“IQ is your ability to learn, and add up what you have learned. This measure does not typically vary too much between childhood and adulthood. According to people who track this, the reading of books and attainment of new facts or information will probably not sway your IQ by too much either way.
2. EI is a different animal. It is something that can be learned and can show great variance as one grows older. The fact is that you can be born with a high EI naturally or start with a low one and learn enough to increase it. EI does not rely on “smarts.”
Overall, EI is a simple concept made up of several areas:
1. Awareness of yourself
2. The ability to self manage
3. Awareness of others and your surroundings
4. The ability to manage relationships”
Emotional intelligence is said to have more influence in the workplace than your IQ. How then can we foster this EI?
DACHER KELTNER – has a great book called Born to be good.
InBorn to Be Good, Dacher Keltner demonstrates that humans are not hardwired to lead lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short”—we are in fact born to be good, that live with the emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, and compassion.
Born to Be Good is a profound study of how emotion is the key to living the good life and how the path to happiness goes through human emotions that connect people to one another. Dasher uses a great quote from
Confucius “a person of humanity wishing to establish his own
character, also establishes the characters of others.” We can use this foundational approach in all of our marketing. It is particularly important in the social media world. To show concern, give to get is all part of having valuable conversations. It is important to be sensitive and appropriate and it is what sets us and our companies apart from others. To understand how to read and use marketing appropriately gives us the opportunity to build our social capital.
Emotional Intelligence – My top tips!
1. Joke around – create an atmosphere of fun
2. Laugh – connect and bond
3. Touch appropriately – build trust and respect
4. Show generous actions – show concern and care, show them that they are valued (customers and employees)
5. Show gratitude – send a thank you to your staff, customers
6. Show compassion – people feel connected, put yourself in their shoes
7. Follow through – take the effort to make every connection a valuable one. Keep your name in front of the customer in interesting valuable ways. Send them an article that will help them, connect them with resources, give!
Dacher talks of Confucious Ren. Ren has been translated as “benevolence,” “humaneness,” or simply “goodness.” According to Confucius, renis the summation of human virtues. In one traditional Confucian view, ren has two aspects: loyalty and reciprocity. Loyalty is considered a commitment to the Way, while reciprocity means “not inflicting on others that which you do not want yourself.” An alternative view is that ren is the perfect combination of a much longer list of virtues, including loyalty, reciprocity, wisdom, courage, righteousness, filial piety, and faithfulness.
As Dacher explains measuring your Ren can give you an idea of how you are building your loyalty with your staff and customers. Ultimately your motivation for living this way is to have a good and happy life but the spin-off for those of us who do this instinctively is we can faster nurture business relationships.
Danny Goldeman – the father of EQ. If you want to raise the EQ in your organization, start asking people how they feel. Insist on getting feelings as the response, not thoughts disguised as feelings (Examples of thoughts in disguise: I feel like…, I feel that…, I feel as if…)
Top management’s emotional style and emotional self-management is critical to company’s EQM. When the executive values feelings, so will the managers and the employees. Also, research confirms what common sense would suggest: Emotions are contagious. Thus, if the executives feel optimistic, confident, creative, flexible, tolerant, respectful, and compassionate, the employees will tend to take on these same feelings. Research also indicates that the direction of emotional flow is from top down, as we might expect, since anyone in power has, by default, more influence.
