Writing

“…for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence” – John Mackey, CEO – Whole Foods – Inc Magazine – July 2009

Here’s an excerpt:

Q: What traits should I look for when hiring for a leadership position?

A: My philosophy about this has definitely evolved over the years. I understand people a lot better today than I did 30 years ago. Back then, I was more impressed with people who were very articulate. In many companies, the person who talks the best usually gets the job. I got snowed by a few of those people over the years. I still think communication is important, but I don’t think there’s always a correlation between being a great communicator and other virtues that make for a great leader.

That’s why the first thing you should look at is character. I look for somebody who has classic virtues such as integrity, honesty, courage, love, and wisdom. Someone who is hard-working, candid, and ambitious, while still showing humility. I also look for people who have a high degree of emotional intelligence — a high capacity for caring. I think for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence. People with emotional intelligence usually have a lot of cognitive intelligence, but that’s not always true the other way around.

More on John Mackey of Whole Foods on Hiring Leaders, Management Trends Article – Inc. Article.

Intriguing article — Made to Stick: Hold the Interview | Fast Company — confirms again that most interviews are useless for hiring.  Literally.  No better than flipping a coin.  Some good advice — of course they missed a key idea:  administer an emotional intelligence test…

Seriously – what are people so bad at hiring?

My experience is that there are too many conflicting variables.  I like some aspects of one candidate, I dislike that in someone else but it’s balanced by part of their history… I suspect that I try way too hard to “analyze” and I’d do much better with a simple criteria:  How does it feel?  I suspect that if I had 3 reasonably qualified candidates and I selected the one who “felt right” I’d be way better off than the hours of analyzing and discussing.

Occasionally we have a client serious about building an “emotionally intelligence” workforce, and of course we do extensive training, train-the-trainer programs for in-house follow-through, and ongoing coaching for senior leaders to bring this top-of-mind.  But one of the most important exercises is training people who will be doing the hiring to be able to recognize key emotional intelligence competencies and hire for that.  In that context, the interview in itself becomes a practical test – not just of surface behaviors like rapport and social skills, but of a deeper interplay of emotional connection.

When companies put this kind of process in place they get a better workforce.   “Times like these” are actually ideal for this type of work — in a few months it’s going to be very challenging to find time to improve processes like hiring and onboarding as there’s a huge backlog of positions to fill and a torrent of placement work as the economic pressures lift and all those who WANTED to leave finally do.  So smart leaders are getting ready now to ensure that the next “generation” of new-hires has what it takes to go higher.

Making great progress since my surgery last week.  Today I was up at our new house with the contractors, outside on the phone, and at my desk a lot.  Yay!  Yesterday had a funny moment with Max (who’s now 8):

After a busy morning, I ended up SOUND asleep on the couch. I managed to sleep through three kids playing lego star wars, wife packing some boxes, appliance repair guy calling out about the new switch he needed to go get from the shop… and finally it’s fairly quiet…  ’till Max comes and very sweetly, very softly touches my shoulder:  “Daddy, can please we have juice pops?”

I wanted to smack him for being selfish and thoughtless… but I figured I’d just appreciate the sweetness instead, and maybe it was time to be done napping anyway.

It reminds me that we all have very different priorities.  Someone’s “thoughtlessness” could be that… or it could be that what I think is important just isn’t important to them.  It’s easy to judge because what’s important to me is so important to me!  This is probably the source of most conflict.

You know that expression, “I’m waiting for the other foot to fall”? (as in, expecting bad news soon).

So Wednesday evening I was walking around with Patty and another friend, and I was standing up on a low retaining wall (just about 2 feet high), and I decided to jump down to the ground.

There was this little voice saying “maybe you should just sit down and step off instead” but I ignored that… And oh how I wish I could take that second back and Apply more Consequential Thinking.

I landed on my left leg because I am still “protective” of my right leg (2 years ago I completely ruptured my right quadriceps tendon).  And I felt a sharp POP in my left knee… Which gave out… And I was on the ground feeling a terrible deja vu.

While these seems like the most ridiculous bad luck, the surgeon I saw last night was not all that surprised.  She said there’s been a huge increase in this injury nationwide — correlated with obesity and high cholesterol.  And, that it’s not uncommon that when one quad ruptures, that the other follows because of the underlying causes — and because as I did, “protecting” the original injury leads to over-use of the other side.

The good news/bad news is I know the process… Six months in a brace with crutches, 18 months ‘till “normal.”  The upside is I’m not scared, I know just how painful and difficult this is, and I know I can do it.  The downside is I know just how painful and difficult this is…

I was joking on the phone with a colleague saying, “I guess this means I didn’t learn the lesson I was supposed to learn the first time.”  I’ve been reflecting more about that and I’m now seeing that it’s not a joke at all.  Coming off the first knee, I was starting to take my health more seriously, but in the last 9 months or so I’ve let that slip out of focus.  For years I’ve thought and felt and talked about making major lifestyle changes to take better care of myself, but somehow I keep making other things a higher priority.  So while this is a rather difficult way to re-start, I’m actually feeling hopeful and even excited.  It’s not a time for little subtle changes – it’s time to re-invent this aspect of my life — of our lives as a family.

Well, I literally got home from the hospital an hour ago and so I’m a bit groggy, think I’ll go take a nap!

By the way — I won’t be working regular hours for the next few weeks, so if you need something from me, please remind me a few times ‘till I reply.

I took the city bus to and from school starting in kindergarten or first grade.  I remember riding my bike across the city to school one day (remember it because I found a $10 bill!)  I was probably left a bit too much to my own devices, could be described as a “latchkey kid,” or maybe just “normal life for a kid with a working single mom.”  Not a lot of supervision… but I also started my first business when I was 12 and had my own checking account, and was paying my own taxes by 16, and from then have had an (overly?) strong sense of responsibility and self-efficacy.  I learned it early: I am responsible for my life.

But I am not treating my kids this way.  When she was 8 or 9, Emma went into a shop by herself (mom in the car outside) and it was a big deal to let her be so independent.  We live in different times!  Or do we?  I’ve wondered for years if there really is more danger to kids today, or we’re just hyper afraid?

So I enjoyed a “Here and Now” show today interviewing Lenore Skenazy (listen to the story).  Skenzay wrote an article about letting her nine-year-old son ride the train home and unleashed a torrent of criticism that she’s “the world’s worst mom.”  Recently she wrote Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had, Without Going Nuts With Worry — showing some important data — she writes a blog on the topic.

The book presents extensive statistical evidence that there is LESS child predation today than 20 or 30 years ago, and, in fact it is FAR more likely that your child will be killed in your own car driving to school than be abducted.  Yet the thought of letting my 10-year-old take a bus downtown to get ice cream fills me with angst… and we put the kids in the car every day.

Just in case it’s not obvious:  People are NOT rational!

In the face of this irrational but completely real and horrible fear, the facts become nearly irrelevant — and then we start making decisions carelessly.  Applying emotional intelligence, we need to understand the source of the fear, recognize the pattern of reaction, and then evalute the consequences.  In the face of this horrifying fear of child predation, I stop the evaluation.  The trick isn’t to ignore the feeling, but rather to go further.  I’m clear how I feel about the immediate risks, but how do I feel about the long term?  How do I feel if I shelter them so much they lack self-efficacy?   If I teach them to be afraid of the world?

To be clear, I believe in sheltering kids.  There is much in the “real world” that I abhor, and I see little value in exposing them to it “so they’ll be able to cope.”  The kids at 8 and 10 don’t watch commercial TV, we preview movies that aren’t rated G, and we have chosen to leave the city and live in a pastoral community surrounded by oak-covered hills and farms.  Nor I do I believe in passing on a legacy of fear and helplessness.  So somehow we need to find a balance of risk and safety — and perhaps Skenazy’s factual data can help us do so.

Recent conversation w a client – major deja vu.  How often have I had this same discussion:  what they say they do isn’t what’s happening day to day.  A beautiful, compelling mission is worthless unless it lives in the the daily interactions of the organization.

It’s incredibly difficult to craft that powerful mission statement, that brief phrase that evokes the substantive and significant meaning of the organization.  After years of fiddling around and finally getting the words “just right,” it’s probably pretty annoying to hear that isn’t that important.  Don’t get me wrong, the “right” mission statement is incredibly important — it’s just unimportant in comparison with the real challenge:  putting the mission in action.

To make a mission live requires “drilling down,” carefully focusing to align intention and action. Think about the basic activities that take place in your organization each day:  What does it look, feel, and sound like to do those in accord with your mission?

For example, Six Seconds’ mission is: “Supporting people to make a positive difference, everywhere, all the time.”  So how should we answer the phone?  How should we respond to our colleagues when we disagree?  To live that mission, how should we be defining our organizational roles, setting budgets, or even choosing what paper to buy?  How about the culture we need to create — and the feelings that are essential to drive that?

Nan Summers, a friend and member of our network, once told me that when she was at Disney they had a phrase, “Everything Speaks,” meaning each little “tidbit” of the environment and the people there transmits some message… either the one intended or something else.  When you drill down, you recognize what & who is speaking, and adjust that to line up with the deeper shared purpose.  This requires giving up some level of autonomy — but not so much that you lose authenticity… big challenge!  Emotional intelligence is invaluable here because you need to see beyond the tactical.

“Everything speaks” emotionally even more than logically — millions of subtle messages come to prevade an organization and shape a culture and climate that’s infectious.  New people come in and adapt — and every interaction, every look, every nuance, ultimately transmits to the customer’s or client’s feelings of trust & loyalty.

Yet most organizations — businesses, government agencies, schools — that I encounter can barely articulate their purpose, and have little bandwidth to spare to consider how that purpose is being undermined or supported.  Just imagine how, if leaders made it an absolutely priority to ensure that the mission was alive at every level, these enterprises would rocket forward.  Have you ever been part of such a place?

Great post about the emotional component of sales –

Imagine if it were true, for example, that almost nobody buys a product or service anymore simply because they need it, or because its price is the right price? That, even in an economic downturn, they have to want it as much as need it before they buy? It’s a difficult concept to grasp because, at the end of the day, it’s not about rational thought.

Talks about How Customers Think (Gerald Zaltman, Harvard) says only 5% of consumer purchasing behavior is based on rational thought processes.  So for great sales, marketing, and customer service, more emotional intelligence needed!

Especially in these tough times, people want simplicity and authenticity.

The Myth of the Rational Buyer: How Too Much Thinking Can Hurt Your Brand | Design Finds You | Fast Company.

Google is crunching employee data to understand who might leave and why — so far, a key finding is that employees who feel underused are at risk.  This is a BFO (blinding flash of the the obvious) — a little emotional intelligence among managers would go a long way here!

Google Searches for Staffing Answers – WSJ.com.

I was consulting with a client recently about his work and the changes he’d like to implement in his healthcare services business.  He’s facing two changes:

• shifting from being a professional to being a manager & leader — instead of doing his hands-on care and sometimes checking in with others, the change would move him to mostly be managing and leading
• shifting from a “small business” to a “scalable business” model — instead of each site being completely unique, the change will require a consistent brand

Big stuff!!  Tough. Doable – but only if one is really serious about that shift.  So I wanted to know if this change was a match with his own vision of himself, and asked:

What do you want your job to be?

I suspect that many, many people find themselves in leadership positions without having really CHOSEN that.  This seems especially true in professional services – the doctor who finds herself leading an office; the investor who finds himself managing a team; the educator who finds himself leading an organization…

So before you get “further” in your career, it’s worth considering — what do you want your job to be?  What do you want to do more and less of?  If you “take that next step” in your work, will you still be doing the parts of the work that you love?

I travel a lot, and many countries have a space on their customs form for job.  I’m never quite sure what to put there.  It’s a little space, and I want to write something that’s not too confusing… EQ advocate?  Leader?  Teacher?  Author?  Consultant?  Trainer?  Executive?

Apparently I have some conflict and confusion about the changes in my own role!

While I WANTED our organization to grow, and pushed that, while I WANTED to do more leading and less doing, while I WANTED to build a team — I still sometimes regret how complex my job has become, and feel inadequate because I don’t really know how to do it.

Like so many of our clients, I’ve “evolved” into this role rather than being chosen for it, and a large part of what I love(d) about my own work is the “professional” hands on work, rather than the managing.

This reminds me about the work of Joy Palmer, one of our Network Members who primarily works with finance executives on this change.  She’s written about the process in The Rise of the Player Manager.

For myself, I’m someone who thrives on challenge and learning-by-doing… so it’s a great place to be… and I recognize that I only do my best when I pay close attention — I’ve chosen to be a leader.  Maybe that’s going on the next customs form!

Tidbit from my physical therapist:  When you’ve experienced a lot of pain, for example from a ruptured tendon, when you go to try to use that muscle again your brain says, “NO!”  Not because it hurts now, but because your brain “knows” that activity will be painful.

I’ve certainly experienced this in physical therapy with my knees… but also elsewhere in my life.  Before my dad died, for example, there were things I wanted to tell him, but I way afraid — not because it would hurt now, I suspect, but because by brain “knew” that activity would be painful.

So often we “protect” against the old and imagined hurts, and we don’t experience that we’ve grown past the memory of pain.

To get past it in physical injury, I have to risk, trust, hope, have an ally — and commit.  I suspect the same is true with the emotional injuries.