Why It's Not Enough to Simply Know About Emotional Intelligence
I tell my clients all the time that it’s not enough to just know the information on human behavior and emotional intelligence that I teach them. You’ve got to use it in order to be effective.
For those of you who’ve heard me speak or have been receiving these newsletters for a while, you know that from time to time I share my own challenges in life and leadership. This is one of those times. It’s never easy to let people see inside and to expose some of our own challenges or failures, but if I am to truly be of service to you, then I must also be 100% honest and transparent concerning my ups and downs in service to your deeper learning.
“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.” – Immanuel Kant
I was recently asked by the head of a large organization to facilitate a daylong discussion with a group of more than 80 people with the desired outcome of setting organizational goals and deliverables for the next decade or more. Big task? You bet it was! And my role was not to participate in the discussion but to facilitate the discussion and keep everyone on task.
The morning began innocently enough. I set the context for the day’s discussions, laid out the topics, and gave the instructions for how we would engage in a dialogue of this magnitude. In a situation like this, it’s critical to have boundaries and guidelines to ensure that the day would be productive and that we’d produce results.
There were two main aspirational areas for us to explore, and within those areas we were tasked with developing no more than 2-3 overall directions (goals) for each of the two main topics, and then develop no more than four outcomes (milestones) for each of the goals. Simple enough. That meant we would have anywhere from two to six goals, and up to 24 total milestones.
What could go wrong, right?
The room had eight tables with ten people at each. Each table was given the topic and asked to discuss and develop one goal. Then, once each table had agreement on what they would present to the rest of the room, we had all of the ideas projected on a screen at the front of the room for everyone to see. Where appropriate we combined like ideas, and edited the list to assist the discussion process.
We then opened up the conversation by having people around the room ask questions, give feedback, and debate the efficacy of each idea, with the goal being to come to agreement on the 2-3 top goals for the organization. This is where it got really interesting.
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
As the morning went on, it became painfully clear that we were not making the kind of headway we desired. And I was getting frustrated, to say the least. In a roomful of successful people with strong opinions on the best course of action, it was difficult to gain consensus. Everyone felt attached to their ideas, and I sensed that a lot of them were more focused on being right than on being effective.
By the time we reached our lunch break, we had accomplished almost nothing, and I was feeling defeated.
I spent lunch with some colleagues who were running discussions in the other rooms, and the moderator who was brought in to facilitate the global discussions that would be based on what we did in each of the meeting rooms. I told them that I felt like I was failing in my task – actually the exact wording was “crashing and burning.”
The moderator, a seasoned veteran who had run these types of discussions for many years and who was brought in for his specific expertise in this area, asked me a couple of questions. He listened attentively as I described the tone in the room, my frustration at my inability to get things moving forward, and the events that were unfolding.
He gave me some solid guidance based on his past experience. Then he smiled at me and asked, “Are you ready to stop making this about you and get down to work?”
Talk about being called out! And the thing is, he was right. I talked with him for a few more minutes, then took the rest of my lunch break to gather myself, focus on the results I wanted to create, challenge myself to show up more open and less frustrated, and to begin to use the tools that I teach to people every day.
“The only source of knowledge is experience.” – Albert Einstein
What I realized is that much of the conflict in the room was merely a reflection of the conflict I was feeling inside. They were simply responding to the emotions I was bringing into the room. Remember that emotions are contagious.
The afternoon was a completely different experience! I focused on being effective, keeping the discussions moving, holding people to our agreed boundaries, and being aware of my own emotional responses as they unfolded. I was much more at ease, more focused.
The room felt my presence in a different way, the conflict was reduced dramatically, and I stopped making any challenges we faced about me. By the end of the afternoon, we had not only completed the task set before us, we were the only group out of the four that was done before dinner. All of the other rooms had to go back to work after the dinner break, while we had the opportunity to celebrate our success as a team.
What’s the moral of the story? Well, it seems pretty straightforward to me. It’s not enough to know the tools of human behavior and emotional intelligence; it’s essential that we use them in order to understand their benefit.
Have comments on this? Have you ever experienced anything similar in your work? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
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@COACH_KevinC is an authority in helping leaders to build stronger, more sustainable relationships with their teams, helping them to drive engagement, increase productivity, and lead to greater overall success. He is passionate about helping leaders to create an environment in which their people can thrive and achieve their full potential. Read More...