intelligence, they should be at an advantage for solving problems adaptively …The sorts of problems people identify and the way they frame them will probably be more related to internal emotional experience than will be the problems addressed by others.”
 
The take up in popular culture and now business and academic culture of Emotional Intelligence has been driven somewhat by linking Emotional Intelligence to “success” in life and business and to the very popular 1995 Goleman book on Emotional Intelligence in which he questioned the factors that cause people of high IQ to flounder and those of modest IQ to do surprisingly well. Goleman suggested that the difference lies in the abilities called Emotional Intelligence, which include self control, persistence and the ability to motivate oneself.

Higgs and Dulewicz of Henley Management College who I came across during my MBA studies found also that corporate interest appeared to be strongly related to the search for a way of securing a competitive advantage through attention to developing human capital. They also suggest Emotional Intelligence contributes to success noting:  “The roots of the development of the concept of emotional intelligence appear to lie in the apparent inability of traditional measures of “rational thinking” … to predict who will succeed in life.

The idea of relating Emotional Intelligence to success in life also needs qualification re: the nature of “success” (as it obviously means different things to different people) and some for example refer to it at different stages as “life success” “success in their chosen field of endeavour” “success in the organisational context” etc. Goleman’s illustrated this by pointing out that given IQ and technical competences are equal with two individuals one becomes and English professor and the other the Head of the English Department – the difference between the two being the higher Emotional Quotient of the latter.

Emotional Intelligence also plays a key role in leadership and management and Goleman found that Emotional Intelligence plays an increasingly important role at the highest levels of the company, where differences in technical skills are of negligible importance. This correlation is very interesting in the Organisational context and even more interestingly he also found that the higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more Emotional Intelligence capabilities showed up as the reason for this effectiveness.

The importance of Emotional Intelligence has lead to extensive media coverage and great interest from all walks of life. Ther is no doubt in my mind that Emotional Intelligence is an important topic for Occupational Psychology, for Human Resource Management and that it has huge potential value for Manager, Leaders and HR professionals and also teachers, educationalists and counselors.

Aidan Higgins