In this blog

• Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence summary
• Emotional Intelligence and Resilience
• Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

In Daniel Goleman’s popular book ‘Working with Emotional Intelligence’ he tells the following story of a young flight attendant confronted by a group of angry businessmen.

It was Super Bowl Sunday, that sacrosanct day when most Americans are to be found in front of their televisions.  A departing flight from New York to Detroit was delayed and the tension among the passengers, mostly businessmen, was palpable.  When it finally landed a glitch made the plane stop about 100 feet from the gate.  Frantic about being late, passengers leapt to their feet anyway.  A flight attendant went to the intercom.  How could she get a planeload of angry businessmen to sit back down?

She did not bother to ‘pull rank’ and announce in a stern voice, “Federal regulations require that you be seated before we can continue to the gate.” 

Instead, she warbled in a singsong tone, suggestive of a playful warning to an adorable child, “You’re standing.”  With that everyone laughed and sat back down until the plane finished taxiing to the gate.  And, given the circumstances, they got off the plane in a surprisingly good mood.”

This story illustrates the power of EQ at work.  Our hero, the flight attendant, demonstrates two important skills.  Firstly, she successfully manages her own emotions.  She does not panic.  She does not start an argument.  If she did, even if she ‘won’ the argument, it would have created resentment towards herself and towards the airline.  Instead, she stayed calm.  And this allowed her to think on her feet and find a win-win solution.

Secondly, beyond managing herself, she also demonstrated the ability to manage others.  With a little empathy, charm, and good humour she took an angry mob and transformed them, like putty in her hand.  They followed her direction and put their frustration, however justifiable, to one side.

It is often said EQ is a better predictor of success than regular intelligence.  This is an example of why.

Emotional Intelligence and Resilience.

Like our flight attendant, we all have moments where we are tested.  In these moments, we can either become overwhelmed with anxiety or self-doubt.  Or we can contain those negative thoughts and feelings and put them to one side.

For example, studies show most people, including people in senior positions, experience so called ‘imposter syndrome’.   Imposter syndrome is the fear of being exposed as a phony.  It is the belief that we don’t measure up to others, and it is surprisingly common.   

EQ is the ability to catch these self-doubts and reframe them as 1) something everyone experiences and 2) something to be sidelined or ignored.

With a little practice, you will still have these doubts, but you won’t take orders from them.  You will be able to control your doubts, rather than letting them control you.  This is the difference between speaking up in meetings or keeping quiet.   It is the difference between getting frustrated and saying something you regret or staying cool and finding a win-win solution.  It is the difference between putting yourself forward for opportunities or holding yourself back.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Leadership is a contact sport.  It requires people skills.  Even if you are good at certain parts of your job, if you can’t inspire, motivate and build trust in others you will never reach your potential as a professional.  

Some examples

EQ training teaches leaders how to build positive teams.  For example, EQ training encourages leaders to identify and leverage the personal strengths of individual team members, so that people come to work each day with the sense they are doing their ‘good thing’ more. 

EQ training teaches leaders how to motivate people.  For example, by showcasing examples of satisfied stakeholders or customers, so that staff can see more clearly that their efforts make a difference in people’s lives. 

EQ training teaches leaders how to reduce work stress by granting staff more autonomy over how tasks are completed, thus providing real empowerment to workers. 

EQ is the ability to be self-aware and to manage your own reactions in situations.  It is the ability to lead and manage relationships with others.  Practicing these skills will help you to strengthen your EQ to give you the extra edge in your personal and your professional life.

How to re-build a positive team in the post COVID world. 

As we make our way out of COVID-19 restrictions, organisations and businesses are returning to some kind of normal.  In many cases this means people are returning to the office after working from home.

What are the challenges in returning to the workplace?

Of course, many workplaces are finding this harder than just picking up where they left off.  For managers, the COVID pandemic has left some unexpected challenges.  For example, some employees have mixed feelings about returning to the office after working from home.  Stricter hygiene protocols are forcing changes to hotdesking and physical meeting arrangements.  Not everyone approaches social distancing the same way and some individuals, including those in higher-risk groups, may hold genuine fears of contracting COVID.  Previous personality conflicts or team tensions, left dormant during the restrictions, are ready to re-emerge from beneath the surface.  Some staff, recruited during this period, may only have experienced on-boarding remotely and are yet to meet their new colleagues in person.  And anyone unaware of recent changes in attitudes towards gender bias and sexual harassment in the workplace should probably consider early retirement.

The bottom line is that we are simply out of practice working together.  We have lost our familiar routines and sense of connection.   And just like getting back onto a horse after a fall or a long absence, there is real hesitation and anxiety.

So how can managers rebuild their teams?  How do we support staff with the uncertainty of the post pandemic world?

Team Building after the Pandemic

Despite the unique challenges described above, the process of re-establishing our teams is surprisingly similar to conventional approaches.  We already know a great deal about building and re-establishing teams, with the most trusted and widely used model being the Forming Storming Norming Performing model developed by psychologist Bruce Tuckman.

Forming Storming Norming Performing:

This model is one of the most widely cited approaches in the study of team development.  The model sets out a four-stage process that new (and rebooted) teams go through as they find their feet and discover the way forward.

Here’s how it works.

Stages of Team Development:

1. Forming

In the forming stage we are right at the beginning. People are introduced (or re-introduced) to each other and begin to figure out who does what.  In this early stage people tend to be polite.  As with most face-to-face situations where people are new, they play nice at first.  You may even notice the normal social anxiety as people are settling in and learning what to expect.

Your job, as leader, is to make people comfortable and to facilitate ‘getting to know you’ type discussions.  You need to create trust and certainty with structure and clear goals as people figure out where they stand.   

Don’t be too concerned about low energy levels or low productivity just yet.   You can think of this as an orientation process whereby people are discovering the lay of the land rather than being productive.  Think back to your own experiences of being in a new job or a new team.  Structure, clarity, and breaking the ice are the priorities at this stage.

2. Storming

Very soon the politeness is dropped in a surge of activity.  This is the ‘storming’ stage.  In this stage the group starts its’ first work together.  However, because people are still learning the ropes and learning where they fit in there is still uncertainty.  This is where the first power struggles begin.  It’s also where personality clashes emerge.  As with any human relationships, we can expect to get on each other’s nerves, just a little.  Personalities may clash, or simply disagree on how to get things done.  Some individuals may even test the limits and challenge your authority as leader.

Your job here is to show firm and steady leadership.  Even if your management style is fairly relaxed people still need to know who is in charge at this point.  People are working out what the expectations are and whether they follow your direction, or that of the dominant person next to them. 

3. Norming

You are turning the corner.  ‘Norming’ describes people internalising the rules, customs and routines.   In other words, they adopt the team’s norms.

Norms should be encouraged as they allow smoother operation, less conflict, and more group efficiency.  The conflicts of the previous storming stage have been resolved and the team agrees on the way forward.  People show more confidence and mastery. They know what’s expected and they know what good performance looks like.  They are more interested in doing their work and are no longer sorting out where they stand.

Now your job is to back away a little.  The best thing for you to do here is to reinforce norms.  For example, by acknowledging good performance and showcasing examples of good work for others to follow.   

4. Performing

In the final stage the team has achieved its’ own momentum.  People know the expectations.  They know their jobs and they know each other. 

A level of trust has been created allowing each to excel in their respective roles. There is very little confusion about who should be doing what or how the team members relate to one another. The norms have been internalised and are guiding people’s behaviour, as if on autopilot.  

This stage describes the maximum of stability and productivity.  Teams in the performing stage are productive and well equipped to respond to changes in membership, conditions, or objectives -with minimal disruption.

In this stage you are making management look easy.  Of course, it is anything but. 

Conclusion

Leadership is a contact sport.  There is no substitute for being there.  Now, after an extended period of working remotely your traditional leadership skills are being tested.   Don’t worry.  The process of establishing or re-booting teams is no different from conventional team building and team leadership practices.  Yes, there are additional challenges unique to the post COVID world.  But the roadmap back is well documented.  Guide your people through the four stages set out above and watch your team flourish better than ever.

Note

Occasionally, significant change or staff turnover can set your team back to an earlier stage.  That’s fine.  In fact that’s to be expected.   Ultimately, your job is to continually coach your team towards the performing stage and to maximise how much time they remain there.

February 14, 2019

Business professor Adam Grant has shown, through a series of innovative experiments, that simple five-minute interventions can have a lasting impact on team motivation and engagement.

For example, working with call centre staff employed to seek donations for university scholarships, professor Grant arranged for one team to meet with a real-life beneficiary of a scholarship. The meeting was only five minutes long.  Just long enough to put a face to a name. 

This team went on to raise three times more money and record consistently longer and more engaged conversations with potential donors, compared to control groups.  They also showed more loyalty and lower staff turnover.

This finding has been replicated in studies where teams simply read case histories of satisfied customers. Case histories are far easier to arrange than face to face meetings, however the impact on motivation is the same. 

It seems motivation increases when people can see their efforts make a clear  difference in the lives of real people. Leaders who understand this can find innovative ways to showcase examples of good practice and satisfied customers. 

For example, 

*Instead of only collecting client complaints, begin a ‘compliment’s register’ and display the highlights.

*Ensure newsletters, or emails from senior management include specific examples of positive client feedback.   

*Begin regular team meetings with a standing agenda item inviting staff to share examples of a ‘win’ they have had with a client.

You get the idea; get thinking! 

January 4, 2019

About five years ago I stopped using the usual ‘ice-breaker’ exercises to kick off training workshops. I found it was a better use of time to simply ask people what they hoped to gain from a session that was supposed to be about positive teams or advanced coaching skills etc.

To this day it still intrigues me how the same answers keep coming up. 

“I just want my staff to be happy.” 

“I want my team to be more positive and motivated.” 

“We’re going through a lot of change and I want people to feel supported.” 

If your job involves leading people you just want your staff to be happy. You want them to know that you’re one of the ‘good guys’ and you want them to enjoy coming to work and being in your team.  You want them to trust you, to be on the same page and to feel valued. When they are coping with change or stress you want them to appreciate that you want to support them.  And, very occasionally, when they are determined to keep complaining or being negative you wish, under your breath, they would just grow up and get on with it! 

Consider this: 

There is a growing body of evidence that the most powerful way to boost staff satisfaction is to focus, not on correcting people’s weaknesses but on growing people’s strengths. Traditionally managers assume their job is to address problems and weaknesses. But there’s more productivity and job satisfaction to be found by focusing on growing strengths.

In one large study of more than 5000 workers in New Zealand, those who were highly aware of their strengths were nine times more likely to be flourishing at work. And, beyond just knowing their strengths, those workers who reported actively using those strengths at work were 18 times more likely to be flourishing. These kinds of findings are increasingly common and are being found in studies around the world.

Management researcher Marcus Buckingham contrasts the two approaches by comparing checkers with chess.  Checkers is a board game where all the pieces are identical and are moved the same way. However, with chess, the pieces are unique and are moved according to different characteristics.  

While most managers play checkers, great managers play chess. 

So instead of allocating work, task or projects in an orderly manner and treating everyone the same, take the extra minute or so to match tasks to people’s strengths.  Think like a sports coach who puts his or her players in the positions that make the best use of their talents. Remember, we all want to be treated this way, to be known for our ‘good thing.’  So embrace the diversity, quirks and eccentricities of your staff and allocate work accordingly. 

Benefits

As individuals specialise in their areas of strength the overall capacity and repertoire of the team expands.

Job satisfaction increases as people feel they are doing the ‘good thing’ more at work. 

Staff begin to see you as a boss who really gets them.

Trust increases as people realise you’d rather celebrate their talents than catch them out.

References

Marcus Buckingham. Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance. Free Press, New York.

 Hone, L. C., Jarden, A., Duncan, S., & Schofield, G. M. (2015). Flourishing in New Zealand workers: Associations with lifestyle behaviours, physical health, psychosocial, and work-related indicators. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 57(9), 973-983. positive psychology leadership