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John Bourke -
"Putting your Emotional Intelligence to Work"
Bourke is
president of Bourke & Associates. an organizational and
management development consulting firm specializing in the
design and facilitation of collaborative workplace solutions.
View his
Bio and
Strategy.
[pdf format]
Putting Your Emotional Intelligence to Work
What is emotional intelligence (EI)?
Emotional intelligence refers to the stream of human abilities
that helps us sense, understand, and apply the acumen of our
emotions. As we develop this intelligence of the heart, we
unwittingly foster the deep connections that humans naturally
seek in all relationships of meaning.
What's the payoff in business?
Fostering vibrant, sustainable business relationships is, for
many in our industry, enough of an incentive to explore the
linkage between emotional intelligence and the world of
business. We are now witnessing clear indications that
organizations that consciously surface the intelligence behind
their emotional reactions to their environment are
increasingly successful at continuously reinventing success,
leveraging on-going business-to-business relationships and
relocating shifting revenue opportunities.
Where do I begin using EI at work?
If feelings are the gold standard of emotional intelligence,
then words are the currency. As a workplace competency,
emotional intelligence provides us with vital and potentially
profitable information that helps us remain aware of our own
needs as well as the needs of both internal and external
customers.
Employees who are skilled at identifying the underlying needs
behind an expressed emotion tend to be more adaptive and
responsive in a wider range of challenging situations than
their less aware counterparts. Alternatively, when we allow
ourselves to personalize the words or actions of others, we
may limit our options to either finding fault within ourselves
or finding fault within others. The actions that follow
typically have something to do with withdrawing, attacking,
defending or offending. In a business setting you can see that
this tact is a costly one.
Address the needs of others first?
The ability to empathize necessitates postponing that sense of
immediate gratification that comes from having our own needs
met. A basic tenet of EI contends we can never get our own
needs met at the expense of another's without incurring a
heavy cost. When we first focus our attention on the expressed
feelings of others and the unmet needs behind those feelings
we are more likely to ultimately get our needs met too.
When do I get mine?
This is not to say that we should always respond to the needs
of others at the expense of our own needs. Instead it suggests
that all participants leave the table having accepted full
responsibility for their own intentions and actions but not
for the feelings of others. Emotional freedom comes to those
who learn to respond to the needs of others out of their
desire to understand and relate instead of from a sense of
fear, guilt or shame.
A few practical ways to EI on the job!
Great strides have been made in tapping the power of emotional
intelligence simply by focusing on the way that employees
communicate on the job.
Competency 1: Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion
Individuals who demonstrate a consistent ability to separate
observation from evaluation and judgment in conversation tend
to be valued as more collaborative and trustworthy than those
who do otherwise. Can you feel the difference between these
two statements: "You're always late!" and "You arrived 20
minutes after our agreed upon meeting time!" The first
statement levies a judgment or opinion. The second statement
merely offers a fact. When we combine the fact and the
opinion, the criticism speaks louder than the intended message
and we are likely to encounter resistance and a diminished
sense of trust.
Competency 2: Distinguishing Between Thoughts and Feelings
Employees that exhibit a clear understanding of their feelings
and associated reactions to their world tend to report lower
levels of work-related stress. These same employees seem to
respond to change and new levels of responsibility with
notable agility. The ability to distinguish between thoughts
and feelings is not actively fostered in most work-settings.
Perhaps you have noticed the tendency in many business
situations to encourage analysis and decision-making at the
expense of thorough data collection and eliciting key
stakeholder sentiments/implications? When asked how you feel
about a disturbing situation is your answer typically an
evaluative thought-statement such as, "I think it's shameful!"
or do you have a comfortable language for expressing your
feeling or reaction such as, "I am discouraged."? The first
response is a judgment statement that categorizes or labels
the situation without eliciting a conscious awareness of the
specific reaction or unmet need. It is difficult to affect a
change or make a proactive request from this stance. The
second response is derived more from a position of
self-awareness than from a place of judgment. When one becomes
clear about the range of feelings that are conjured, these
points of awareness can serve as "window" to identifying the
unmet need. Ultimately the clarified need can be either
ignored or formulated into a conscious action or request. For
instance, "When you closed the floor to questions I was
discouraged because I need some assurance that there will be
additional ways to gather input from all participants. Would
you be willing to share your plans for further input?".
Competency 3: Taking Responsibility for Our Feelings
Our language has evolved to the point where it freely allows a
subliminal transfer of responsibility for feelings, thoughts
and actions from self to any number of outside forces. The use
of common expressions such as "makes me" and "have to" are
classic examples of such language patterns. By way of example,
if you're like me, you bemoan the duty of balancing the
checkbook as "one of those things that you've just got to do!"
You may have even said the words "Arghhh! I have to balance my
checkbook!". In reality, no one is forcing any of us to
balance our checkbook. Personally, I balance my checkbook
because I enjoy the stability and predictability that comes
from knowing my financial status much more than I hate using
Quicken. This shift in language acknowledges choice and has
the power to dramatically improve our sense of well being and,
as many organizations are discovering, our productivity on the
job. Employees who acknowledge their ability to make choices
discover exactly where their true motivation resides and tend
to be more involved in crafting meaningful, self-directed
career paths.
In today's competitive marketplace, employees who are adept at
blending their emotional and business acumen in real time will
tend to be more adaptive and responsive in motivating
themselves and others toward organizational success in a way
that is compatible with our desire for personal and
professional balance.
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