Read Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Online
Authors: Travis Bradberry,Jean Greaves,Patrick Lencioni
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (16 page)
It’s pretty obvious on any news channel, reality show, sitcom, or newspaper that today’s media feed off the idea that courtesy appears to be diminishing in modern society. With the decline of good manners, there are fewer expressions of appreciation. These days, in both personal and work-related relationships, there are far too few “please’s,” “thank you’s,” and “I’m sorry’s” being expressed.
Most workers will say that they
never
get thanked for their contributions at work but yet will agree that hearing “thank you,” “please,” or even “I’m sorry” can have a positive impact on morale.
never
get thanked for their contributions at work but yet will agree that hearing “thank you,” “please,” or even “I’m sorry” can have a positive impact on morale.
Think about how often you really say “thank you,” “please,” or “I’m sorry” when it is needed; if you don’t use them often, it could be due to lack of time or habit, or maybe even a bruised ego. Begin to make a habit of incorporating more of these phrases into your relationships. Or, rather, please make it a habit to use more of these phrases during your day. Thank you.
Feedback is a unique gift. It’s meant to help us improve in ways that we perhaps cannot see on our own. Since you never know exactly what you are going to receive, however, feedback is sometimes like opening up a present and looking inside to find a pair of tiger-striped socks with red sequins.
The element of surprise can catch us off guard, so we need to use our self-awareness skills to prepare ourselves for that moment.
What do I feel when I am on the spot and surprised? How do I show it?
With that awareness, move on to your self-management skills:
what response should I choose?
What do I feel when I am on the spot and surprised? How do I show it?
With that awareness, move on to your self-management skills:
what response should I choose?
To help you receive feedback well, let’s break it down. First, consider the source of your feedback. This person probably has a relevant perspective—he or she knows you and has seen your performance—and has an interest in seeing you improve.
As you receive feedback, turn on your social awareness skills to listen and really hear what is being said. Ask clarifying questions and ask for examples to better understand the person’s perspective. Whether you agree with what was said or not, thank the person for his or her willingness to share, because it takes almost as much grace to give feedback as it does to receive it.
After you receive the feedback, use your self-management skills to decide your next steps; don’t feel pressured to rush into action. Time can help you absorb the underlying point, sort out your feelings and thoughts, and help you to decide what to do about the feedback. Remember the Emotion vs. Reason list?
Receiving feedback is probably the hardest part of the process. Once you decide what to do with the feedback, follow up with plans. Actually making adjustments will show the person who gave you feedback that you value his or her comments. Take the person’s feedback seriously and try what he or she suggested. There may be no better way to solidify your relationship with him or her.
Have you ever been asked to “practice” trust? The exercise looks like this: you have a partner, and you stand about five feet in front of the person with your back facing him. You close your eyes, and on a count of three, you fall backward toward the person so that he can catch you. When you’re caught, everyone enjoys a laugh and is thankful neither person wiped out. If only trust were a matter of good, strong arms and steady balance.
An unknown author said, “Trust is a peculiar resource; it is built rather than depleted by use.” Trust is something that takes time to build, can be lost in seconds, and may be our most important and most difficult objective in managing our relationships.
“Trust is a peculiar resource; it is built rather than depleted by use.”
How is trust built? Open communication; willingness to share; consistency in words, actions, and behavior over time; and reliability in following through on the agreements of the relationship, just to name a few examples. It’s ironic that, for most relationships, a certain level of trust needs to be present in order for you to develop trust.
To build trust, use your self-awareness and self-management skills to be the first to lay some of yourself on the line and share something about you. Remember, you should share parts of yourself at a time; don’t feel like you have to be a complete open book up front.
To manage your relationships, you need to manage your trust of others, and their trust level of you is critical to deepening your connection with others. Cultivating relationships and building trust take time. Identify the relationships in your life that need more trust, and use your self-awareness skills to ask yourself what is missing. Use your social awareness skills to ask the other person what needs to happen to build trust—and listen to the answer. Asking will show you care about the relationship, which will help to build trust, and deepen the relationship.
Here’s a quick history lesson that you may remember: the Open Door policy originated in 1899 when the United States feared it would lose its trading privileges in the East. The United States declared an “open-door policy,” allowing all trading nations access to the Chinese market.
Access: it’s an important word that sums up the open-door concept. Access has moved swiftly beyond trading agreements and into the workplace. Today, a true open-door policy allows any employee to talk to anyone at any level, fostering upward communication through direct and easy access to everyone below.
Ask those around you if you should adopt an open-door policy to better manage your relationships. If you need to be more accessible and show people they can have unscheduled, informal conversations with you, then adopting this policy might be right up your alley.
Keep in mind you don’t have to stretch yourself too thin by being there for everyone at anytime; you simply have to communicate your policy and then stick to it. Use your self-awareness skills to identify how the policy works for you, and manage yourself to make it work. Ongoing observations of others, also known as social awareness, should help you determine how it’s working, too.
Remember, increasing your accessibility can only improve your relationships—it literally opens the door to communication, even if it’s virtual (by email or phone). People will feel valued and respected because of the time you’re giving them; and you get the opportunity to learn about others. At the end of the day, the policy’s a win for you and a win for others.
“Anyone can become angry—that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy.”
We can thank Greek philosopher Aristotle for those words and enduring insight into managing our emotions and relationships. If you can master this one, consider your EQ journey a success. Anger is an emotion that exists for a reason—anger is not an emotion to stifle or ignore. If you manage it properly and use it purposefully, you can get results that enhance your relationships. Really.
Think of the football coach who gets straight to the point at halftime. His stern feedback grabs his players’ attention and focuses them for the second half. The team returns refreshed, refocused, and ready to win; in this case, the coach managed his emotions to motivate others to action. Expressing anger in appropriate ways communicates your strong feelings and reminds people of the gravity of a situation. Expressing anger too much or at the wrong times desensitizes people to what you are feeling, making it hard for others to take you seriously.
Using a strong emotion like anger to benefit your relationships will take time to master, because hopefully you don’t have daily opportunities to practice. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes preparation for this strategy, starting with becoming aware of your anger.
Use your self-awareness skills to think about and define your varying degrees of anger—from what annoys you a little to what sends you off the deep end. Write these down and choose words that are specific and then write examples to explain when you feel this way. Determine when you should show your anger based on the criterion that if it’s shared it will actually improve the relationship somehow. To make your choices, use your social awareness skills to think about the other people involved and their responses.
Remember, relationship management is about making choices and acting with the goal of creating an honest, deep connection with others. To do this, you need to be honest with others and with yourself, which sometimes means using anger with a purpose.
You and Marge work in the same shipping and receiving department. She gets under your skin; if you could press a button to ship her to another department, it would’ve been done five years ago. The problem is, no such button exists, and there’s no chance of change. To add fuel to the fire, your boss has just given you and Marge a large project to work on together. She suggests meeting for lunch to talk about the next steps, and you generate a fast list of reasons why you can’t make it. You have officially brushed Marge off. Now what? You’re still at square one (that’s what), and you still have the project and have to figure out how to work together.
This is when relationship management skills are absolutely necessary, because though you might not choose a friendship with this person, you and Marge are now responsible for the same project. Here’s a basic strategy to work with Marge: do not avoid her or the situation. Accept it and make the choice to use your EQ skills to move forward with her.
You’ll need to watch your emotions, and make decisions about how to manage those emotions. Since you’re not in this alone, conjure up your social awareness skills to bring Marge into the fold and put yourself in her shoes. Meet with her to learn about what experience she has to offer and her preferences for working with you on this project. Observe her body language to see how she responds to you; maybe you frustrate her just as much! This may hurt a little, but you may actually lay the groundwork for a working relationship.
Next, share your preferences for managing the project and come to an agreement. You won’t need to tell Marge you don’t care for her—instead, you can share that you’d prefer to work independently on separate parts of the project and meet along the way to ensure you’re both on track. If Marge agrees, your work process has been hammered out. If she doesn’t agree, it’s time to apply more self-management and social awareness skills until you reach an agreement.
If you get frustrated along the way (and chances are you will), ask yourself why and decide how to manage yourself. Loop back with Marge at your next meeting, and remind yourselves about the goal of the project. At the end of the project, find a way to acknowledge what you both accomplished together.
If you’re known for being terrible with relationships, then this EQ strategy may be a great place to start getting better. Let’s say that, one morning, you’re pulling into your company’s parking lot, and you see your coworker Jessie holding back tears as she exits her car next to you. You ask her if she’s OK, and she’s not. You respond with, “Well, work will get it off your mind. See you inside.” Then you wonder why she avoids you for the rest of the day.
One key to managing relationships is leaning into your own discomfort and taking a moment to acknowledge, not stifle or change, other people’s feelings. “I’m sorry you’re upset; what can I do?” shows Jessie that if crying is what’s going to help her, then you’d be willing to find her a tissue. Simple acts like this one acknowledge emotions without making them a big deal, marginalizing them, or dismissing them. Everyone has a right to experience feelings, even if you might not feel the same way. You don’t have to agree with the way people are feeling, but you do have to recognize those feelings as legitimate and respect them.
To help you validate someone’s feelings, let’s use Jessie’s example. Using your social awareness skills, listen to her intently and summarize what you’ve heard back to her. Not only does it show great listening skills, but it also shows that you’re adept at relationship management because you reached out to show you cared, and took an interest in her. You’ll end up with a better connection with a now-calm Jessie—and all it took was some time to pay attention and notice her feelings.
If you calmly phone your utility company to have an incorrect fee removed from your monthly bill, you would assume that the customer service representative would be helpful, friendly, and courteous with your request.
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