Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence has become a very popular topic that, unfortunately, suffers from the problem that almost all trendy concepts encounter.  Its meaning and measurement have become very confusing and ambiguous.  One way to clarify this problem is to differentiate between emotional intelligence and emotional competence.

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to diagnose, understand, and manage emotional cues.  Emotional competence refers to the noncognitive capabilities and skills, including social skills, which affect human functioning.  These noncognitive skills and abilities are, in fact, among the most important factors in explaining why some people succeed as leaders and managers and others do not.

Emotionally intelligent people are able to get in touch with and accurately diagnose their own internal feelings.  Emotionally intelligent people are able to regulate and control their emotions.  Emotionally intelligent people are also able to accurately diagnose and empathize with the feelings of others.

In a worldwide study of what companies were looking for in hiring new employees, 67 percent of the most desired attributes were emotional intelligence competencies (Goleman et al., 2002).

What is Self-Awareness?

It is impossible to accurately select the few best or most central aspects of self-awareness because the alternatives are just too numerous.  However, for the purposes of this discussion we will focus on five of the most critical areas of self-awareness that have been found to be key in developing successful management.  They are: emotional intelligence, personal values, cognitive style, orientation toward change, and core self-evaluation.

Research on the concept of emotional intelligence, the ability to manage one ’s self and to manage relationships with others, has been identified as among the most important factors in accounting for success in leaders and managers (Boyatzis, Goleman & Rhee, 2000).  In particular, self-awareness has been identified as a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence, and it is more powerful than IQ in predicting success in life (Goleman, 1995).  Emotional intelligence identifies the extent to which people are able to recognize and control their own emotions, as well as to recognize and respond appropriately to the emotions of others.

Personal values are included here because they are “the core of the dynamics of behavior, and play so large a part in unifying personality” (Allport, Gordon &Vernon, 1931).  That is, all other attitudes, orientations, and behaviors arise out of an individuals’ values.  Values identify an individual’s basic standards about what is good and bad, worthwhile and worthless, desirable and undesirable, true and false, moral and immoral.

A third area of self-awareness is cognitive style, which refers to the manner in which individuals gather and process information.  Researchers have found that individual differences in cognitive style influence perception, learning, problem solving, decision making, communication, and creativity (Cools & Van den Broeck, 2007; Hayes & Allinson, 1994; Kirton, 2003).  Cognitive style identifies individual thought processes, perceptions, and methods for acquiring and storing information.  It determines not only what kind of information is received by an individual, but how that individual interprets, judges, and responds to the information. 

Orientation towards change focuses on the methods people use to cope with change in their environment.  Two important dimensions, locus of control and intolerance of ambiguity, are important considerations for evaluating your ability to cope with change.  Orientation towards change identifies the adaptability of individuals.  It includes the extent to which individuals are tolerant of ambiguous, uncertain conditions, and the extent to which they are inclined to accept personal responsibility for their actions under changing conditions.

Core self-evaluation is a recently developed construct that captures the essential aspects of personality, and it identifies the general personality orientation that guides behavior.  It uncovers levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional stability, and self-control that have important effects on individuals’ happiness as well as managerial effectiveness.

My next discussion will concern itself with the first of these five areas, emotional intelligence.

 

Why Are You Pushing My Buttons?

How can we then improve our ability to evaluate ourselves for the purpose of self-improvement?  One approach has to do understanding the concept of “button pushing”.  In other words this concept refers to the point at which an individual becomes defensive or protective when encountering information about themselves that is inconsistent with their self-concept or when encountering pressure to alter their behavior.  When individuals are threatened, when they encounter uncomfortable information, or when uncertainty is created, they tend to become rigid (Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981; Weick, 1993).  They hunker down, protect themselves, and become risk averse.  They tend to redouble their efforts to protect what is comfortable and familiar.

In light of this defensiveness, then, how can increased self-knowledge and personal change ever occur?  There are two approaches.  The first has to do with information that is verifiable, predictable, and controllable is less likely to cross into defensive or protective actions.  If an individual can test the validity of the discrepant information, if the information is not unexpected, and if there is some control over what, when, and how much information is revealed, the feedback is more likely to be heard and accepted.

A second answer lies in the role other people can play in helping insight to occur.  It is almost impossible to increase skill in self-awareness unless we interact with and disclose ourselves to others.  Unless one is willing to open up to others, to discuss aspects of the self that seem ambiguous or unknown, little growth can ever occur.

Self-disclosure, therefore, is a key to improvement in self-awareness.  Harris (1981) points out:

Our self-reflection in a mirror does not tell us what we are like; only our reflection in other people.  We are essentially social creatures, and our personality resides in association, not in isolation.

From a theological perspective the same could be said.  Our self-reflection against the Creator tells us our true weaknesses and gives us an opportunity to assimilate the better.

In my next discussion I will explore important areas of self-awareness.

The Mystery of Self-Awareness

Students of human behavior have long known that knowledge of oneself – self-awareness, self-insight, self-understanding – is essential to one’s productive personal and interpersonal functioning, and in understanding and empathizing with other people.  My goal in discussing this topic is to help you understand the importance of self-awareness if you are to be a successful manager and leader of either your business or your family.

Erich Fromm (1939) was one of the first behavioral scientists to observe the close connection between one’s self-concept and one’s feelings about others: “Hatred against oneself is inseparable from hatred against others.”  Carl Rogers (1961) later proposed that self-awareness and self-acceptance are prerequisites for psychological health, personal growth, and the ability to know and accept others.  In fact, Rogers suggested that the basic human need is for self-regard, which he found to be more powerful in his clinical cases than physiological needs; however, self-knowledge may inhibit personal improvement rather than facilitate it.  The reason is that individuals frequently evade personal growth and new self-knowledge.  They resist acquiring additional information in order to protect their self-esteem or self-respect.  If they acquire new knowledge about themselves there is always the possibility that it will be negative or that it will lead to feelings of inferiority, weakness, evilness, or shame.  So they avoid new knowledge.  Therefore, we avoid personal growth, then, because we fear finding out that we are not all that we would like to be.  If there is a better way to be, our current state must therefore be inadequate or inferior.  The realization that one is not totally adequate or knowledgeable is difficult for many people to accept.  This resistance is the “denying of our best side, of our talents, of our finest impulses, of our highest potentialities, of our creativeness” (Maslow, 1962).  Freud (1956) asserted that to be completely honest with oneself is the best effort an individual can make, because complete honesty requires a continual search for more information about the self and a desire for self-improvement.  The results of that search are usually uncomfortable.

Seeking knowledge of the self, therefore, seems to be an enigma.  It is a prerequisite for and motivator of growth and improvement, but it may also inhibit growth and improvement.  It may lead to stagnation because of fear of knowing more.  How, then, can improvement be accomplished?  The answer to this question has several components, to which we will begin to dissect in my next blog.

The Importance of Competent Managers

I often lecture on the topic of management and have often been quoted saying that 80% of those in management and leadership positions are in the wrong seat on the bus.  To be more specific a certain percentage shouldn’t be on the bus at all, but rather ejected as it moves down the road.  Their character flaws and general lack of knowledge for operations under their control significantly hamper the successful progress of an organization and the development of the people who are a part of that organization; in other words they suck all the oxygen out of the air and deplete all other forms of energy thereby hindering the better employees from maximizing their potential.   In general, we universally lack competent leaders in our families and the countless organizations that are a direct and indirect part of our lives.

Dr. Bob Moorehead of Seattle’s Overlake Christian Church, described it this way:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints.  We spend more but have less; we buy ore but enjoy it less.  We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences but less time.  We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts but more problems; more medicine but less wellness.  We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get too tired read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.  We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.  We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.  We have learned how to make a living but not a life; we’ve added years to life but not life to years.  We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.  We’ve conquered outer space but not inner space.  We’ve done larger things but not better things.  We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul.  We’ve split the atom but not our prejudice.  We write more but learn less.  We plan more but accomplish less.  We’ve learned to rush but not to wait.  We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever but have less communication.  These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships.  These are the times of world peace but domestic warfare; more leisure but less fun; more kinds of food but less nutrition.  These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, of fancier houses but broken homes.  These are the days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.  It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom.

After reading Dr. Moorehead’s assessment of the current state of human life, most of us would agree that he was spot on, and in fact, his points are at the heart of the deficiencies of people in general and more specifically are the contributing factors to the ruling majority: incompetent managers.  Despite all this change in our environment, there is something that has remained, and continues to remain relatively constant.  With minor variations and stylistic differences, what has not changed in several thousand years are the basic skills that lie at the heart of effective, satisfying, growth-producing human relationships.  Freedom, dignity, trust, love, and honesty in relationships have always been among the goals of human beings, and these same basic human skills still like at the heart of effective human interaction.  This series will discuss skills that help us become more competent as managers and leaders in our families, businesses, churches, and communities.  These skills include managing conflict, motivating employees, communicating supportively, gaining power and influence, building effective teams, leading positive change, empowering and delegating, solving problems creatively, managing stress and developing self-awareness.

In my next blog I will discuss the first topic of this series, developing self-awareness.

High Reliability

We have talked at some length previously about a process that allows you to obtain and employ the best people for your organization, being that of using accurate pre-employment testing.  This is a long process dictated by one single factor: attrition; unless you are willing to nuke your entire workforce and start all over, which will certainly speed the process up considerably.  Other than having to explain to authorities about the sudden vaporization of several hundred people, who all work for you, you could cut out a couple of decades of waiting.  If however, that type of abrupt action seems a little excessive to you, you should probably substitute nuking folks with some hard work by you, your management staff, and your workforce in finding out exactly how well your operation is organized and understood.

There is so much about our organizations that we usually do not adequately understand.  It doesn’t make any difference how good your employees are, if the business is not focused correctly and strategically, it will never achieve all that it could, or should.

As you look at the concepts of High Quality, Reliability and Confidence as it applies to your organization, what feeling are you left with?  What keeps you awake at night contemplating on, “What’s Going to Happen Next?”

The most important thing you need to determine is your current state.  This is more than just some Ho Ho test that you apply mentally.  How well does your organization currently execute its mission?  How well do you understand how each process, sub-process, element of sub-processes, sub-elements of sub-processes work, and how it is suppose to work and inter-relate to each other?

Where do you want to be in ten years?  What are the strategies you need to get to a new desired end state?  Are your strategies adequate and understood by all your employees?  Does the structure of your organization enable you to achieve the desired end state?  Organizations are comprised of many systems.  What needs to change in relation to your overall strategy.  Are common values shared by all your employees, and do they equate to your overall goals?  Is the skill set of your employees adequate to meet your end state, and if not, what do you have to do to improve their capabilities?

Our discussion is really about transforming your organization.  It requires well understood and agreed upon strategies, specific and achievable objectives that can be measured, a defined target, and initiatives and deliverables that will move the organization along the continuum of growth and improvement.

Many of our organizations would not survive certain events if they were to happen; however, these events are all preventable in an organization that is well understood and focused.  Major events, which you have direct control over, could shut down your operation for an indeterminate period of time, could result in catastrophic loss, and the possibility of non-recovery and financial destruction.  Other types of events, of lesser significance, would imply a loss of control, loss of confidence of management and/or the customer, and so forth, and they could significantly impact your operational capability.  Our goal is to avoid these types of problems.  Some examples might include, massive destruction of facilities and capabilities that are unique and not amenable to rapid reconstitution, fire and other catastrophic losses, loss of life, loss of specific mission critical data, loss of environmental permits, EEO non-compliance, criminal investigation questioning your organization’s credibility, and so forth.

Sometimes the events don’t have to be huge proportionately to have significant consequences.  Take a restaurant that has a couple of patrons fall ill to salmonella poisoning.  It wasn’t 40 to 100 poor creatures that you sent to the hospital or the morgue, it was just two, but the damage can be unrecoverable when you lose the confidence of your customer base.  You can go from having the most popular place in the community, to a ghost town, just by word of mouth.  The sad part is it was all preventable, but some part of one or more processes broke down.

What about the accounting or financial firm that came under criminal investigation for embezzlement by one of the federal or state authorities?  I’m sure Grand Ma Smith feels comfortable leaving her 200 bazillion dollars under your watchful care, not to mention the several thousand other folks that want their money back within the next few Nano seconds.  When processes don’t function as expected (and this example was preventable after the first, wrongful, deliberate act by the bad guy or gal) things can go South in a hurry with little hope of recovering the confidence of your customer base.

Hazards exist that every company must contend with to support its mission.  Unwanted energy or threats, whether its human error, failure of a piece of equipment or facility, natural disaster, or the very sinister “Mr. Unknown”, who by the way is very good friends with “Mr. I Don’t Know,” either transmit or allow the unwanted flow of energy to the hazard potentially resulting in a system accident.

Processes have to be so well understood, that for every conceivable place that the threat can come in contact with the hazard, a barrier (brick wall, sensor, procedure, engineering control, accounting control, etc.) is in place to ensure that unwanted outcomes or unauthorized interaction does not occur.  And by the way, the barrier has to work to be effective.

One of the most important things to remember about work processes is this, “It probably is not happening as designed, in some part of the process.”  When you sit in your corner office feeling confident that you have this bad boy nailed, you will soon be visited by, “Mr. Guess What Happened.”  That’s right, work as done usually does not equal work as designed.  The only thing that will adequately determine if every aspect of your work is performing as expected and accurately being done, is Barrier Analysis.

This is not a five minute drill.  Depending on the complexity of the operation and its inter-relationship with other processes, it could take an extended time.  However, with a properly motivated and trained workforce, you can get there much quicker, and at least you can sleep a little better at night.  High Reliability is something your organization develops and is a value embodied by every employee if you expect to achieve that level of High Quality, Reliability and Confidence in your operations.

How Do You Know What Is Important?

We have reviewed a couple of examples and several aspects of values that must be embodied by every employee, if an organization truly desires to be successful.  We are entering a phase now that truly benefits from collaboration with professionals who have been trained in organizational behavior.  If you think about it long enough, almost anyone can come up with a list of values and behaviors that they feel are important to their operational activities; however, without the correct focus and analysis to determine which of them is truly the "big hitters", you may not maximize the benefit of this most important exercise. 

From your list, which two of them are the most important to your success?  From the experience I've had in this area, almost every client responds with, "They are all important!"  Although this is true to a degree, with aggressive collaboration and discussion, the interested parties soon realize that there are two that rise to the top as being paramount values or behaviors that every employee has to unconsciously perform in order for the organization to maximize perfection from their collective outputs.  The client almost always discovers, that after the operation was reviewed by an outside professional, there were important attributes that were not on "the list."  It is important to understand that certain behaviors bring more to the table than others.  The  most important question is, "Do you want a  mixed bag of behaviors or everyone on the same sheet of music?"  If it is the latter, then the "pain" of going through this extensive exercise with your entire management  staff cannot be short changed.

After everyone has agreed on the most important two, then we extend the exercise to the next three, and then the next five.  You now have the ten most important values and behaviors that predetermine your future success, quality of outputs, and continued relationship with your customer base.

The organizational behaviorist will then work in collaboration with an industrial psychologist to structure test instruments that will differentiate between candidates that "have it" versus those that "do not."  Obviously, you are only interested in employing folks that fit the mold of what you want your organization's performance to be at an end state.  You already know the frustration associated with who you currently have in your employee base and the problems resulting from that population.  It is now time to take control and reshape your future.

The test instruments identified by the professionals will satisfy all legal requirements for pre-employment testing.  They are all Level 1 test instruments, are void of disparate treatment and disparate impact concerns, are valid and reliable, and completely job related.  The administration of these test instruments will be tailored specifically to your organization, and can be administered on-line from the convenience of your office or the applicant's home; the results are clear, understandable, and easy to interpret concerning a candidate's viability for further consideration.

You now have the big picture, and a menu for success, for one of the most important decisions an employer makes.  If you are interested in hiring the best, training them once, retaining your employee base for decades, and running the best operation possible, then this is the only way to adequately achieve this goal.

I wish each of you the best as you lead your organizations to their greatest potential.