October 15, 2020
Section 3.1 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Business Insight. The first bullet reads, “A skill in creating business cases for talent development initiatives using economic, financial, and organizational data.”
In this article, I will describe the process I use to create, refine and present business cases to potential clients.
A proposal to do some training and development work has little chance of being approved unless you can identify the benefits that will accrue. One mistake that consultants often make is to consider only the tangible or visible benefits such as higher output, greater safety, or better quality.
Usually there are intangible benefits that are not immediately or easily measurable but that have a profound impact on the operation in the long run. These concepts might include the impact of training on trust, morale, or teamwork. Often these intangible benefits dwarf the more visible things that can be measured physically.
If the training is highly experiential rather than just reading and listening to lectures, the impact on personal growth will go well beyond what is in plain sight. This is why I design my programs to have a great deal of variety of experiences where the participants actually become part of the action.
These experiences include several role play activities, body sculpture, assessments, polls, breakout sessions, magic illusions, videos, group and individual activities.
My rule of thumb is to have some kind of hands-on activity for every 10-15 minutes of information sharing. That level of involvement allows the group to stay sharp through multi-hour sessions. I also provide a physical break every two hours and provide refreshments, if the session is in person.
I work from PowerPoint Slides but follow a rigid protocol to avoid “death by PowerPoint.” All slides are on a totally white background. Usually there are only 5-6 bullets with large text with less than 8 words per bullet. Each slide has a real photograph (not clip art) that I have downloaded and purchased. The photos are indicative of the content on the slide and are often whimsical in nature.
I never read the PowerPoint bullets verbatim. I discuss the content and let the participants read the actual words while I am talking. Of course, I share the slide program for later review and recall.
Considering these presentation details, there is a lot of team building going on while I impart the subject matter. That improved teamwork serves to enhance trust and build morale, which both translate into productivity for the group.
It is common to have productivity increase by more than 50% as a result of training a family group for just a few hours.
I also customize all training for the specific needs of the group. I have a survey instrument with about 100 different areas where training might be considered. The participants tell me ahead of time which items have the most value, so that I can customize the program to be focused on the areas of greatest return.
I determine any extant data that is available for the group. I will review things like Quality of Work-life Surveys, Turnover data, Grievance Reports and other data that is available on the prior state of the group.
I also customize all slides to be industry specific, so that the training will translate into the language the particular organization uses daily. I want all of the participants to get the feeling that this training was designed specifically for them, because it was.
Taking these steps allows me to present a business case to the organization that is thorough, balanced, and tailored to be laser-focused on the needs of the specific group.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
October 13, 2020
For the final few articles in this series on body language, I am highlighting some of the excellent content in a program entitled “Advanced Body Language” by Bill Acheson of the University of Pittsburgh.
In this article, I will summarize his research on Forming Lasting Relationships quickly. I dealt with this topic from my own observations in an earlier article entitled “Planting a Seed of Trust in the First 10 Seconds.” Bill’s take on the subject parallels my remarks and goes deeper in some areas.
First of all, Bill says that we form a first impression of another person extremely fast, and it is based on three factors that we judge very quickly: 1) Trustworthiness, 2) Competence, and 3) Likability.
Trustworthiness
The first observation is that you cannot project trustworthiness verbally. It must be done with some form of action or gesture where you are demonstrating that you will do exactly what you say. You will not spin the truth and will be transparent with information.
That is kind of a difficult thing to do when first meeting an individual, so let me share an example from my own background. I once met a person who said he was interested in the topic of trust.
I was a speaker at a conference, and this individual approached me. I told him that I had an article I would send to him that had great content to answer one of his questions. I asked him for his card, and he saw me write down a message to myself on the back to send him that particular article.
This little gesture let him know he could count on me to follow through, so I suspect my trustworthiness level likely went up in his mind.
Competence
Here, Bill quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.” Another way to say that is, “Actions speak louder than words.”
He makes the observation that men have the ability to project personal power in a business setting with greater accuracy than women. He describes several male behaviors that signal personal power. For example, if a man sits with noticeably relaxed muscle tone, it demonstrates absence of fear. Lack of fear is coupled with trust, so it is a gesture that connotes power and security.
A backward body lean is another indication of being relaxed, which translates into a gesture associated with personal power. This is also true for body asymmetry with one hand up and the other hand down.
Another example is expansiveness; he takes up a lot of room. He spreads things out on the table in front of himself or sits in a meeting with his arm on an adjacent chair.
A third give away is sitting with legs crossed in what is known as the “aristocratic leg cross” with one leg on top of the other rather than an ankle to the knee, which is how the majority of men sit. Bill cites that for men over the age of 45, only 12% of them will sit with one leg atop the other. Bill says it is the single most accurate predictor of high social status and high net worth.
For women to project personal power, Bill makes three observations. The first is that hair and power are inversely proportional. As women move into positions of higher power, they tend to cut their hair shorter and closer to the head.
A second observation is that women, when projecting personal power, often do what is called a “reverse steeple” with their hands. Men will often steeple with finger tips together pointing upward and palms apart. The female power position is with fingers together pointing downward and palms apart.
He says the dichotomy between attractiveness and power means that to increase one, you tend to reduce the other; “It’s a zero-sum game.” The implication here is that for a woman to project personal power she will often sacrifice some femininity.
Likability
Here, the issue revolves around communication style. Bill notes that in study after study the highest rated communicator says the fewest number of words. He makes a very strong statement that “You are now, and you will continue to be paid based on your ability to LISTEN.”
He suggests that the most important behavior for a listener is silence. It is so obvious that we tend to forget.
He said that in order to generate instant rapport with an individual you are just meeting, just walk up and give a four-word command: “Tell me about yourself.” Then shut up and listen.
Bill also points out that when meeting another person, you want to maintain roughly 70-80% eye contact. Less than 70% eye contact and the other person will not trust you. He stresses that it important to break eye contact at least once a minute. To stare at another person for more than a minute, it is creepy and actually can destroy trust.
These points are quite similar to the ones I have anecdotally observed myself, but Bill has done enough research to back up the theory with data.
Not all of the points mentioned here apply in all situations. As with all body language, there is room for individual differences, and the magnitude of the gestures will depend on the specific situation.
This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language” by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.”
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Posted by trustambassador
October 4, 2020
Section 2.6 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Career & Leadership Development. The first bullet reads,” Skill in sourcing, designing, building and evaluating leadership development experiences.”
In this article, I will describe the process I use to develop, refine, upgrade, and evaluate leadership development programs for my Leadergrow, Inc. Business.
All my life I have been fascinated by leadership. Even as a young boy I wanted to know what made some leaders amazing while others, seemingly equally qualified, struggled. During my early years I observed constantly, but I did not find the answers I was looking for.
Upon entering the corporate world, I started studying leadership in earnest. By reading and listening to programs, I was mentored by many of the great leadership gurus of all time, including Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy, John Maxwell and numerous other leadership authors. My knowledge base was growing, but I needed to get more specific with the training.
For over 30 years, I ran a “leadership laboratory” at my place of work. I surrounded myself with the best leaders I could find, and we learned from each other how to apply the theories we were reading about at the time. I also completed my MBA studies in Behavioral Science at The Simon School at University of Rochester.
Eventually, I learned that there are a million behaviors that constitute great leadership, but all of them are enabled by one single concept. That concept is trust. I learned that the leaders who can build, maintain, and repair trust enable all of the other behaviors (such as respecting people, being consistent, delegating well, etc.) to work like magic.
Leaders who fail to create a culture of high trust work like crazy on all of the other behaviors without much success.
Trust becomes the golden key to great leadership. If you have it, your success as a leader is assured. If you fail to develop high trust with your group, then you will be locked out from the halls of great leadership.
Immediately after retiring from my full-time job as a Division Manager for a large company, I went to work designing leadership development programs. Developing leaders was always my passion at work, and I figured that doing the same thing after leaving the corporate world would be rewarding and also lead to a stable income for decades to come.
I started teaching at several of the Business Schools within driving distance. I also made a proposal to the local Chamber of Commerce to run a series of “Leadership for Managers” courses at the chamber, which I have taught three times a year for the past 17 years. These teaching opportunities made sense, as they both fed my consulting and coaching business.
I also joined the National Speakers Association and prepared to spread the word about the benefits of a high trust culture widely.
As I teach each course, I take feedback at the end, so the material can be continually upgraded. The course has now expanded beyond the original 20 hour format because there are so many wonderful videos available to illustrate key points. Also, during COVID-19 I recast the entire program to be virtual. This change is a real blessing, because I can now reach people all over the world without having to travel.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
October 1, 2020
For the final few articles in this series on body language, I am highlighting some of the excellent content in a program entitled “Advanced Body Language” by Bill Acheson of the University of Pittsburgh.
In this article I will summarize his research on liars. First of all, Bill separates out two categories of liars: incompetent liars and competent liars. He makes some interesting distinctions.
We all wear a kind of “lie detector” every day. It exists of the way we configure our bodies. Once you know the secrets, you will be able to spot someone who is being untruthful rather easily.
His first observation is that we cannot convey trustworthiness verbally. To convince others that we are trustworthy it must come from what we do and our tone of voice. Professional interrogators listen for heightened vocal pitch as better than 90% accurate indicator of deception. Another sign is if a person touches the side of his nose when answering a question.
Incompetent Liars
Bill’s first point is that it takes a lot more mental energy to lie than to tell the truth. His research shows that when you tell the truth you actually use six centers of the brain. When you lie, you activate 14 centers of the brain, and there is so much mental activity going on that there is an automatic secretion of Adrenalin. This causes your body to move. Here are some things to give away an incompetent liar:
• Low level of eye contact – under 30%
• Looking down and shifting glance from side to side
• Dilation of the pupils
• Rapid eye flutter
• Dry mouth – Decreased saliva leading to lip licking
• Lip biting
• Swallowing hard
• Wringing of hands
• Body moving side to side
• Face turning red or white
• May stutter or stammer
Competent liars
Rather than too little eye contact, with a competent liar you are likely to see too much. The person is actually staring at you with as much as 90% eye contact. Rather than stuttering, the competent liar sounds slick and contrived, like he has rehearsed the script to memory. Here are some of the things to look for with a competent liar:
• Significantly reduced hand gestures
• Violation of your personal space – like touching or putting an arm around you
• Acting more familiar with you than he has the right to be based on how well he knows you
• Holds one hand in the other to reduce his movements
• May put hands behind his back or in his pockets
Bill points out that we have a gut reaction to a stimulus before we deal with the stimulus logically in our brain. So, a first reaction to another person happens very quickly, perhaps in less than a second, but that gut reaction is taking in numerous signals that we process instinctively.
In the book “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell calls these reactions “thin slices.” We make conclusions very quickly based on what we observe, and we protect ourselves instinctively.
Look for these behaviors when you are talking with another person. You may be able to pick out when the person is telling you the truth versus a lie by observing if there is a cluster of the above behaviors.
This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language” by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.”
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Posted by trustambassador
September 29, 2020
There are hundreds of assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership.
There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.
Builds an Inclusive Culture
Organizations where people at all levels feel a part of the action and are appreciated for the diversity of talents they bring to the organization are run by enlightened leaders. You can observe the leader going out of her way to include as many people as possible in discussions about issues and decisions in the organization.
When I discuss diversity and inclusion, please understand that it includes racial and gender differences, and it also goes way beyond those dimensions. It includes age, ethnicity, background, religion, sexual orientation, different abilities, and a host of other variables.
True diversity is inclusive to all people because the benefits of diversity are obtained when all people in the organization give their best every day.
Less talented leaders surround themselves with a small clique of insiders who guide the fate of the rest of the organization. I visualize a shell around the anointed people on the inner circle. It is hard to communicate through the shell, and people who try to penetrate it are often repelled and scorned.
If you have a leader who operates from a small command and control type style, you can see the bunker mentality in most activities. This exclusivity leads to lower empowerment throughout the organization.
Having an inner circle of leaders may feel like an efficient way to make decisions, but it leaves so much useful muscle and energy off the table.
The bunker mentality means that if you are not on the inside then you are on the outside, by definition. You will comply with the rules, but you will not be engaged in making good things happen. The organization will suffer because of this impact.
To be a winning organization, all of the talents of everyone are required fully aligned behind the vision of the organization. Good leaders know this and instinctively get people involved as much as possible.
Oh sure, there are occasions when it is necessary to operate behind closed doors while decisions are being cast. That is no reason for the normal daily routine to mimic the College of Cardinals who have to send a smoke signal out to the masses when their deliberations are over.
Most activities can be visible, transparent, and inclusive of the general population. In return, people will give their best to accomplish the goals of the organization.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
September 26, 2020
Section 2.2 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Instructional Design. The first bullet reads, ”Skill in selecting and aligning delivery options and media for training and/or learning events to the desired learning or behavioral outcomes.”
In this article, I will describe the process I have developed that has worked well for me over the past 20 years.
Step 1 Meet with the team and the leaders
I set up a few meetings to understand what they want to accomplish by an intervention. In these meetings I am like a sponge just soaking up the various bits of input. Usually the issue of trust is one factor in why they want some training, so I often recommend a trust survey to add to the data base.
Step 2 Administer a Trust Survey
I have developed my own version, but there are also commercial trust surveys that can be employed. My version identifies the general trust level and measures it in the specific organizational layers. For example: it is common for the higher levels in an organization to believe trust is at a pretty high level. When you get to the lower levels, the data spreads out and many people feel trust is pretty low.
My survey also has 30 areas where there could be an issue causing lower trust. For example, accountability and/or transparency often surface as an issue within an organization.
I feed back the information to the team and watch their reactions to it. It is generally a positive reaction, like I am on the right track.
Step 3 Look at extant data
The organization will likely have internal surveys for quality of work life or turnover data. They might have investigations of employee complaints. I gather all of the information they are willing to share with me.
Step 4 Identify most urgent training needs
This is done with another quick survey in which I identify over 80 different potential training topics and ask each participant to identify, for each one, what is his or her opinion of the urgency for training on the following scale:
0= no need at this time
1= routine – may be a little helpful
2= Important now – this topic would be very helpful
3= Urgent – we really need this right now
The 80 different topics cover a wide range of potential topics, such as, Communication skills, Emotional Intelligence, Understanding Body Language, Leading Successful Change Programs, Customer Service, etc.
Step 5 Winnow down the field
I now go into an analysis phase where I take all the data I have gathered (usually in just a few days) and compare it to a set of modules that I have built that cover about 100 different training topics.
Based on the data, I run a “comb” through the 100 potential topic areas and out pops a subset (normally 10-20 topics). This is the core elements of a custom program for that organization.
I put the topics in a logical order, so there will be a logical flow and schedule a meeting with the leaders. This meeting is usually less than a week from the first moment I walked into the organization.
Step 6 Gain Commitment
At the meeting I summarize the data that has been collected and then show an outline of the development program that was custom designed to meet their needs.
At this point, I almost always get a positive reaction to the proposal, because the data came from them. I recall one CEO looking at the proposal and writing BINGO next to the 7 action items I listed.
By this point I have not charged the client anything for my effort. I can give a pretty accurate estimate of the number of sessions that will be required and also the fee I would charge. My batting average for approvals is close to 90%.
Step 7 Customize the training for their particular industry
This is where I design the program to fit the specific company and industry. A program for a manufacturing plant will be quite different from a hospital or a financial planning office. I also customize the role-playing exercises, body sculptures, photographs on my slides to be for that specific industry.
I will use the company logo and any pictures of the actual people I can get in the program.
Step 8 Spice it up
In every training event, I include several stories to illustrate my points in an entertaining way. I also use magic illusions that relate directly to the concepts I am training. The illusions keep people on their toes but also each one is related to the topic I am teaching at the moment. I have hundreds of illusions to draw from.
By breaking up the training with experiential things that involve the participants in physical activities, I can keep the groups fresh and having fun while they learn the vital skills.
I have found this eight-step process allows me to efficiently handle a variety of clients in totally different industries but remain effective with my instructional design.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
September 20, 2020
There are hundreds of assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership.
There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.
How People Treat Each Other
You can tell the caliber of a leader instantly when you view how people in the organization treat each other. A good leader insists on constructive and helpful behaviors that model high trust and even affection.
Some people believe the word affection is too strong for the working world. I disagree. Groups that work for a great leader learn to really appreciate each other for their good qualities. That does not mean that everyone always gets along with no quarrels; that would be a phony environment.
Just like a family, people will eventually find some things to cause friction, but there is sincere affection behind any tension that shows trough as people work to resolve differences without doing emotional damage.
Good leaders teach their people to, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested, “Disagree Without Being Disagreeable.”
Where leadership is weak, squabbles between people lead to childish behaviors that can cause permanent damage to relationships. It is easy to witness this in most organizations.
As Lou Holtz observed, “you can find a thousand things to not like about somebody but you need to look for the things that you do like, that support the team effort.” In an environment of support and affection it is easy to become a close knit team that is hard to beat.
Good leaders insist that their group generates a set of specific behaviors. It is important to be able to point at these things and call each other when the behaviors are not being modeled. The leader always works to model the behaviors and actually verbalizes them frequently.
It may sound like this, “Thanks for your comment Frank, I appreciate how your words supported Mary’s effort because that is a value and behavior we cherish in our group.
Watch for the signs of a group that, while there are differences, handle those disconnects in a mature and loving way. A group like that is being guided by an excellent leader.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
September 17, 2020
One of the important skills in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is a knowledge of the Theories and Models of Adult Learning.
In this article, I will discuss Bloom’s Taxonomy and how to use it.
There are three categories that describe types of adult learning. These are: 1) cognitive (knowledge), 2) psychomotor (skills), and 3) and affective (attitude) (also called KSAs). These three categories were first described by Benjamin Bloom.
I will describe the differences between these three categories in my own words below.
Knowledge (cognitive)
This involves developing intellectual skills. You might study mathematics, or law, or you might become an expert on ecology and climate control. There are an infinite number of topic areas to explore, and the cognitive section involves becoming knowledgeable on any one or more of them.
Skills (psychomotor)
This area of the taxonomy includes the use of motor skills and physical movement. For example, you might become a ballet dancer, or a mountain climber, or an artist. The skills required to perform well in the particular subject involve use of motor skills.
Attitude (affective)
In this area, we deal with feelings and emotions. These are generally acquired skills that are experienced differently for each person. The whole area of motivation is part of the affective. We acquire these skills not only through training, but we also discover them ourselves from just experiencing life.
A key point here is that training professionals will use different tools and methods depending on what part of the taxonomy is being developed.
Knowledge is the easiest area to transfer information. It usually involves some reading and lecture to bring out the finer points of the concepts being taught. There is also significant practice time to ensure full transfer of the content.
Workbooks and problem sets give the learner significant variety of ways the tools are used. In most situations there is an identifiable right way to do things.
For skills, there is usually lots of practice time developing the motor skills and muscle control necessary to do the task. There may be more than one right answer to how things are done, so some degree of personal preference needs to be allowed.
Often safety factors are a major part of skill building. For example, if you are learning mountain climbing, you must know at what altitude you need to put on an oxygen mask.
For Affective training, the methods may involve role playing, group brainstorming, body sculptures, and simulations. These are mostly experiential techniques that instill the proper attitudes by having the person immerse him or herself in the scenario and a professional debriefing to highlight the key learnings involved.
The Affective area has the most variety of outcomes because each individual will take away potentially different information from the training.
Using Blooms Taxonomy involves understanding these three learning situations. For the professional trainer or designer, it is important to know what area you are working on at any particular point and use the correct tools to obtain an optimal result.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
September 9, 2020
There are hundreds of assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership.
There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.
Lack of Fear
Good leaders create an environment where there is less fear. That does not mean there is never any fear within the organization.
Sometimes scary stuff is needed in order for the organization to survive. But in those times of uncertainty, great leaders redouble their communication activities to keep people aware of what is going on.
In draconian times, it is the lack of solid reliable information that causes the most fear. When leaders are as transparent as possible, it leads to open communication. This means lower fear, and higher trust, even when things are not pleasant.
Nature hates a vacuum. If you have a bare spot in your lawn, nature will quickly fill it in with something, usually weeds.
If you take a bucket of water out of a pond, nature will fill in the “hole” immediately.
When you open a can of coffee, you hear the rush of air coming in to replace the vacuum.
So it is with people, if there is a void of information, people will find something to fill in the void – usually weeds.
That is why rumors attenuate in a culture of high trust. There is no fuel to keep the fires of gossip going. Leaders keep people informed of what is going on all the time. This helps people vent their fears and focus on the tasks at hand, even if they are involved with unpleasant things.
Great leaders also create a culture of psychological safety such that people know they will not be punished when they share their true feelings. In addition, great leaders foster emotional safety because they show empathy for what others are going through.
By creating a culture of excellent communication and low fear, outstanding leaders foster an environment where trust will grow, even if there are hard times.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations.
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Posted by trustambassador
September 6, 2020
One of the important skills in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is a knowledge of Emotional Intelligence. I have studied Emotional Intelligence for over 25 years and find the skills to be extremely helpful when coaching or training leaders.
Can you improve your Emotional Intelligence by plowing your driveway? I think so, and I will explain a fascinating analogy later in this article.
I read a book on Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves entitled Emotional Intelligence 2.0. If you have not been exposed to this book, perhaps my article will whet your appetite to purchase it.
The authors start out by giving a single sentence definition of Emotional Intelligence (which is abbreviated as EQ rather than EI, and proves that whoever invented the acronym did not have a high IQ). Emotional Intelligence is “your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.”
This leads to a description of the four quadrants of EQ as described by Daniel Goleman in 1995.
1. Self Awareness – Ability to recognize your own emotions
2. Self Management – Ability to manage your emotions into helpful behavior
3. Social Awareness – Ability to understand emotions in others – empathy
4. Relationship Management – Ability to manage interactions successfully
The book contains a link to an online survey that lets you measure your own EQ. This is an interesting exercise, but it lacks validity, because people with low EQ have blind spots as described by Goleman.
You might rate yourself highly in EQ when the truth, in the absence of blind spots, is somewhat lower. Still it is nice to have a number so you can compare current perceptions to a future state after you have made improvements.
Most of the book consists of potential strategies for improving Emotional Intelligence in any of the four quadrants described above. You get to pick the quadrant to work on and which strategies (about 17 suggestions for each quadrant) you think would work best for you.
The approach is to work on only one quadrant, using three strategies at a time for the most impact.
The authors also suggest getting an EQ Mentor whom you select. The idea is to work on your EQ for six months and retest for progress, then select a different quadrant and three appropriate strategies.
The most helpful and hopeful part of the book for me is where the authors discuss the three main influences on performance: Intelligence, Personality, and Emotional Intelligence.
The observation is that it is impossible to change your IQ (Intelligence) and very difficult to change your Personality, but without too much effort, you can make huge progress in your EQ.
The trick is to train your brain to work slightly differently by creating new neural pathways from the emotional side of the brain to the rational side of the brain. This is where the plowing your driveway analogy comes in.
We are bombarded by stimuli every day. These stimuli enter our brain through the spinal cord and go immediately to the limbic system, which is the emotional side of the brain. That is why we first have an emotional reaction to any stimulus.
The signals have to travel to the rational side of the brain for us to have a conscious reaction and decide on our course of action. To do this, the electrical signal has to navigate through a kind of driveway in our brain called the Corpus Callosum.
The Corpus Callosum is a fibrous flat belt of tissue in the brain that connects the right and left hemispheres. How easily and quickly the signals can move through the Corpus Callosum determines how effective we will be at controlling our reactions to emotions.
This is a critical part of the Personal Competency model as described by Goleman. Now the good news: whenever we are thinking about, reading about, working on, teaching others, etc. about EQ, what we are doing is plowing the snow out of the way in the Corpus Callosum so the signals can transfer more quickly and easily.
Translated; working with the concept of EQ is an effective way to improve our effectiveness in this critical skill.
After reading the book, my awareness of my own emotions has been heightened dramatically. I can almost feel the ZAP of thoughts going from the emotional side of my brain to the rational side. Oops, there goes one now!
Given that roughly 60% of performance is a function of Emotional Intelligence, we now have an easy and almost-free mechanism to improve our interpersonal skills.
I hope you will go out and purchase this little book, particularly if you are a leader. For leaders, EQ is the most consistent way to improve performance and be more successful.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
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