Archive for Emotional Intelligence
How to Improve EQ
Posted by: | CommentsNow that you better understand the theory of emotional intelligence, are you wondering how to improve emotional 
intelligence?
You can, you know.
Because emotional intelligence is your ability to identify and manage your emotions and the emotions of others, this is where you begin to improve – with your emotions.
“We become uncompetitive by not being tolerant of mistakes. The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you’re down the path of inactivity. You can stumble only if you are moving.” Roberto Goizueta – former CEO of Coca-Cola.
Become Self-Aware and Other-Aware
One step in improving emotional intelligence is to develop your emotional self awareness. Can you identify your own emotions as anger, resentment, elation, etc., or do you stuff and ignore them because showing emotions isn’t what you do, especially at work?
Can you identify particular emotions in other people ? Do you understand group dynamics and crowd mentality?
“Lifelong earning demands lifelong learning,” says Jeffery Joseph, Vice President of domestic policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. “Managing in today’s workplace requires new smarts. All employees are handling more complex jobs which require entrepreneurial drive and the ability to solve problems, communicate ideas and make swift decisions.”
Take Responsibility
Learn to take responsibility for your actions and feelings. If you messed up on a job assignment or reacted inappropriately to a co-worker, take ownership of it rather than blame others or feel entitled to your emotional tirade.
Remember you will have setbacks. You will get discouraged when you are trying to change your behavior. It takes time. Think of some of these points:
- The problem is not just who is involved; the real problem is how I choose to respond.
- The real problem is not just how something happens; the real problem is how I choose to respond.
Exercise Empathy
An old Indian adage states, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him”. Learn to look at someone’s actions through their eyes. What colors their reactions at work? Might they have a terminally ill child at home? Are they facing foreclosure because their spouse was laid off? Are they in chronic pain they don’t let others see?
“Empathy is career currency. It allows us to create bonds of trust, it gives us insights into what others may be feeling or thinking; it helps us understand how or why others are reacting to situations, it sharpens our ‘people acumen’ and informs our decisions.” Cynthia Kivland – Career Performance Strategies.
To be empathetic does not mean you need to tear up or feel sorry for someone. Empathy is easily demonstrated (even if you don’t feel anything yourself) by using active listening skills. Is it possible to really be empathetic with every person? Probably not.
Someone may tell you something horrible that you don’t think of as a big deal or you are sitting on an intense deadline that you are going to get screamed at if you don’t get it done and you can’t think of anything else. Just tell them you’re sorry to hear about such-and-such, please let you know what you can do for them, etc. Just give them a few minutes of you focused on them. That is usually enough in a pinch.
Remember that studies have shown that words only account for 7% of the total message people receive, 93% of the message is contained in our tone of voice and body language.
You need to build empathy in the managers that report to you as well. I was never an empathetic person early in my career, it was something that took time to cultivate and practice. I also had to learn that lack of empathy usually means that a person is self critical, hard on oneself. Even then I was never perfect. Practice it. It matters. To your career and the people that work for you.
Exercise Humor
Instead of resorting to anger or rigidity in your dealings with others, use humor to diffuse a situation that would normally anger or frustrate you. For example, if someone bumps you and your coffee spills down your shirt, instead of yelling at that person, what if you chuckled and said, “Oh, man, and that was a good cup of coffee, too!” You’ve just exercised an emotionally intelligent response.
With humor it’s easy to turn it into sarcasm so be sure you use the humor and not the sarcasm. Sarcasm is often a defense mechanism, while it can be funny you are usually not building your credibility as a leader when you use it, no matter how hard it makes everyone laugh so just be wise about when you use it.
Look for the Silver Lining
Bad situations don’t have to be total doom and gloom. Emotionally intelligent people find a silver lining, even if they had to make it themselves.
Let’s say your company of 2000 employees has to lay off 300, where’s the silver lining in that, you ask? Well, first, there are still 1700 people with a job. But because you are emotionally intelligent and empathize for the 300, can you rally any of the 1700 to help the 300 in some way? If 1700 people donate $20 each, the 300 laid off can all buy a cart full of groceries or several tanks of gas while they look for another job.
Improving emotional intelligence has great rewards. You will be a better employee and manager. You will handle difficult employees and diffuse difficult, even dangerous, situations with skill. You will rise further in the company, you will be more satisfied in your job, and you will help those around you to rise to their higher potentials as well.
Importance of EQ
Posted by: | CommentsThe importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace is quickly gaining recognition and reputation. Emotionally 
intelligent people are much more likely to succeed, and successful people, naturally, are who companies want to hire.
In fact, studies over the past decade pinpoint emotional intelligence as possibly the single most important factor contributing to success on the job. Highly emotionally intelligent people are more likely to be stellar performers, regardless of the industry they’re in.
A Feeling
Your emotions are more than feelings.
Researchers agree there are different kinds of emotions/feelings. There are emotions, which are more biologically oriented, and then there are complex emotions that are saturated with thoughts and cognition. A basic emotion would be simple sadness, whereas a more cognitively saturated emotion would be something like guilt, where you learned something in order to feel the guilt.
Emotion has several components to it. It also includes a feeling which is the response part of emotion. Emotion is an “umbrella term” which includes the situation, you interpretation of the situation and the response or feeling related to the interpretation of the situation.
Emotional Flow vs. Emotional Hijacking
All of us have been in flow at some point in our lives. Flow is that place where you are energized, focused, positive and absorbed in an activity in a seemingly effortless and fluid way. Typically we are in a state of flow when we are using our natural talents, preferences and meeting our interpersonal needs. We feel refreshed and content.
Then there is the other side, when we are hijacked. The amygdale is the brain’s emotional memory center. Fresh hurts, injustices or recent feelings are sitting right at the surface of that part of the brain’s “memory center”, you react, over react. Past hurts or insults are projected into the present. You experience worry, anxiety, panic, frustration, anger… Your impulse overrides rational thoughts.
It takes practice and awareness to acknowledge that you control the situation and can retrain your brain. All those positive self help books and classes that are so popular right now? It’s emotional intelligence training, it’s just not being called that.
You control which emotions affect your life the most. You need to ensure you are controlling your reaction and the outcome is what you want. If you are someone who experiences hijacking frequently it will cost you… And your company…
Emotionally Intelligent Managers
Employee turnover is costly to a business in several departments. You have to spend to advertise for the new job, take time to review applications and interview several applicants, you might spend time doing second interviews with a panel of interviewers, and then once hired, time is spent filing new-hire paperwork and training them in their new position. The importance of emotional intelligence just got a little clearer, didn’t it?
Highly emotionally intelligent managers have far less turnover than managers with lower EQ. These managers are good at interpersonal relationships and create an environment employees like to stay in. They’ll often even stay in a lower paying job with a great manager. When people leave jobs, often it is a bad manager they’re leaving, not the job itself.
Managers high on the EQ scale are also good at dealing with difficult employees. If you’re high in EQ, you see the human perspective behind your employee’s behavior. You’re able to put your emotions aside and not take the situation personally. You’re able to deal with the other person as a person. You know how to use humor, even self-deprecating humor, to diffuse a tense situation.
Getting the Job through Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence isn’t something you want to note on your resume, but you do want to show it in the interview.
You have your shiny new MBA and you’re interviewing for a job with 100 other MBAs. How do you stand out?
When the interviewers ask you questions about resolving conflict in the workplace or how much experience you have in dealing with difficult employees, this is where your responses reflect your emotional intelligence – even if the interviewers don’t yet know what EQ is or how it will benefit them.
Keeping the Job through Emotional Intelligence
Even if you’ve identified yourself as a little low on the emotional intelligence scale, that’s good! Now you can learn more about it and how to improve it. You can go to your manager and explain to them what you’re learning and enlist their feedback as you change and grow.
The foresight you display in identifying your weakness and demonstrating a desire to overcome it is a huge step towards becoming more valuable to your employer.
Effective Communication
Posted by: | CommentsPoor workplace communication from employees to customers results in hard feelings, frustration between each other, 
and even losing customers if they have another place they can go to get the items or service you offer.
You’ve experienced this if you’ve called for technical support to nearly any major company in the past few years. With so much outsourcing to other countries, it can be a huge struggle for both parties to understand each others’ accents. In this case, the poor communication is due to language barriers, but that doesn’t negate the consequences.
On the other hand, effective workplace communication from employees to customers makes happy customers. And happy customers are repeat customers.
Effective communication within the business is crucial as well. Perhaps you’ve had a boss who was too vague in describing exactly what he wanted you to do on your latest project. You think you heard “do XYZ” and later he says, “No, I told you to do ABC.” Time is wasted, you’re both angry and frustrated with each other, and it may even put your job on the line.
Based on your perceptions and your view of the job, you might actually have heard “do XYZ”. Likewise for your boss, who has another scenario in his head that fits with you doing “ABC.” But without the communication to explain thoroughly what expectations are, disaster isn’t far away.
Your experience with your emotions and understanding your control is an important element. There are assessments to find out and some great books to help. Understanding your role with emotions and how they play into other lives can help you have a better impact on your career and personal life. It makes for better communication skills in the work place and others.
Business Communication
Business communication in its simplest definition is just what it says: communication in business. But because people are so different and the business workplace is often so hectic and bustling, effective workplace communication can be difficult to achieve, let alone master.
Consider, too, that workplace communication is no longer only through meetings, phone calls, or memos posted around the water cooler.
When email became the main course of communication in the workplace, misunderstandings and hurt feelings arose. Why? Because missing in email (and other written communication, too) is the tone of the writer, the non-verbal cues, the body language. People tend to read into an email based on their current state of emotions and their relationship with that person.
A message as simple as “Good one” can be misunderstood. Is it a compliment or a sarcastic retort? But, “Good one. The client was really pleased!” makes the message clear and it takes only a few seconds more to clarify.
There is so much emphasis on communication in every aspect of our daily life it’s really important to understand the impact. A mumbled “thank you” with no eye contact has no meaning. An enthusiastic “Thank You!” with eye contact and a nod, wink or smile can move mountains.
When you get an email that makes you feel hurt or angry, before you type a long outcry take a moment and talk to the person when you aren’t feeling so hurt or angry. Maybe wait an hour or maybe a few hours. Many times people type a long response to something that they perceive is a wrong without thinking it through. Emotional outbursts even in email form don’t really have a place in the work place.
There are many employees out there working everyday to do well in their jobs and make a difference, they diligently send out department or company emails with instructions or information, often they feel they are sending the information to a void. Take the 5 seconds and send them a “thank you, I really appreciate you getting this out to everyone” and follow up with your subordinates if you have any. You have no idea how affirming it is to them, to be acknowledged and feel appreciated, and what did it take from you?
Any communication sent your way is usually a time saver for you. Decide how to best use it. Don’t assume your people read their emails. Typically as people move up their reading comprehension becomes more important, it’s important to develop those skills in your people and yourself.
Effective workplace communication
One of the biggest stresses for employees is often they feel “out of the loop” or like they aren’t told anything. This is a morale killer among a lot of other things. It is critical for you to develop a way to get information to your people. Or maybe you can do it for your supervisor. There is no perfect method, find something easy to maintain and understand.
Communication Skill Builders
Your communication skills, like your leadership management skills, can always benefit from a refresher course, from a session of communication skill builders, or from other communication exercises.
Aside from taking communication building courses, you’ll find a slew of communications management magazines, websites, seminars and courses online.
It’s also maybe a good idea to understand some of the reasons there are problems with communication. The book “The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book”, by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, gives a great insight to some common errors and misunderstandings. The book also comes with a free online assessment, that is if you buy it new and no one has used the code yet. It is a great tool to get started.
And for the serious communication buffs, a degree in organizational communication might be in order. This would open up career doors in areas such as management, human resources, training, consulting, and more.
EQ Numbers
Posted by: | CommentsThere are many, many numbers on EQ and its effects on performance, productivity, employee engagement and much more.
The following numbers are from Daniel Goleman’s book Working with Emotional Intelligence.
Daniel Goleman’s analysis of 181 jobs in 121 organizations found that emotional competencies were the best differentiators between star performers and typical performers.
In top leadership positions over 85% of the difference in performance is due to emotional competence.
Salespeople selected for emotional competencies at L’Oreal outsold collegues by $91,370 each, for net revenue increase of $2,558,360.
Met Life salesman who scored high on the optimism sell 37% more insurance in their first two years.
At L’Oreal sales agents who were selected for their strengths in emotional competence had 63 percent less turnover during their first year than those whose selection disregarded their competence profile. Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence.
Among newly hired sales reps at a start-up computer company, those hired for emotional competence were 90 percent more likely to finish their training than those hired for other criteria. Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence.
With some of these examples, and there are countless others, how can companies afford not to educate employees in these topics? What’s more, how can an employee, knowing education and training is out there, not take the opportunity to become better and more promotable?
Think of these statistics…..
The following are from Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.
EQ is so critical to success that it accounts for 58% of performance in all types of jobs.
Only 36% of the people we tested are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen.
People with the highest levels of IQ outperform those with average IQ just 20% of the time, while people with average IQs outperform those with high IQs 70% of the time.
The link to EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1300 to an annual salary.
Self-awareness is so important for job performance that 83% of people high in self-awareness are top performers, and just 2% of bottom performers are high in self awareness.
What Next?
Emotional intelligence can be improved upon. In fact, it might be a great training focus for your employees or yourself. It takes constant focus to overcome old habits and make behavior changes.
Early in my career I found that I was stressed out and running around like a chicken all the time and I had less than 20 employees. I was very controlling, I didn’t care what was going on with my employees other than what they could get done for me. I found I snapped at people, was by the rules and really focused on results.
At the time, my direct supervisor was influential in my development. He had conversations with me where we would work out the rational of what needed to get done and why. He was always understanding, asked my input and there was more… He even knew people two tiers below him and would ask me if I knew so-and-so liked horses too. Did I know so-and-so’s husband was in the hospital…. On and on.
It dawned on me one day that if he could find time in his busy day to chat with me and all these other people, why couldn’t I? Didn’t I have more responsibility to my subordinates than he did? Didn’t he have more to do than I did? So… I dug in.
It took months and months. I then read Daniel Goleman’s book, Working with Emotional Intelligence and I finally understood all the components. It still took months, but with the use of my journal and my boss at the time I did become a better people person. I was also able to manage people more effectively and with a lot less stress. I smiled more, talked to my employees. Guess what happened next? It carried over into my home life as well.
I would never of won the awards I have won over the years or the monetary prizes. I would of never been able to help as many employees go on to become successful themselves. I would never of had the compassion to take an average or D player and find out how to make them successful.
It’s really that important.
EQ Definition
Posted by: | CommentsThe Hudson River airplane landing by Captain Sullenberger is a great demonstration of well-developed emotional intelligence. Once the audio recordings of Captain “Sully” were made public, listeners have been stunned and amazed at the immense calm Sully demonstrated and the resoluteness with which he told air traffic control, “We’re going to be in the Hudson.”
Why was Captain Sullenberger so calm when other people in a life-or-death situation would be hysterical?
Emotional Intelligence has everything to do with how you handle your everyday life. Think about your responses to some of these questions.
Do you feel outraged when someone cuts in front of you in line?
Do you scream at the road when you are driving?
Do you have arguments with a lot of other people?
Do you cut people off when they are talking?
Do you get tense when you have to ask someone a question about something that may not go your way?
If you answered “yes” to more than one of those then you are probably weak in some area of emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence
While a concrete emotional intelligence (called EQ and sometimes EI) definition is under debate, the emotional intelligence theory can be summed up very succinctly as a combination of common sense and maturity.
Emotional intelligence is different than the traditional intelligence quotient (IQ), which basically measures how smart a person is. IQ and emotional intelligence do not necessarily go hand in hand.
You might know someone who is very smart, never needed to study in school, and can build a radio from a tin can, a paintbrush, and some duct tape. But put that person in a social situation or in a leadership position and you’ll wonder where the IQ went. A person can be very smart (high IQ) and have low emotional intelligence, making them seem immature or weak under tough circumstances.
Then you may know someone that barely finished school, doesn’t like to read books and is super successful. They have a lot of friends, are highly regarded in the community and no one knows they didn’t go to college. They thrived, with some finesse, hard work and their ability to read and negotiate with people.
An overview of Emotional Intelligence
The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves is an excellent quick read. This book also comes with a free assessment as long as the book is new and someone hasn’t used it.
The book describes the difference of IQ from EQ. Your IQ never changes and stays the same. They have done studies and found that two people with the same IQ can have completely different levels of success. Also your IQ is your ability to learn and it does not change over time. On the other hand EQ can be developed even if you are not born with it.
Your senses enter your brain through your spinal cord and must travel through the limbic system before you can think rationally about your experience. Emotional intelligence requires smooth communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain. When you practice emotional intelligence, the traffic flows smoothly in both directions.
The four emotional skills they identify are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Understanding how they work and how they interact is important at gaining EQ.
When did EQ become popular?
Daniel Goleman is the person most responsible for the current interest in Emotional Intelligence. His research showed that emotional intelligence is twice as important as IQ and technical skill combined when accounting for outstanding performance. “And the higher up you go in an organization, the more important these qualities are for success,” Goleman says. “When it comes to leadership, they are almost everything.”
Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
The importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace is clearly seen in the examples set by not only Captain Sullenberger, but also the air traffic controller who remained calm and highly efficient as he quickly located several other clear runways for the plane, then quickly summoned police, helicopters, and other rescue personnel to the Hudson, not knowing what kind of disaster might have happened.
Other examples of emotional intelligence are seen in people who work well under pressure, those who are good team players, and who set high examples for themselves and their team. The emotional competencies seen with the best leaders are:
- Initiative, achievement drive and adaptability
- Influence, team leadership and political awareness
- Empathy, self-confidence and developing others
Having a well developed emotional intelligence is as important as other leadership skills when it comes to being a supervisor, not to mention that it benefits you in all areas of your life.
