Are You Emotionally Intelligent?

Good Morning Window Three World and welcome back to another day in YOUR life!  Thank you for allowing me to play a part in your life and I hope that I can add some emotion today!  I want to start this session by asking you a quick question: 

“What is it that separates your favorite doctor from other doctors, your favorite teacher from other teachers, your favorite boss from other bosses, and your best friend from other friends?”

It might sound like an easy question, but when you really start thinking about it, the quality seems difficult to identify.  You could certainly answer the question with a quick, “Well, they are all my ‘favorite,’ so that’s what separates them,” and I would follow that up with, “good one.” 

The answer to the question lies in their ability to make you ‘feel’ understood.  Yes, you can go ahead and say it with me, “They make me ‘feel’ good.  I like how they make me feel.”  There are a number of different ways you can say it, you might talk about trust, humor, understanding, listening, openness, or a hundred other different descriptors.  However, to put it most simply, you like how they make you feel.  Period.    

Growing up, I remember always hearing about the term IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, when referring to someone being extremely smart.  After all, success in school was based off of our intelligence, so it made sense to note the extremes in the intellectual arena.  IQ was always used in a context to imply future success.  Like, “I have Travis Bleu in my class and he has an IQ of like a thousand!  I’ll bet he’s going to be a rocket scientist someday!”  That didn’t end up happening.  Travis had difficulty socializing with others. 

Ironically, I was never told, nor ever taught anything regarding IQ’s counterpart and attractive twin brother, EQ or Emotional Intelligence.  I find this odd because estimates suggest that IQ contributes to about 20% of the factors that determine a person’s success in life, while EQ is responsible for 80% or more.  Now, let me take a moment to ask everyone, “IS ANYONE ELSE FLOORED BY THAT STATISTIC!”  I mean, I know that I wrote a past article about the importance of taking a variety of different classes and subjects in school, but you’re telling me that with all the cooking, sewing, keyboard, flute (we called a recorder) and science that I was a part of, I was never taught about EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE!  I had to pick it up on my own!  A topic that is responsible for 80% of our future success!  REALLY!

Whew, sorry about the drama there, I’m not actually upset, as even without being taught, about IQ, I was still blessed with parents that helped me improve my score.  However, I am still confused as to why there isn’t more discussion and acknowledgement at earlier ages as it relates to Emotional Intelligence.  It should be noted, while all the studying in the world cannot improve your IQ, your EQ is an attribute that can be developed through practice. 

For those of you that are still wondering what Emotional Intelligence is I’ll go ahead and give you my definition for it: Emotional Intelligence is an understanding of yourself and others, and learning to tailor any message to fit that understanding for more effective communication.  Or, if you don’t like my definition, you can always go with Wikipedia’s: Emotional Intelligence (EI) describes the ability capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self of others, and of groups. 

To put it in layman’s terms, people with a high level of EQ are the ones that others gravitate towards due to their ability to make you feel understood.  I’ll give you a second to let that sink in.  If need be, go ahead and stop reading for a moment so that you can picture in your ahead a few people you know that have a high level of EQ.  Once you’ve pictured those individuals, continue reading.

Now, there is much more history as it relates to EQ, dating all the way back to Darwin’s day and the topic being discussed as Interpersonal Intelligence.  However, you and I are not here to discuss who came up with the idea, we are here to discuss how we can use this idea to improve our interaction with others.  

This topic really hits home for me as it runs parallel to our ‘Infused’ Coaching Program.  In our program, we discuss topics like, Self Importance vs. Self Worth, Choices, Creativity, Taking Control and Objectivity, just to name a few, and we do so because of how they impact our ability to understand and communicate with others, or Emotional Intelligence.  Having spent the past ten years in the corporate world, I feel confident in my belief of high Emotional Intelligence being one of the leading factors contributing to an organization’s success.  Yet, nobody teaches it, nobody trains on it, and therefore nobody understands how to improve up on it.  Like my last sentence suggests, Emotional Intelligence is the ‘it’ factor that separates the good from the great.  But still we ignore it. 

To quote Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves, authors of “The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book,” “Too many people are promoted because of what they know or how long they have worked, rather than for their skill in managing others."  A skill that is based largely off of one’s EQ.  Does that sound anything like what is going on in our economy?  Those that had high levels of EQ are still experiencing success in relationship to those with low levels of EQ.  Why?  Because now that jobs aren’t a plenty, and people are watching their money.  They have begun to look at those with whom they do business with a more transparent set of eyes!   In other words, no longer can slick tactics help you sell that old grandma in white gloves a ketchup popsicle.  In an economy such as ours, grandma’s going to ask you, “Why should I?” 

For you naysayers out there that still aren’t persuaded as to the roll that EQ plays in a person’s career, below is an example of a text message I borrowed from a Sales Professional.  This Sales Professional had just been hired with his organization and while in training was balancing his time between learning the product and the organization. 

Boss: I am going to corporate tomorrow.  You don’t need to go, but I will be meeting with our CFO.  What do you want to do?

Sales Pro: I have plenty of studying I can do, or I can go with you.  Whatever you’d prefer me to do.

Boss: That sounds like your answer.

Sales Pro: What was my answer?

Boss: You can do what you want to.  Do not feel you have to come.

Sales Pro: I can go with you, just tell me where to meet and what time.

Boss: 09:00 AM Starbucks on Johnson Ave. 

Let me pause for a moment and state that yes, this was a real text message and no, I didn’t go out looking for an unnecessarily dramatic example.  Rather, I wanted a simple form of communication that would point out how even in the simplest form, poor EQ can be seen and felt.  This Sales Professional was worried about making the ‘right’ choice.  It was on his mind for a good portion of the day and probably caused a lack of productivity.  However, make note, both the Boss and the Sales Pro could have made some adjustments. 

We aren’t going to dig deep into this conversation as I’ll let you and your team sort through that.  However, I will point out that from the beginning, the Boss, for one reason or another, wanted the Sales Pro to ride along to corporate and should therefore not have made it seem like a choice.  Furthermore, it can be felt that the Sales Pro did not want to ride along and would have rather studied.  Something that should have been mentioned.  This is not only seen in the initial interaction, but also in the Sales Pro’s last statement, “I CAN go with you..,” not “I WANT to go with you...” or “Going with you would be beneficial...” rather, “I CAN go with you...” 

Now, I know what you might be thinking, “who cares.”  Well, as a leader, YOU should care.  As someone who is striving to add emotion into others lives, YOU should care.  As a part of an organization, YOU should care.  This represents just ONE miniscule interaction during just ONE day, and it affected both the Boss and the Sales Pro.  What if you are an organization that has 10,000 people in it.  That means you have 10,000 employees experiencing multiple interactions like this over multiple days.  That miniscule little interaction becomes the attitude of your organization.  All due to a lack of understanding as it relates to Emotional Intelligence.  You want to improve your life?  This is where the rubber meets the road. 

In the Emotional Intelligence book mentioned earlier, it states, “Every time you are enticed into adopting a new behavior, you do so because you are motivated by the effects of emotion.”  For those of you who have read the Window Three book, you know how closely it follows to this idea.  Emotion guides our behavior.  If you are going to impact your team, you’d better be packing emotion. 

I’ll close with a story.  I know a gentleman that seems fairly smart.  He is very much the ‘Good Will Hunting’ type, as in all of his discussions he likes to quote the books he’s read.  However, like the character of Matt Damon, he isn’t the best with relationships and is constantly using his knowledge to spark arguments that do nothing but anger all those involved.  It’s sad, as Emotional Intelligence seems so simple, but for many it is so hard.  What good is information if you don’t know how to communicate the information effectively. 

When meeting with organizations, our Window Three team is always seeking to find and develop the ‘Level Three Mindsets.’  It is to be hoped that this message gives you a bit more understanding as to what  we are referring to when we say a ‘Level Three Professional.‘  If you think of Level One as being those that have a very low understanding of themselves and others, and Level Two as a good to great understanding of themselves and others, then Level Three would be the ability to reflect that understanding in communication.  Just having the understanding isn’t enough.  You have to be able to showcase that understanding through your actions.  

As always, I hope everyone has an ALL-STAR like week!  If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about the ‘Infused' Coaching Program, you can email us at windowthree@me.com, or visit the ‘Infused‘ Coaching Website.  We’ve made some recent changes to the website in hopes that it adds to YOUR Window Three experience.  Thanks again for taking the time to meet with us!  See you soon...