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I know of a global organization where people are hired for their technical expertise, not their interpersonal skills. When a key team started to have a lot of friction and constantly missed deadlines, they brought in a leadership coach for the leader of that team. The coach found that the leader was only focused on his own perspective of what was going wrong with the team. He had no sense of what people on the team thought or felt.
He never tried to learn how they saw things, let alone get to know them. What this leader lacked was skill at teamwork, a competency of emotional intelligence.
Via David Hain, Kevin Watson
Developing leadership to improve relationships and accelerate change is a key goal in many organizations, so what’s the secret that helped 73% of leaders in this global tech company measurably improve?
Excelitas is a global technology company with R&D and 19 manufacturing facilities around the world. To improve performance, the company set out to strengthen the leadership skills that would improve workplace climate to strengthen employee engagement. Recognizing that emotional intelligence would be a valuable ingredient in this initiative, company partnered with Six Seconds to develop a program measurably improve leadership. This case study reviews outcomes of the program and key ingredients that the company used to create this success.
Via David Hain
Connecting with others is at the heart of human nature. Recent research emphasizes that the power of connections can help us be creative, resilient, even live longer. But we can easily overlook the importance of these bonds. As popular writer and researcher Adam Grant has noted, the pressure of tight deadlines and the pace of technology mean that fewer Americans are finding friendship in the workplace. In fact, many of us are further disconnecting from the people we work with: we’re more stressed out than ever, and half of us regularly experience incivility in our jobs. How can we create possibilities for connection in what is sometimes a hostile atmosphere? We believe there needs to be more compassion.
Via The Learning Factor
Mindfulness has become the corporate fad du jour, a practice widely touted as a fast-track to better leadership. But we suspect that not all the benefits laid at its feet actually belong there. Our research and analysis has revealed a complicated relationship between mindfulness and executive performance—one that is important for leaders to understand as they seek to develop in their careers. Mindfulness is a method of shifting your attention inward to observe your thoughts, feelings, and actions without interpretation or judgment. A mindfulness practice often begins simply by focusing on your breath, noticing when your mind wanders, and then bringing it back to your breath. As you strengthen your ability to concentrate, you can then shift to simply noting your inner experience without getting lost in it at any point in your day. The benefits attributed to this kind of practice range from stronger relationships with others to higher levels of leadership performance.
Via The Learning Factor
Worrying about deadlines, work flow or employee issues is natural for people working in the business world. Stress happens. You have options, though, on how you deal with stress. Sometimes, taking a moment to recenter yourself is all you need to do: By putting things into perspective, you can find the grit to keep going. That’s not always the best course of action, though. If you find that a particular task or job regularly leaves you feeling overwhelmed, drained or quietly angry, you may want to rethink how you approach the work or even consider whether you’d be better suited for a different sort of job or different company.
Via The Learning Factor
Are people in your organization energized and happy or anxious and stressed? Does it matter? New research offers important insights into people and what drives performance. Here are three key findings, and a link to download the full report.
Via David Hain
Packing your beach bags? Firing up a grill? Now’s the time for leaving work concerns at work and skipping off someplace where you can relax, regenerate, let loose, and just have fun. The idea of doing anything that even remotely reminds you of your job probably doesn’t seem too appealing—and that’s fine. But even so, your vacation doesn’t have to be dead time when it comes to self-improvement. Before you roll your eyes and click or swipe out, there’s good news: You can boost your skills while relaxing and de-stressing. In other words, your vacation can be a great time to improve your emotional intelligence—and still thoroughly remain in vacation mode. Since that’s one of the most important job skills on the market right now, it’s worth taking a page or two from the most emotionally intelligent vacationers’ play books.
Via The Learning Factor
As Steve Jobs stated, “We don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do, we hire them to tell us what to do.” Increasingly employers are becoming aware of the importance of emotional intelligence in staff they promote up the ladder.
Via James Schreier
If you have these characteristics, did you know you also have high emotional intelligence?
Via Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D.
The booming growth of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), like most transformational technologies, is both exciting and scary. It’s exciting to consider all the ways our lives may improve, from managing our calendars to making medical diagnoses, but it’s scary to consider the social and personal implications — and particularly the implications for our careers. As machine learning continues to grow, we all need to develop new skills in order to differentiate ourselves. But which ones?
It’s through a leader’s actions — and ultimately her beliefs — that the essence of great leadership becomes apparent.
Via Anne Leong
A new case study, written by Giacomo Nottoli, Lorenzo Fariselli, Fabio Barnabè, Erika Paci
in collaboration with Massimiliano Ghini, Joshua Freedman and Paul Stillman, shows dramatic impacts from EQ training on sales performance.
Amadori is one of the leading companies in the Italian agro-food sector, an innovative company and specialist in the poultry market. The turnover in 2015 was more than 1.2 billion euros. The Company, founded forty years ago in Cesena, relies on collaboration with over 7,400 workers and has industrial plants, subsidiaries and branches all over Italy.
Here are a few excerpts and a link to the full CASE STUDY.
Via David Hain
Commitment, passion and drive are just a few of the qualities required for success but perhaps one of the most vital skills is emotional intelligence
Via Anne Leong
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What makes coaching effective, and what’s the role of emotional intelligence (EQ)?
New research published in the Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy (Stillman, Freedman, Jorgensen, & Stillman, 2017) reiterates the powerful link between EQ and effective coaching. . . both for coaches and clients.
Via David Hain
When you’re pitching investors, you need a great product and a great story–that much is a given. But those aren’t the only things venture capitalists are looking for. Just as emotional intelligence (EQ, or EI) has steadily crept to the fore in hiring, it’s also “a critical part in the process that we go through when deciding whether or not to invest in a company,” says Janet Bannister, general partner at Real Ventures. As Bannister sees it, “A leader with strong EQ can hire people to complement their skill set and cover for areas where they are weak. However, someone low in EQ will never be able to attract, retain, and motivate high performers–and therefore will have huge difficulties in scaling a company.” She isn’t the only VC who’s thinking this way about sizing up founders’ emotional intelligence. Here are a few key questions that seven other investors like Bannister typically ask to assess entrepreneurs who pitch them for funding.
Via The Learning Factor
We may live in a digital world, but soft skills like communication, problem solving, collaboration, and empathy are becoming more valued than technology, says Paul Roehrig, chief strategy officer for Cognizant Digital Business, a business and technology service provider. “People skills are more and more important in an era where we have powerful and pervasive technology,” he says. “It sounds counterintuitive, but to beat the bot, you need to be more human.” When evaluating their hiring plans for 2017, 62% of employers rate soft skills as very important, according to CareerBuilder. But a recent survey by the Wall Street Journal found that 89% of executives are having a difficult time finding people with these qualities.
Via The Learning Factor
All the data suggesting that coding is rapidly becoming an essential skill for any job–not just one in tech–only tells one side of the story. The other side indicates that soft skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, attention to detail, and writing proficiency top the list of what hiring managers find missing from job seekers’ personal tool kits. But according to theWorld Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, one the job skills that will make a candidate competitive in the job market of the future is emotional intelligence. The WEF predicts it will be among the top ten in 2020. How emotionally intelligent are you now? There are several ways to test it (including one that’s so accurate it’s creepy). The good news is that even if you’re a bit deficient on some traits, emotional intelligence can be improved. Here are some suggestions on boosting your EQ right away.
Via The Learning Factor
Getting smart people into your company is hard enough. Turning them all into great collaborators and risk-takers is even harder. Even on the most high-performing teams, coworkers don’t just openly share feedback and challenge each others’ ideas all on their own–managers need to create a culture that encourages this. And that usually requires building your team’s collective emotional intelligence. Here are a few straightforward (and entirely low-tech ways) to get started.
Via The Learning Factor
What’s the point of networking if not to get other people to like you? Sure, you need new contacts to see you as interesting, competent, professional, and potentially valuable to them—but if they don’t also find you likeable, nobody will feel motivated to reach out later and work with you. The reason why all comes down to emotional intelligence, the set of skills and qualities that allow people to form deeper, closer relationships with others. Likability is a key ingredient in that, and its career benefits are pretty obvious. For instance, being likeable—and liking your coworkers in return—can increase your chances of getting promoted. But when it comes to first impressions, you don’t always have much time to get people to like you. So here are a few straightforward things that the most emotionally intelligent people do to cement their likability from the get-go.
Via The Learning Factor
A few weeks ago, after receiving a 21-page PDF report breaking down my so-called “emotional intelligence,” I did the logical thing and forwarded it to my boyfriend. He glanced at the list of categories on the second page and exclaimed—before reading my results—”Flexibility, uh oh!” The report was the result of an assessment I’d taken three weeks prior called the EQ-i 2.0, which is based on nearly 20 years of research and has been taken by some 2 million people—and sure enough, it told me I’m about as inflexible as people close to me seem to think I am. Shortly afterward I scheduled a call with its developer, Steven J. Stein, who reviewed my results and offered this suggestion: “I would start looking at how you operate—what your routines are, how you get through a day.” When I asked him for an example of a routine I might want to shake up, he said, “Like, eat a different breakfast or something.”
Via The Learning Factor
Is Emotional Intelligence the same as being “nice” or “polite”?
Does Emotional Intelligence just mean you have a lot of empathy?
Is Emotional Intelligence only for women or men who want to “get in touch with their sensitive side”?
After 20+ years of writing and speaking about the science behind Emotional Intelligence and its importance in work settings, I still come across people who believe one or more of these myths about EI. The author of a recent article in Scientific American fell into the “EI is just about empathy” trap. And an article in Harvard Business Review equated being nice with Emotional Intelligence. The assumption that Emotional Intelligence is related to a man’s “inner female” was raised in a comment to one of my posts about the Emotional Self-Awareness competency.
Each of these exemplify misleading stereotypes about Emotional Intelligence. And they equate one narrow slice of these abilities with the whole. But Emotional Intelligence is much more than just being empathic or nice.
Via David Hain
Being emotionally intelligent doesn’t mean we don’t have feelings, but managing the feelings that you do have. We know how to share our feelings
There are many models of emotional intelligence, each with its own set of abilities; they are often lumped together as “EQ” in the popular vernacular. We prefer “EI,” which we define as comprising four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Nested within each domain are twelve EI competencies, learned and learnable capabilities that allow outstanding performance at work or as a leader (see the image below). These include areas in which Esther is clearly strong: empathy, positive outlook, and self-control. But they also include crucial abilities such as achievement, influence, conflict management, teamwork and inspirational leadership. These skills require just as much engagement with emotions as the first set, and should be just as much a part of any aspiring leader’s development priorities.
What is learning? It’s a process of growth… starting at a neurological level, new connections forming… At work, in life, and hopefully in every classroom, people are working to teach and learn. It’s a mental process — but current neuroscience confirms learning is also physical, social, and emotional. Are you someone committed to learning and helping others learn? If so, perhaps you’ve considered:
How does learning work best?
In the Six Seconds community, we’re starting this year focused on this big question and understanding the role of emotions and emotional intelligence as our brains build new insight and meaning. The adventure starts now with five essential highlights (plus inspiring learning quotes) below.
Via David Hain
Iis higher EQ always beneficial? Although the downside of higher EQ remains largely unexplored, there are many reasons for being cautious about a one-size-fits-all or higher-is-always-better take on EQ. Most things are better in moderation, and there is a downside to every human trait.
Via David Hain
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