emotional intelligence posts
What is emotional intelligence and why is it important in your professional life? What about an organization’s emotional intelligence? Check out the posts below!
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The Secret to Turning Meetings into “Results Generators,” Not “Time Wasters”
January 27th, 2010
Good relationships. It’s no secret they’re vital to business success. They’re also the key to turning team meetings into “results generators,” not time wasters. I’ll show you exactly how to do just that using applied emotional intelligence. It all starts with on one simple question.
(Not seeing a video-screencast below? Click here)
But before we get there, let’s look at a typical team meeting. As the team leader, you jump into the agenda to get things rolling. People appear to be listening but in fact, they’re not really engaged. They’re checking their watches, scribbling notes, or lost in what I call the “swirl” of data in their heads. In short, they’re checked out. They sure aren’t thinking about how to get better results.
Sound familiar?
If it does, try this tip from applied emotional intelligence. Take a moment to ask your team this question: How are you developing relationships? That single question can tell you whether or not you are on track to get the best out of your team.
When I ask that question with teams I’m leading, here’s what I often get: “We’re on email with each other and that creates a lot of relationships.’” Emails create relationships? Hah! I don’t know about you but emails connect people. They’re about exchanging facts and figures not forming relationships.
Another answer I get is, “We have regular meetings”. Regular meetings are good but are you developing relationships there? I don’t think so.
The third answer I usually hear is, “We have regular social events”. Well, social events are also great, but when your company is throwing them and you have to go—well, it’s not the same thing as going to a party with friends. You’ll probably be in for a night of shoptalk. Not exactly the stuff from which relationships arise.
So what kinds of answers say, yes, my team is building effective relationships? First, you’ll hear, “We communicate clearly and that develops relationships.” Another one is, “We give each other regular feedback and hold one another accountable.” Accountability is a sure sign that relationships are in place, because it’s based on trust, engagement, and alignment.
If you’re hearing those comments from people sitting around the table, pat yourself on the back—you’re doing a great job of fostering relationships and highly effective teams.
See how it easy it is to apply the power of emotional intelligence? Try it and let me know what your team members say about how they’re developing relationships. At the very least, it will help them focus on the one thing that can get them out of their heads and onto the same page, where they can work together to get the best results possible.
Emotional Intelligence and Teamwork
January 14th, 2010
Teamwork. You either love or you hate it. And for good reason. Effective teamwork requires a lot of emotional intelligence.
I’m thinking the folks over at Scotiabank have emotional intelligence in spades. They’ve launched a new initiative called “one team, one goal.” Here’s the amazing part: they have 69,000 team members, spread across 50 countries.
How are they going to find the glue that unifies all these different employees to get results? By putting emotional intelligence to work. Here’s what that means. An important principle in emotional intelligence is starting with what matters.
Scotiabank focused on finding a solution to connect people so that they would generate results they needed. They sat down as a leadership team and thought, Hey! We’ve got a lot of members, in a lot of different places, a lot of data, and we need to get one core result. What’s the glue? What’s going to hold the team together? What’s going to align all of the data and the people?
Applying the power of Emotional Intelligence, they got to the idea of developing a mentoring program in which top-tier level executives would nurture and teach second-tier executives. That became their glue and goal: Develop new leaders.
Then it gets really exciting.
They started to think about this glue as a conversation about Scotiabank’s values, Scotiabank’s skills, and Scotiabank’s culture. They started teaching all that to this group of people, and it led to some robust conversations about problem solving.
Next thing you know this magical thing starts happening: the human element kicks in. People get electrified by ideas. They engage and connect. They solve problems and get results.
That’s emotional intelligence in action. You find the glue that will align people and data. For Scotiabank it was developing leadership through mentoring. For your team, it could be something different.
It’s interesting to note that Scotiabank is the only Canadian company to make the list of The Global Top Companies for Leaders. I’m guessing emotional intelligence has something to do with that. What do you think? How can you use emotional intelligence in your team and organization? What’s your glue?
If you can measure it, you can manage it – tree 71!
October 20th, 2009
When working with executive teams, I often discuss the importance of clearly articulating core values, identifying objectives/action plans and then driving performance results based on quantitative or qualitative measures – “if you can measure it, you can manage it”.
All of this proved itself true this weekend on my way to tree 71.
As I lay under my cozy duvet on a foggy, rain-drenched, Sunday morning, I realized that every fibre in my body was screaming in high resistance. I desperately wanted to cancel my Sunday morning ritual of climbing up the BCMC trail of Vancouver’s Grouse mountain.
Strangely, I heard myself utter to my partner Jim, “I will be ready in 10 minutes – you?” What was that? Where did that come from?
Fast forward to tree 71.
I stood drenched in sweat with my forehead pressed against the cold bark of tree 71. I had made it!!!!
I turned to Jim, who had not heard a word from me all morning — very unusual for this chatty gal.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe it – I made it to tree 71! ”
“I was totally locked in my resistance. I completely faked getting here. When we started the hike, I went into autopilot. I actually had to motivate myself by calculating the 50% mark of the hike – tree 36. At some point, I stopped to take a break. While I was catching my breath, I looked up and noticed that I was standing on the roots of tree 37! Wahoo!! I was half way there – I could actually make it to tree 71. And look at me now, I just proved it to myself.”
Tree 71 had become my clear goal. Armed with my core values of maintaining my health and wellness, I was able to motivate myself with a smaller measure of success and before you know it, the results were mine. Now it was time to celebrate!
It’s true. If you can measure it, you can manage it. In business and in pleasure, we all need a tree 71!
Emotional Intelligence Series #6 – Life is an Energy Management Game
June 19th, 2009
CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke of Reneevations discuss self awareness and choices that each of us can make to heighten our emotional intelligence. How you manage your energy really impacts how successful and fulfilled you are in your professional and personal life.
Choices to manage/move your energy:
- Make More of the Situation = be creative in the face of adversity – create a solution that serves you better,
- Make Less of the Situation = direct your energy toward a more positive outcome in lieu of being ‘stuck’,
- Make Nothing of the Situation = CrisMarie discusses how she made less of and then nothing of her 1988 Olympic experience.
Life is an energy game – make your best choice today!
Emotional Intelligence Series #4 – Personal Energy Management
April 29th, 2009
Be smart – rejuvenate yourself!
In this quick video, I talk about how many of us are overburdened with multi-tasking, which saps productivity. It is important to take a full break when you have the opportunity to go on vacation.
How to Develop Your Team’s Emotional Intelligence
April 20th, 2009
Why is emotional intelligence such an important subject today? Because emotional intelligence today wins the race. When teams can communicate together on a very interpersonal level, results can absolutely soar.
There are five components to address:
- Self awareness
- Self management
- Social skills
- Empathy
- Leadership assertiveness
What I’d like to encourage you to do is to think about the emotional intelligence in your teams. In this video, I’ll share a few quick tips to get you started.
