Writing

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Easy Answers… or Authentic Solutions?

Frequently in keynotes and trainings audience members ask me for help.  They typically say, “What’s the emotional intelligence solution to _____(insert complex problem)___?” Or, “What’s the EQ perspective on ____(insert lifelong challenge)____?” It would feel gratifying and really boost my ego to tell them what I think they should do…  but most of the time it wouldn’t work.

Six Seconds has a set of five core design principles we use to guide our curriculum design and all teaching (and these also form the backbone of our Leve 1 EQ Certification Training).  One of the principles is “Wisdom Lives Within.”  That means our job is to help people reflect and discover their own answers, their own truth. Sometimes I have trouble with this because I get a great deal of positive reinforcement from “being smart” and having “good solutions.”  I guess that’s rooted in my own insecurity; I like being a “go to” person and it feels good to help and to be acknowledged as someone whose expertise is invaluable.  But that ego boost actually creates dependence – undermining what I TRULY want to give!

One of the other principles is “No Way is The Way” which means we can’t give people the easy answer because there isn’t one.  We need to help them craft a solution that’s authentically, powerfully theirs.  But the good news is they already know it! (see principle #1 ) ).

Again, a lot easier to sell “the secret to success,” but even if I knew the secret (sigh, I don’t), I suspect it wouldn’t actually work for most people in most situations.  There are just too many variables.

I read this quote from Colin Powell that reinforces these principles:

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

While people WANT “expert answers” that isn’t what they actually need from us as friends, mentors, coaches, trainers, teachers, partners – or even parents.  If we truly want to help people be and do their best, we need to learn to ask great questions instead.

So, that said, here’s “the secret to success my EQ perspective”:

Next time someone asks you for advice, ask yourself this before you answer: 
In the long term, would you rather be the “expert” solving this person’s problems, or have them grow to brilliantly rise to their own challenges?

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Motivation or Control?

Do you want “your people” to be motivated, or do you want to control them?  I suspect many people (managers, teachers, parents) get these confused from time to time.  I know I do!  Of course most people say “motivated” but is that what they put in action?

Control means they do what you want.

Motivated means they do what they want.

Are these two mutually exclusive?  Take it personally for a moment: If you think someone is trying to control you, how does that affect your motivation?

I suspect that I want to control people when I feel out of control myself.  When I am fully confident, powerful, and charged up, I accept – even appreciate – the tension of real motivation.

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Purpose Drives Performance

In Leaders Worth Following I wrote, “in times of trouble, true leaders provide both comfort and challenge…. They blend head and heart to be trustworthy, courageous, and authentic – to take care of their people and walk together toward a compelling purpose.”

I’d like to emphasize the power of that purpose – it builds trust.  Not just internally, but externally as well.  Leaders with purpose, who build organizations with purpose, have a unique level of transparency and direction:  Their work is FOR something, and people can see and feel that.

Take Triodos, an alternative bank in Netherlands and branches in Spain and Britain, which invests in green, social, and cultural projects.  They have a clear, compelling mission that they live.  In times of challenge while most banks are struggling, Triodos experienced a five times increase in deposits last month.

Managing director Oliver Marquet’s explanation is they are clear about what and why they do:  “Transparency is absolutely key and explains why we hold on well in crisis.”  I suspect the transparency is driven by that clear purpose – one that also creates optimism and hope for employees and customers.

The article in Reuters today “Ethical banks win new customers” also gives the example of the Ecology Building Society in UK, whose deposits are doubling.  The bottom line: these small, purpose-driven organizations are more trustworthy because they care.

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Adventures

Left Kuala Lumpur today for Macao – then took the ferry to Hong Kong.  Am I in a James Bond movie or what??  Only this time the bad guy has an evil plot to create a world where people are cogs who shop instead of talk, and drown their loneliness in mindless TV and brutal escapist games.  Oh wait – that’s not fiction… And I’m not quite a tall as James Bond, nor do I like martinis.  Ah well.

Is “exotic” a feeling?  Today’s travels feel exotic – and also remarkably easy, especially with such great colleagues in all these places.  It’s such a gift to be able to adventure around the globe and see people deeply committed to helping people wake up and care.  We have challenges everywhere – but we also have allies.

Hong Kong is a perfect place for an emotional intelligence revolution.  It’s a bustling, magnificent, diverse city where people are moving fast.  Full of entrepreneurs and great food – all packed together.  What an amazing world we live in!

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Apricot Jam in KL

I’m in Kuala Lumpur eating breakfast in Times Square looking out over the city.  All week I’ve been eating spicy Asian food, and today I take some toast with apricot jam.  Taking a bite, I’m swept into homesickness and longing for the green gold fields and laughing children of home.  Amazing how our senses and emotions are so intertwined, so visceral, and so unexpected.

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Success & the Business Case for Emotional Intelligence

A completely revised and updated Business Case for EQ is now available for free download.

The new Business Case for Emotional Intelligence lays out a compelling array of research projects linking EQ and EQ skills to business success.  But what about you? How do you define success, and does emotional intelligence have anything to do with it?

Experiment:
Think of 3-6 people you know that you consider successful. Maybe they are not “100% successful,” but each has some part of success well dialed.

  1. What are the key elements of success? What qualifies someone to be on your list?
  2. For each person, list their key strengths: Beyond luck and circumstance, what knowledge, attitudes, or skills sets this person apart? How many of these are linked to emotional intelligence? Without using names, post your answer to this question in the comments, below!
  3. What parts of list #1 do you aspire to? What parts of list #2 will help you get there?

This article appeared as a VitalSigns for EQ – one of Six Seconds’ great newsletters.

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EQ Reflection: Monuments

Due to the foibles of flight schedules, I had some unexpected downtime in DC, and found myself wandering the Mall. I don’t think I’ve been here since I was in eighth grade, and it made a very different impression on me now. I suspect that the first time, I was much more concerned about the pressing matters of who I’d sit with on the bus, and what those girls were whispering, and when we’d be able to shop for trinkets that made us feel somehow more complete.

Now walking through these monuments I thought about the sweep of history. About the times of great challenge when exceptional women and men stand up and stand out, not for themselves but in service of hope. About Martin Luther King Jr standing on this very place, his magnificent voice booming over this wide arcade and around the globe. Giving himself utterly to a higher purpose, his message echoing through the hearts of those for, neutral, and even opposed, calling something deeper in them.

And in that same park, stones with golden signatures from the Declaration of Independence. People standing up for something “impossible,” something bigger than their own gain — and in so doing galvanizing hope and reverence and the power of human spirit. Again, in giving to a larger vision, these leaders opened a door wide enough for allies and enemies alike.

Sprinkled though this garden are monuments to wisdom and to sacrifice. It’s so difficult to tell in the moment-to-moment of our daily lives, but in the sweep of history it becomes clear. Great purpose requires the most exceptional commitment, but there’s a razor-edge between sacrifice for pride and sacrifice for promise.

On a more personal scale, I finally saw the Vietnam Wall — it wasn’t here when I was a boy-hoping-to-be-a-man. I thought of Hank, my father, and how many of these shipmate’s names were carved into his heart as indelibly as they are carved into the granite. I thought of all these other men who’s names are carved in the granite, who now might be grandfathers too.

In the brilliance of this monument I couldn’t help but see generations reflected in the stone. The passing crowds of all ages, bright colors dancing on the wall. Some faces closed in loss, some somber in reflection, others chatting about the pressing matters like who they’d sit next to on the bus… Then finally I willed myself to look at my own reflection in the stone, and thought of the legacy of war and how it’s a part of my own story. I could see myself through the names of those who died so far away fighting for a myth of pride and arrogance and fear.

I wondered what kind of monument we will make for the women and men fighting today. I wondered if those who toil in the marble corridors of power take time out to look over at this somber granite and consider the way their choices will reflect outward in the lives of ordinary people, into the faces of future generations who walk by remembering. It’s so easy to point a finger at “them,” but if I’m going to learn something here I recognize I also need to look at myself in this wall.

Here we are in an era of upheaval, with fear and uncertainty rampant, with nearly desperate problems on every side. Perhaps the most profound challenges humanity has ever faced. What can I do, one ordinary man, amidst all the difficulties we face? Isn’t there a new hero who can save us?

Perhaps in times of greatest challenge it takes both the most ordinary and the most exceptional women and men stand up and stand out, not for themselves but in service of hope.

In the past, we’ve needed someone stand on the marble steps and call forth our commitment. Perhaps today’s challenges will also require us each to do so. There is a quiet voice of wisdom that dwells in every one of us, but it is easily shouted down by the clamor of what we each want now. That quiet voice of wisdom speaks quietly through a feeling of what’s truly precious — we know when we are in integrity because we feel it.

So where do we find the wisdom to step out from those compelling immediate concerns of daily life and to commit to something larger? This commitment is not comfortable, it’s much easier, and perhaps even more in our nature, to attend to the “seat on the bus matters” rather than the “sweep of history matters.” In either case it’s emotion driving us, but perhaps there are multiple voices of those feelings. For example, fear can sweep us unconsciously into matters of unimportant urgency, into a bid for comfort. But if we use emotional intelligence and look deeper, that same fear can tell us something truly vital is at stake.

When we do get that deeper insight, we also get an important benefit. Emotion is information, and it is power. When we tune up our awareness and attend to what’s truly important, we liberate the energy of those strongest of convictions. Then we can use the power of our feelings to commit, to sacrifice for what matters.

Perhaps in a hundred years there will be a new monument here, not commemorating a great woman or man, and neither honoring lives cut short, but reminding future generations of how people like you and I did what was right. About how we shifted our attention away from comfort and convenience and toward the survival of our communities. Away from being right over others and toward caring-in-action. Away from taking and toward healing our shared home.

Are you ready?

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Hope and Loss: Back to School

I’ve always loved+dreaded this time of year.  Dreaded because it meant the end of lazy afternoons stretching from freedom to boredom.

But more, loved, because as a child (then as a teacher), September meant a clean slate – infinite possibility – even redemption.

Maybe this would be the year I stopped having yogurts break open in my backpack and get all over my books.

Maybe this would be the year I stayed on top of my homework and didn’t feel contantly behind.

Maybe this would be the year the cool kids would include me playing four-square at lunch.

These examples sound a little sad to me, but I wasn’t sad, I was abundantly (overly?) hopeful.  I’d say “optimistic” but I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t take the ownership of the solution.

water-stone-small.jpgI could hardly wait to start school and to see if the long summer afternoons had transformed something in me, in us.   I had this sense of discovery, of boldly going someplace new — and possibly wonderful.

On the one hand, it was nonsense, and each year led to inevitable dissapointments and dashed hopes.  But at the very same time I was right, year after year.  Somehow I learned to leave my yogurt in my locker instead of my lunchbox.  Somehow I because a straight-a student.  Somehow I met wonderful people who love me for who I am.

In the magic of passing summer days, I learned something about work, something about participating in the world, something about integrity.  In my child-mind it would all happen by itself with the dawning of a new year.  Now, as an adult I see that change mostly came from doggedly sticking with it.

In any case, these days of raw potential — of renewal, of hope, of infinite possibility — have stayed with me, and still fill me with a trieste for the end of summer mixed with a wonder at what we can become.

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Behavior or Deeper?

fireworks_water.jpgOur society, especially in business, seems fixated on “behavior” as a magic solution.  For example, recently I was talking to a potential client about a leadership development program and he wanted to know what “EQ behaviors” the participants would learn.

Talking about the behavior is an easy short-hand.  We want leaders to be proactive, to engage, to give feedback, to listen, to hold people accountable, to execute.  All behaviors that sound great on the surface – but  the HOW is essential… and maybe even more essential than the behavior itself?

My belief is that we need to look more deeply at what DRIVES the behavior.  One can execute a certain behavior in so many different ways – and thereby create completely different results.  Just imagine all the ways one could say the words “thank you.”  If the underlying feeling is gratitude the same words have a totally different impact than if the underlying feeling is irritation.  Thus the emotion that’s “beneath the surface” drives the result.

Emotional intelligence lets leaders see beneath the surface of their own and others’ actions.  To focus on the HOW – on the alignment between the behavior and the underlying intention.