We carefully didn’t say anything to the kids because we didn’t want to worry them.  But on the day Patty went for the biopsy, Max asked me in a quiet, serious voice:  “Does Mama need surgery again?”  (He was about 4 when she had surgery before.)

I was stuck by his ability to observe and “read between the lines.”  And, by the way this cancer fear stayed with him.

I suspect that in general kids see far more than we want them to.  From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense – there’s survival value in being able to read subtle cues.  Left to themselves kids will take those cues and make their own meaning, sometimes accurate, often exaggerated… but it’s important to remember that fear creeps in the absence of information.

What else are they seeing?  And what meaning are they making?

PS.  Patty’s biopsy was totally negative – which was a relief!  This was days before we were leaving for Borneo and South East Asia for six weeks, so it was fabulous to get this resolved before we went!

65% of the pressing issues are on the people side, 35% on the financial/technical side (but in 2007 it was 76/24). Even in the current economy, the people issues were seen as 30% more significant than the technical/financial issues.
The most pressing challenge today is maintaining a healthy culture under intense economic pressure. Respondents identify several aspects of leadership as the key to this, especially vision, feedback, and communication.
Getting and keeping good people – especially “people people” – will make the difference.	(graphic made with Wordle.net)
89% of respondents said feelings are highly important or essential in solving the problems they face.
Only 8% of respondents report that they’re fully trained to deal with the issues they’re seeing.
92% see the value of EQ — but only 33% say their organizations do likewise. Those that do see EQ as critical for their culture. Hospitality, T&D, Education, and Finance lead the way — Medical and Technology trail the pack.

Agree?  Disagree?  Take the survey yourself and ask 5 colleagues to do likewise.

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♦

Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman, handed this article to me several years ago. It’s stuck with me as a powerful set of guidelines for being impeccable with words. The children, Patty and I have discussed the “three gatekeepers” often over the last years; we started when the kids were 4 and 6 years old and have carried it forward. I highly recommend you put this one into practice!
- Josh

Because we can’t see them, we throw words around without much consideration for their effect. But words leave lasting impressions. Dr. Wilder Penfield, the great Canadian neurosurgeon, describes vividly the experiments that demonstrated how easily words we thought were long forgotten can be revived by electric stimulation of the brain. It’s all still there, recorded deep in consciousness – emotional depth charges ready to explode when they are triggered.

That is why the Buddha considered Right Speech to be as important as Right Action. I think he would have liked the Arab proverb that everything we say should pass three gatekeepers: “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”

Any little remark that fails these tests – a joke, a wisecrack, thoughtless gossip, an unverified “fact” or tightly-clenched opinion – can wreck a relationship, destroy trust, even cost a job. But the most glaring violation of Right Speech is the everyday quarrel. We just don’t seem to know how to disagree without being disagreeable.

It starts simply enough: someone says something we disagree with, and for some reason we get angry. (Why? I have never seen the connection.) Or, of course, we say something they disagree with and they get angry. Either way, after just a few words, tempers fray and language starts deteriorating.

How many times have I heard even educated people begin an emotionally charged dialogue with the best of intentions: “We won’t quarrel. Let us confine ourselves to the subject at hand.” Within five minutes one is saying, “That’s not what you told me last Saturday in front of the Wide World of Shoes!” And the other replies – see the absurdity of it! – “That wasn’t in front of the Wide World of Shoes. It was the Narrow World of Shoes.”

Anything to quarrel, anything to contradict.

After that, the quarrel has nothing to do with the subject. It is mostly “You must have done this even as a child” and “I’ve heard stories about the way you behaved in high school.” We may know we are being foolish, but by then we are caught; we can’t escape. All of us have been in arguments like this.

I used to ask my teacher, my grandmother, “Granny, if you found yourself in a situation like this, what would you do?” It took years for me to understand her simple answer: “Son, I wouldn’t get into a situation like that.”

This is very practical advice. Even if somebody is being rude to you or unkind, it doesn’t help to be unkind in return. It doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help you. The more unkind you are, the more angry the other person is going to be – and then the more angry you are going to be, until two people have ceased to be human beings and have gone back to a previous stage of evolution.

Out of control
If we could see what happens in the mind at times like these, we would be embarrassed. The mind simply slips out of control, like a speeding car that careens all over the road. Only when we have some say in where our attention goes can we keep our hands on the wheel.

That is what meditation is for. Then, when we see the mind beginning to break loose, we can brake a little, check the words that are about to burst forth, and choose speech that is kind, constructive, and respectful instead.

If we were to ask the Buddha why we lose control at times like these, he would give a precise diagnosis. First, he would say, the mind never was really in our control. The very nature of the mind is to be fickle, distractable, constantly in motion – in a word, to do whatever it likes. For it to behave the way we like, we have to train it through meditation.

But the real problem, he would say, is self-will: the fierce attachment to our little personal self, our opinions, our ego, that insists on having its way whatever the consequences to others. We just can’t bear to be contradicted, so we get angry and lash out with hurtful words. Most of us would be chagrined to see the underlying message: “You aren’t worth my respect. My ideas are superior; you don’t count.”

Bear with others
To break this cycle, we have to learn to be patient under provocation. “Suffer hard words,” the Buddha says, “as the elephant suffers arrows in battle. People are people, most of them ill-natured.”

There you get the Buddha, who really knows human nature. He doesn’t try to idealize. He doesn’t say, “Everybody is beautiful. Everybody is divine.” He says, “Factually speaking, most people lack courtesy.” This is the characteristic touch of the Buddha, standing firmly on the ground and then trying slowly to help us rise until our heads touch the stars.

For an Indian audience, the elephant is a familiar illustration. The elephant is the mightiest creature on earth, so tremendous in strength and endurance that in battle he ignores his wounds and goes forward gallantly even when his body is bristling with arrows. But he is also a very gentle creature. If you offer him a peanut on the palm of your hand, he will take it without even touching you.

The Buddha’s audience would have grasped the message immediately. Shrug off the daily darts and arrows that life sends, he is telling us, but never shoot such arrows at others. Never upset people, never be unkind to them, never hurt their feelings or treat them with lack of respect, how-ever they might behave themselves.

“In other words,” he says, “in personal relationships, be prepared for a certain amount of impoliteness and discourtesy – not because people are bad, but because they have self-will and can’t control it, just like you.”

This is one of the curious fallacies of self-will. We expect others to show courtesy to us, but we also expect them to bear with us if we happen to be a little unkind. We expect to have our way, but why should others have theirs?

It’s good, I think, not to get upset if you find somebody not showing respect to you, for the simple reason that you may well not be showing enough respect yourself.

Here the Buddha asks a simple question: If you get displeased when others are unkind to you, why don’t you get equally displeased when you are not kind to others? In other words, there is no mystery about these things. You don’t like anyone to be unkind to you. Why don’t you remember that the other person is just like you? Like you, he doesn’t like unkind words. Like you, she appreciates courtesy and respect.

Oddly enough, the person who usually gets upset is the man who expects extreme courtesy for himself, the woman who finds it easy to be discourteous to others. The realist is the mystic, who says, “Well, the world is like that. It takes all sorts.”

In The Imitation of Christ – a marvelous book of spiritual inspiration for any religion – we often come across this same counsel: “Bear with people. Don’t answer back.”

Believe me, for those of us who have lived in the world of education and had our intellect sharpened to be sarcastic, it’s very difficult to restrain oneself. At a meeting when you’re being criticized or attacked, it’s considered part of your academic responsibility to answer back with compound interest.

I, too, was in the habit of doing that, until I began to understand that if somebody attacked me, there was no need for me to get exasperated. After all, most people are capable of using their judgment. So I started just repeating my mantram silently – Rama, Rama, Rama – and keeping quiet.

It was not at all easy. To make things worse, it was sometimes misinterpreted. Somebody who used to keep quiet would think I was at a loss for an answer and join the others in jumping on me. It was difficult training, but very soon I began to see that I was getting detached – not from my colleagues, but from my own opinions. When they were criticizing somebody, they weren’t criticizing me. They were criticizing a statue they had sculpted and set up in the corner. Why should I be bothered if they threw darts at a statue they themselves had made?

This doesn’t mean making a doormat of yourself. Just the opposite. It is training. You are getting your mind under control. First you learn to break the connection between stimulus and response. Once you have a measure of detachment, you can reply to criticism without identifying yourself with your opinions or the other person with hers. Then you are free to choose words that are kind, respectful, and to the point.

The more self-willed and insensitive the other person is, the more reason for you to alert your mind to be calm and compassionate – and, if necessary, to face opposition firmly but tenderly.

We aren’t helping self-willed people when we give in to their demands or let them walk all over us. It only feeds self-will to let them have their way. We have to learn to show respect by opposing them – tenderly, nonviolently, but firmly.

This is a lesson all of us need to learn, and it’s not at all easy. Particularly in personal relationships where people are insecure, they will feel resentment but they will not try to oppose tenderly. When self-will gets inflated, you look upon others as part of your own ego – a kind of ego-annex. This is very common today, especially between parents and children. In such cases it is particularly painful – and all the more necessary – to learn to oppose tenderly, with detachment and respect.

The mental attitude
Criticism, of course, can be useful only when it is constructive. Comments can be useful only when they are friendly. Persuasion can be useful only when it is loving. Even from the point of effectiveness, then, unkind comments only add to the problem. Disrespectful criticism makes the situation worse.

Often, of course, it is necessary to make a constructive comment or suggestion. It is the mental attitude – the tone, the respect, the loving concern – with which we put forward ideas op-posed to others that makes the contribution effective.

I would suggest that whenever you feel you have to make a suggestion opposed to someone else’s, take time to get a little detached from the situation by repeating the mantram silently. Then, when your mind is calm, offer your suggestion in a friendly, warmhearted manner with great respect for the other person. This takes practice, but you will find that it works. It is effective.

Here it helps to remember the Buddha’s observation: most of our problems arise from inflated self-will. And one of the surest signs of inflated self-will is in an inability to see the person’s point of view. It is not that we have to accept the other person’s point of view, but under no circumstances should we refuse to acknowledge that the other person has a point of view – one that deserves to be listened to with respect and evaluated with detachment.

Everyone acknowledges this in principle, but in practice it is all too rare. On campuses I have found even the best-educated scholars sometimes unable to concede that others have a cogent point of view.

This is the intellectual climate I was trained in. It took years of retraining my mind through the practice of meditation to learn to listen with respect to utterly opposite points of view and yet retain my own.

When you are able to do this – to be completely loyal to your ideals and yet not reflect on other people’s integrity – often the other person begins to respond. What matters is the friendliness you show, the lack of ill will – and, more than anything else, the complete absence of any sense of superiority. The more spiritual you become, the less superior you feel to others because the less separate you feel from others. The superiority complex is most rampant where separateness is inflamed.

Right Speech
By making Right Speech part of his Eightfold Path, the Buddha is giving us a precious clue. Right Speech is not just a nice way to behave. It is a spiritual discipline, part of a very skillfully designed path for self-realization.

Once we grasp this, every disagreement becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Facing anger, for example – your own or others’ – is one of life’s best opportunities for training. It’s very much like learning to lift weights. You start by lifting chairs, then tables, then a desk, and after a while you’re lifting a VW Bug. You can pick up a thousand pounds, raise it over your head – what do they call it? “clean and jerk” – and then drop it onto the mat with a lot of noise.

It is the same with anger. You start with those absurd little quarrels about the Wide World of Shoes. As you learn to be patient, you get confidence. Next time, when a bigger outburst comes, instead of retaliating, being unkind, making sarcastic remarks, you use the incident for training the muscles of your mind by repeating the mantram.

Just as we admire people who can lift a thousand pounds, we all benefit by being with somebody who can be patient under attack, kind when opposed, and detached enough to see the situation clearly and compassionately. This is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.

Daily review
Athletes, I understand, often keep a daily record of their training. In the same spirit, I take a few minutes every evening to get a bird’s-eye view of training my mind and see where I can improve the quality of my daily behavior.

This is not a negative survey. You are not finding fault with yourself. You are asking, “Where can I be a little more patient? Can I be a little more loving toward Amelia tomorrow? Can I be a little more helpful to John?” These are the positive ways in which we can improve the quality of our daily living tomorrow in the light of what we have done today.

Interestingly enough, this makes every day new. Tomorrow is never the same old day. There is always something more to be done: one or two more steps to take on the path upward, some greater care to avoid the mistakes that all of us make in some small way. Instead of repining over mistakes or being resentful over them, I would suggest taking every possible care not to repeat those mistakes tomorrow and make at least a little improvement in your daily behavior.

This is why we have been given the competitive instinct: not to compete with others, but to compete with ourselves. Every evening you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “You did a pretty good job today, I agree. But watch out! Tomorrow I’m going to outdo you.”

Original goodness
When you refrain from unkindness, you are uncovering your real nature. That is the real meaning of the Buddha’s word nirvana: the removal of every shred of the selfish conditioning and self-will that brings such sorrow to us and others.

When we have removed all anger, what remains is compassion. When we have removed all selfishness, what remains is selflessness. When we have removed all hatred, what remains is love.

This is the glory of the mystical tradition: We don’t have to make ourselves loving; we have only to remove hatred from our hearts. Those who have learned to be kind even when others are unkind move in the world with freedom. Their love flows to all around without any question of “Is he being nice to me? Is she being kind?”

Life holds us hostage with such questions. But when we are free – when we attain the stage where there is no possibility of my dancing to your tune or making you dance to mine – all sorrows come to an end.

“You cannot add to the joy of such a man,” the Upanishads say. “You cannot add to such a woman’s security. Whatever life gives, whatever life takes, they are always full.”

“But I H A A A A A V E to…” she moaned.

I pointed out that she did not, in fact, have to: She had choice and each choice had consequences.

She cried harder.

Why?

Emma was caught in a classic emotional trap: wishing it were not so (but knowing it’s not).

Many of us squander buckets of energy spiraling around as we avoid directly facing the facts of our current reality, for example:

Frequently leaders I work with will tell me they have an employee that they KNOW isn’t working out, but they pretend (at some level) that it will change. Months and a lot of pain later, they finally pull the trigger and make a change (sometimes still avoiding the real issue by moving the person to be a poor performer for someone else).**

Some of my younger friends tell me about someone they’re dating, “He’d be perfect if only…” KNOWING it won’t happen, yet they hold onto this hopeless hope.

I want to write another book and KNOW that all I have to do is start writing, but I tell myself I don’t have time right now… in three months I’ll have less time, but I may finally become so frustrated with myself I take action.

Yes – change is possible, but denial is sweeter.

When something feels tough, we often defend ourselves by avoiding the truth of the situation. At the extreme, it’s like a scared 3-year-old: “If I cover my eyes you can’t see me!” While it’s “obvious” this doesn’t work, most of us do it regularly!

The paradox is that while we’re “protecting” ourselves and others from the “brutal” truth, while we stay in the trap we continue to feel frustration, fear, and sorrow. Those feelings push us to narrow our focus to dig into a problem:

Frustration – something’s wrong

Fear – something important may be at risk

Sorrow – I’m losing something I care about

While we stay in the mix of the problem, those feelings continue and usually escalate until we finally get serious. Once we confront the situation and make a commitment to deal with the current reality, then the feelings shift.

So the moral is: fire everyone we’re frustrated with, spit up with everyone who disappoints us, and forget about projects that stress us out – right?

Er… maybe not. But those feelings are signals – like indicator lights on the dashboard – saying, “Hey – check it out. Maybe it’s time to get real.”

—–

* Emma is now 10, and an amazing student. She’s also a perfectionist and when something is hard and the “right answer” is not clear, she stresses herself out. Familiar to any of you?

** To be clear: Often a poor performer would be GREAT somewhere else because the problem is frequently the match. But then there are people you just know in your heart will not do well anywhere in this organization, and it takes chutzpah to stand up and take the right action.

Lately life has been somewhat tempestuous at home.  Emma’s 4-1/2-year-old priorities conflict with Max’s 2-1/2-year-old priorities — add two work-a-holic parents and their own stresses, and voila, you have a powder keg. Recently it got to the point I was looking forward to travelling so I could have a few days of peace.  I take that as a bad sign.

The last few days gave me new insight into my job as a parent — and equally essential lessons as a consultant and manager.  Most managers tell me their biggest struggles are managing conflicts and relationships — so perhaps this story about managing the conflicts at home will provide ideas even to those without kids.

Last week I had time with Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman and Founder.  We talk frequently about my little family and about her grandchildren.  As many EQ Reflections readers have told me, grandparent-hood sounds like the best of parenting: all the love, none of the “hot buttons.”

The next day I happened to talk to a colleague and the psychotherapist sitting next to her.  I talked a bit about my struggles at home, and I was struck by the dramatic difference between the therapist’s approach and Karen’s.

The therapist said, “It sounds like you are letting you kids run things in your house, and you can’t do that.”

Somewhat testy, I said, “Actually, I can do it — but I agree it might not be a good idea.”

“You need to be clear about who’s in charge,” she went on, ignoring my frail jibe, “and consistently reward the appropriate behavior and have consequences for the inappropriate behavior.  You have to be more consistent.”

Not bad advice for a cocktail party.  Then I considered Karen’s advice from the evening before and how different it was.

First Karen asked me what is happening — what’s the pattern.  I explained that a conflict escalated, Emma’s behavior got explosive, and I sent her to time out or her room.

“Is that working?” asked Karen.

“Not really.”

“So you probably don’t want to keep doing it, do you?”  Under Karen’s clear gaze, there was only one available answer.  I shook my head.  “Do you and Emma talk about what happened?”

“Emma would rather not,” I say starting to feel a bit pathetic — how did I give a four-year-old so much power?

After a few more minutes, Karen summarized our discussion into this experiment:  “Why don’t you try this:  Next time you send Emma to her room, say, ‘When you are ready to talk about what happened, come get me.’  Then, discuss what happened and make an agreement about what Emma and you will do differently next time.  Write it down where Emma can see it.”

Before I tell you what happened, what’s the difference between Karen’s advice and the unknown therapist’s?  Notice who had the power or “right” in the adult-to-adult conversations.  Notice how each approach changes the power dynamic between Emma and me — one actually escalates the power struggle, the other side-steps it.

My sense is that Karen’s advice also focuses on the long term vs. short term — Emma needs to make decisions for herself, and eventually these will be fairly serious decisions.  What am I doing now to equip her for that challenge?

This weekend when one of the “inevitable” conflicts occurred, I had a surprising experience.  While I was caught up in the conflict, I did not feel the need to explode — I didn’t feel hopeless.  This is the power of having a new strategy.

I asked Emma if she wanted to talk about what happened, when she grouched, “NO,” I followed Karen’s advice.  A few minutes later, Emma was ready to talk.  I began my Self-Science process and asked, “What happened?”

I discovered that looking at the whole event was too complex, that Emma really had trouble telling the story.  So I began telling what I thought happened, and after each little piece, I asked if she agreed — really asked, not to get agreement but to get her view.  We agreed on some parts, not others, and didn’t debate it — we both identified the story from our sides.

Then I identified the part that was upsetting for me:  “I felt ignored when I told you to stop grabbing your brother for the second time and it did not seem like you listened.  Were you listening?”

“No,” said Emma, and I could see the realization sink in.

We put up a chart paper in her room and I asked what I should write.  Emma said, “No Ignoring.”

I was surprised again when the next day there was a minor tussle between Emma and Max.  When I asked what happened, Emma told me, and said we need to go write on the list.

I suspect that a large part of my own reactivity with the kids comes from feeling so powerless — from feeling like this won’t end, and I can’t stop it.  So the lesson for me as a parent:

• keep practicing optimism (it WON’T last forever and I CAN make a difference if I try).
• keep experimenting with new ways of communicating.
• to stay out of the power struggle — make my job be “help them learn” rather than “enforce.”

Reflecting on the two different styles of giving me advice, I see three key points to remember an “expert,” consultant, and manager supporting others.

Ask, help them see the story, the pattern.

Challenge the “insane” (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results)

Offer questions, alternatives, and experiments rather than answers.

I need to remember I don’t have the answers to my own challenges, let alone yours!  Perhaps the best we can offer one another is a compassionate ear and the encouragement to keep learning.  It’s probably harder to sell than “the answer,” but I suspect there’s a lot more value in it.

Warmly yours,

- Josh

I’m too busy keeping my head above water to make progress on my real goals.

On one hand, that’s a practical and realistic way of coping.  Look, we’ve all experienced that some days we can barely tread water fast enough… and some days we sink… and on those days it’s “impossible” to put time and energy into the future.  How can you invest when you can’t put bread on the table?

All three had practical, legitimate reasons for “treading water,” they were not making weak excuses.  There just has not been time.

So that’s the “practical reality.” What about the “emotional reality”?  What I noticed in all three conversations was a loss of energy and momentum.  There’s an emotional cost to postponing your future, and when you’re calculating the choices of your day and week, this needs to be factored in. I suspect that when you factor in the emotional cost (in the extreme, dying a little more each day), the equation might change?

You’ve likely seen this framework that Stephen Covey offers in First Things First:

Covey points out that we need to avoid QIII and QIV, and shift more time to QII if we want to build the future.  Good!  Let’s do it!!!  How? Well… that’s a problem.  It’s a fabulous model, though most of us already know that we need to stop fighting unimportant fires and getting sucked into distractions… but we still do that.  We’re choosing to put time in QI, QIII, and QIV, and shortchanging QII.  Why?

Because we’re not driven by “what we know.”  We’re driven by what we feel.

There’s some set of feelings boiling around this pattern of behavior pushing and pulling us.  There are feelings before the choice (to shortchange QII).  Then there are feelings the come immediately when we do what we’re doing instead… then there are still more feelings when we end the day saying, “*(@_!_)# another day with no time for QII.”

If I can indulge in a bit of prognostication, I suspect that if your pattern is “do QI &III but miss QII” you’re feeling a mix of stressed, overwhelmed, impatient, excited, and focused (even driven). If you’re getting sucked into QIV then your feelings are likely to be bored, uncertain, distracted, lonely, or lost.

Then, despite the knowledge that QII is the only way out, you still go to another quadrant, and, for the moment it feels good.  If you’re QI and QIII focused, you probably get great feedback, maybe overhearing, “He’s so reliable….”  “You can count on her….”  If you’re escaping into QIII, you get a bit of relief.  In any case, there’s a feeling payoff — an emotional benefit.  What is yours?

The first, and perhaps most important step, to getting out of the pattern is to recognize the emotional drivers.  What’s triggering your pattern, and what payoff are you getting from it?  Knowing that is not enough – you need to DO something with those feelings.  That’s another article… but I’d love to hear your ideas (post a comment!)

I also noticed that in these conversations, and many others – including many in my own head, there’s a refrain about being busy:  “I can’t do this unless I can devote a block of time…”  Many a project have lingered on my “to do” list because I told myself I didn’t have the six hours or three days or whatever to complete it.  Consider this:

If you had a month you could devote completely to your future, what would you do with that month?

How about if you had one week?

What could you do if you had one day?

How about if you had five minutes?

We all have time, but for most of us it’s fractured — five minutes here, and hour there.  While it’s extremely challenging, somehow we have to reclaim those dribs and drabs of time and turn them into a worthy contribution.  As usual, I would suggest the challenge lies not so much in the technical achievement of this end, but in the emotional transition we must undertake in order to bring the A game to these momentary matches.

Survive or Thrive

To conclude, here is powerful reminder from Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman:

If you focus on survival, then your survival is at question; if you focus on thriving, then your survival is assured – and more is possible.

Each week you have but a few discretionary hours to cash in:  Will you spend or invest?

There was a guy about my age who seems to work in construction or trucking; he was talking with his buddy about the woman he’s been dating the last few months.  What intrigued me was his experience of beginning to build a relationship with the woman’s three daughters, and the “raking over the coals” they were giving him.  I was struck by the complexity of this situation, and was touched by the care – even reverence – he held for the situation.  At least to his buddy, he expressed no impatience, no regret, no blame, but you could hear some pain and uncertainty and hope all mixed in his voice as he shared what it’s been like to be introduced to the girls as their mom’s new “friend.”

While I was touched by his tenderness (though presented in a “guy” slap on the back fashion), I was also thinking that the poor guy’s in over his head.  As the generations roll on, we’re increasing the complexity and removing support systems.  Many, maybe most, of us are trying to do right by one another — but we don’t quite know how to navigate these new situations and roles.  While the logistics are not that daunting, the emotions are very messy; maybe it’s just that there are so many opportunities for “big” emotional experiences in all this social complexity?  And how do we learn to navigate this new terrain?  We’ve barely learned to cope with the world as it was, and each day we’re adding complexity — creating situations none of us is equipped to handle…. yet somehow, with luck and the many blessings that strengthen us, we stumble onward and sometimes it seems to work.

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to blend thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions — which is key to having a successful relationship with yourself and others. To provide a practical and simple way to learn and practice emotional intelligence, Six Seconds developed a three-part model in 1997 as a process – an action plan for using emotional intelligence in daily life.

This model of EQ-in-Action begins with three important pursuits: to become more aware (noticing what you do), more intentional (doing what you mean), and more purposeful (doing it for a reason).

Know Yourself

Clearly seeing what you feel and do. Emotions are data, and these competencies allow you to accurately collect that information.

Choose Yourself

Doing what you mean to do.
Instead of reacting “on autopilot,” these competencies allow you to proactively respond.

Give Yourself

Doing it for a reason.
These competencies help you put your vision and mission into action so you lead on purpose and with full integrity.

Know Yourself gives you the “what” – when you Know Yourself, you know your strengths and challenges, you know what you are doing, what you want, and what to change.

Choose Yourself provides the “how” – it shows you how to take action, how to influence yourself and others, how to “operationalize” these concepts.

Give Yourself delivers the “why” – when you Give Yourself you are clear and full of energy so you stay focused why to respond a certain way, why to move in a new direction, and why others should come on board.

You’ll notice we present the model in a CIRCLE – it’s not a list, it’s a process!  The process works when you spin it, like a propeller moving a ship.  As you move through these three pursuits you gain positive momentum!

“Under” the three pursuits live eight specific, learnable, measurable competencies.  They’re measured through the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment – or SEI.  Here are the eight competencies – with definitions below:

At the core, emotional intelligence is something to BE.  By being more emotionally intelligent, smarted with feelings, you will more accurately recognize emotions in yourself and others.  This data will help you make decisions and craft effective solutions to the “life puzzles” you face each day.  It’s also important to put it in action – hence the verbs.  The three pursuits – and the eight competencies – are actions.

To learn more about the model and how to use it:

An overview of the model including additional links excerpt from At the Heart of Leadership: How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence (this book is an excellent resource for learning about EQ and the model in leadership)

See this video of our COO introducing the model

Order your SEI Assessment with a 1:1 debrief with a coach

Explore our blog and articles which frequently discuss different competencies – or search for the competency that’s of interest!

A few years ago we enjoyed a business climate where companies flourished with little effort; stocks soared, cash was everywhere, and growth seemed automatic. Now we’re in a dramatically different realm.

What does it take to lead today? Not just to “muddle along,” but to truly lead? To take people and organizations to heights they would not otherwise reach, to be someone worth following?

While I am extremely concerned about our present and short-term future, I also see some tremendous benefits in the current economic crisis. One is the opportunity for true leaders to emerge.

What does it take? In keynotes and consulting projects, I frequently ask groups to tell me. I ask them to think of a leader who inspired them to go above and beyond — a leader who helped them be and do more than they thought possible.

In the last few weeks I’ve asked this of three widely eclectic groups: from leaders at Lockheed Martin, and the World Bank Group, to preschool teachers at the Stephen Wise Temple. Perhaps it won’t be a surprise that their answers were quite similar?

Before I share their answers, please take a moment to consider the question for yourself:

1. Think of a leader who helped bring out your very best. Someone you consider “a leader worth following.”

2. What did/do you feel with this person?

3. What did/does s/he do to inspire this?

While the answers vary somewhat each time I ask, there are a few comments that almost always appear. What do these exceptional leaders do?

• Listen deeply / Give me time
• Encourage / Challenge / Give me feedback (critical as well as praising)
• Take risks on me / Give me a chance
• Express their passion / Live their vision

What’s critical though, is that these behaviors alone are not enough. There is a “secret sauce” or “x-factor” that sets these people apart, and that’s the WAY they do what they do. Based in genuine care, they take these actions authentically, naturally, and consistently. Not only do they walk their talk, they also talk their walk.

This requires an exceptional level of self-awareness. The Six Seconds EQ Model calls this “Know Yourself,” and it’s an essential foundation. But it’s not enough. True leaders also need a match between who they are, what they do, and the way they do that. There are specific skills that facilitate this aligment (as I discuss in At the Heart of Leadership). When we apply those skills we unleash more of our capacity to connect at a human level.

We can take any action in multiple ways — when we take the right action, in the right way, and for the right reasons we get the most power. The mass of the shaft lines up behind the point of the arrow.

According to the groups I’ve surveyed, when leaders accomplish this alignment, they engender key reactions, including: Trust, commitment, and a passion for excellence. They help people feel both safe and “on fire.” Perhaps it’s only from a foundation of real safety that people can take the extraordinary risks to excel?

Given the power of these feelings, it’s no surprise that emotional intelligence is one of the hallmarks of great leaders (in a recent study, EQ was twice as strong at predicting performance than IQ — and stronger than business knowledge or other skills — see www.6seconds.org/case for more). Leaders who use their own feelings effectively create “the right” emotional climate because their feelings shape the feelings of those who follow. (For research on this, here is a white paper on emotional contagion).

In a recent poll on our web site, we asked people “Compared to a ‘typical day’ a year ago, how’s your stress level now?” The results are graphed here. You can see most people are reporting higher stress – the two “higher” options are 42% more prevalent than the two “lower” options. While this is not a scientific poll, it’s a reminder that many people, perhaps the large majority of us, have a sense that times are tough.

As “times get tougher” the skills of emotional intelligence become even more critical for true leaders. As stress and anxiety increase, people become more reactive, more survival-oriented, less innovative. Left to their own devices, these days people focus on the spiraling values of their IRAs, they stand around the coffee machine wondering if their firm is the next domino to fall, they call their husbands and wives to make sure there’s some extra cash in the house. In other words: They are afraid.

Now fear is not a bad thing. It’s right to be scared in times like these. Fear can help us clarify what we need to protect. It drives us to focus on the narrow path toward safety – on the here and now – on survival. One problem is that we can’t actually do much about the crises we face, so we go into a generalized anxiety and even obsession. The other is that the path of safety is not the route to success.

So in times of trouble, true leaders provide both comfort and challenge. They help people channel the general unease and take action to make a difference. They keep a vision of possibility without denying the pain of the present. They take risks in spite of, maybe even because of, the prevalent fear. They blend head and heart to be trustworthy, courageous, and authentic – to take care of their people and walk together toward a compelling purpose.

Then when the dust settles – as it always does – those leaders have taken their people head and shoulders above the competition.

So consider:

Are you a leader worth following?

Are you taking your people someplace worth going?

And, what skills do you need to “tune up” to stand out as a leader in times of challenge and controversy?

Whether you are in a formal leadership role or not, you have a choice about how you are showing up and using your influence and personal power. I was recently talking with a tough 14-year-old girl in an inner city school; she wasn’t willing to take much responsibility for her own choices, but when I asked, “are you a leader?” she gave a strong “yes.” Whether you’re a young teen or a gray-haired exec, I’d ask the same that I asked her: Be one worth following.

Definitions and History of Emotional Intelligence

It all began about 2,000 years ago when Plato wrote, “All learning has an emotional base.” Since then, scientists, educators, and philosophers have worked to prove or disprove the importance of feelings. Unfortunately, for a large part of those two millenia, common thought was, “Emotions are in the way. They keep us from making good decisions, and they keep us from focusing.” In the last three decades, a growing body of research is proving just the opposite.

In the 1950’s, Abraham Maslow wrote about how people could enhance their emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental strengths. His work sparked the “Human Potential” movement which could be the greatest celebration of humanism since the Renaissance. In the 1970s and 80s this led to the development of many new sciences of human capacity. Serious research was occuring to define both emotions and intelligence. One of these researchers was Peter Salovey, now Provost and Professor at Yale University. He says that over the last few decades, beliefs about emotions and intelligence have both changed — where intelligence was once perfection, people were recognizing that there was more to life. Where emotion was once perdition, people were recognizing that it might have substantive value.

There is ongoing discussion about the origins of “EQ,” but consensus is that the seminal publication was an article called “Emotional Intelligence” by Peter Salovey and John “Jack” Mayer in 1990. The article defined EQ as a scientifically testable “intelligence.” Salovey says he and Jack were equal coauthors, and he got his name first because of a coin toss. The team has gone on to publish numerous articles, and their definition of EQ has evolved to:

“Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions; to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought; to understand emotions and emotional knowledge; and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth.”

In other words, there are four parts:

1. Perceive or sense emotions,
2. Use emotions to assist thought,
3. Understand emotions,
4. Manage emotions.

As their colleague David Caruso writes, “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head — it is the unique intersection of both.”

Daniel Goleman drew on the research of Salovey and Mayer, as well as several other key researchers and practitioners, for his bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence. In addition to the research, Goleman reviewed best practice in education. He wrote about two school programs, Six Seconds’ “Self-Science” and the New Haven Schools’ Social Development program. He also spoke with many “hard” science researchers and saw how their work connected with what was occuring on the leading edge in schools and organizations. (Here is an interview with Goleman where he discusses the origins.)

In 1997, Six Seconds’ team sought to take those best-practices and create a framework for teaching and practicing the skills of EQ. They went beyond the scientific definition to capture the practical value of the concepts that are worth teaching and learning. Their definition of emotional intelligence is, “The capacities to create optimal results in your relationships with yourself and others.”

Six Seconds also developed a model that captures those practices in three areas: “Know Yourself,” “Choose Yourself,” and “Give Yourself.,” with eight specific skills. Six Seconds’ approach mirrors David Caruso’s vision: The goal is to integrate thinking and feeling to live more effectively.

The Six Seconds Model is focused on action — within the three action steps, or "pursuits," are eight learnable competencies.  These are measured by Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment, and there is proof that with training scores on these skills increase (White Paper: Increasing EQ).

While the various models of emotional intelligence structure the concept differently, all are concerned with the integration of emotion, reason, and action.  Where "pre-EQ theory" suggests that emotion is a byproduct of thought, the EQ models all point out that emotion is meaningful unto itself.  Hence Six Seconds uses a triangle to show that thoughts, feelings, and actions are co-equally interlocking.

Another leading researcher whose work inspired both Goleman and Six Seconds was Antonio Damasio. In Descarte’s Error, Damasio outlines how emotions are functioning in the brain to create people’s sense of identity and guide rational decision making. He continues to discuss this work in The Feeling of What Happens, where he contends that our sense of being conscious comes from emotion.

Damasio’s contributions provide powerful evidence that it is artificial to separate thinking and feeling. Other researchers would go further. Candace Pert is a leading neurobiologist who wrote Molecules of Emotion, was the chief of the brain chemistry section of the NIH from 1982 to 1988, and is now a professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Pert’s perspective is that “thinking” occurs in the brain and the body. All kinds of “information” is processed throughout the body — ideas, feelings, and maybe even spiritual impulses. While the brain has the most processing power, it is not necessarily driving the system. Pert’s assertion is certainly a far cry from the notion that the “rational” brain is the center of human essence. (Here is an interview with Dr Pert)

So, what does it matter? While some researchers have focused on defining the skills of emotional intelligence, others have looked at the effects. Reuven Bar-On has been interested in non-cognitive competencies since the mid-1980s. He developed a test that measures people’s self-report of these competencies, called the EQ-i.

Bar-On’s definition is: “Emotional intelligence is an array of noncognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.” Again similar to Six Seconds’ approach, Bar-On is focusing on the real-world results.

Dr. Bar-On explains how his work is similar to and different from Salovey/Mayer’s: “We are both assuming a cognitive schemata and attempting to empirically demonstrate that this construct is not personality. They are relating primarily to a specific set of emotional abilities and a potential for behavior (emotional intelligence), while I am focusing on emotional and social functioning or behavior (emotionally and socially intelligent behavior).”

The EQ-i assesses five areas: Intrapersonal (awareness), Interpersonal (relationships), Stress Management (problem solving), Adaptability (stress tolerance), and General Mood (happiness).

Another useful definition comes from Q-Metrics, the creators of the EQ Map. They say: “Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, trust, creativity and influence.” One key insight from this model is that having a capacity or skill is not enough to create real-world results.

Q-Metrics’ CEO, Esther Orioli, explains, “I know plenty of CEOs who have the skill to empathize or give positive support. They don’t do it. Why not? Because they just don’t think it important.” Orioli points out that when leaders see how certain behaviors create more positive results, they do change their values. “Values dictate how we spend our time and resources. If we teach people skills in a vacuum, without relating them to their value and belief system, there is no real benefit,” Orioli concludes.

One of the more recent measurement tools is the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment (SEI – see www.6seconds.org/sei/); it was built “from the ground up” for development.  Focused on eight learnable competencies in a simple, clear model, the test provides insightful feedback and many development suggestions.  The purpose is to assist people to enhance the way they use EQ skills in their leadership and life.  A comparison of all these tests and more is online (www.6seconds.org/tests/).

No doubt the field of emotional intelligence will continue to develop. Bar-On says the key is refining the research of development, effects, and assessment. He predicts we will also see, “A more clear connection between EI, individual/group performance, and group/organizational productivity. As a result of this activity, we will have a much more accurate and empirical view of what this construct is — and what it can and cannot do.”

Dr. Salovey offers a similar conclusion: “I agree with Dr. Bar-On. I think in the coming decade we will see well conducted research demonstrating that emotional skills and competencies predict positive outcomes at home with one’s family, in school, and at work. The real challenge is to show that emotional intelligence matters over-and-above psychological constructs that have been measured for decades like personality and IQ. I believe that emotional intelligence holds this promise."

Comparison of EQ Models

All the models touch on understanding yourself, taking charge of yourself, and then applying that awareness and ability in your interactions with others.

This article first appeared in Six Seconds’ magazine: EQ Today, Nov 2002 by Joshua Freedman