Tag Archives: emotional intelligence

Stepping into the New Year

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask,
is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually true,
and whether the opinions we go over every day have any foundation
or are things we repeat to ourselves simply so that we will continue to play the game.
It can be quite disorienting to find that a story we have relied on – is not only not true
– it actually never was true. Not now not ever.
There is another form of obsolescence that can fray at the cocoon we have spun about ourselves,
that is, the story was true at one time, and for an extended period;
the story was even true and good to us,
but now it is no longer true and no longer of any benefit,
in fact our continued retelling of it simply imprisons us.
We are used to the prison however,
we have indeed fitted cushions and armchairs
and made it comfortable
and we have locked the door from the inside.


David Whyte

Christmas is over and we are fast moving towards a new year.  Perhaps, like me, you are enjoying a break.  Perhaps, too, this is a time for reflection for you as one year draws to a close and the next, like a blank page waiting to be populated, sits before us.

One man who knows what it is to step boldly forward is David Whyte, who has carved an extraordinary place for himself in the world, bringing poetry to corporate America, where he lives with his wife and family.  I particularly enjoy his recorded talk on leadership, Life at the frontier:  leadership through courageous conversations.

Being a poet, even David’s marketing materials are a joy to read, like the one from which I have taken the extract above.  More than many people, David is willing to penetrate the surface of life to engage deeply with what lies underneath, as he did in the letter to his followers, from which this excerpt is taken.

The passage above was particularly striking because it speaks to something which can both imprison and release us – the stories we tell about ourselves.  Working as I do in coaching partnership with men and women in leadership roles I find that it is these stories, more than anything else, that create the greatest challenges we face.  These stories of the self are particularly challenging precisely because they pass under the radar, unnoticed and unquestioned.  How would we think to do something differently when we think that the actions we take spring from an immutable, unchangeable self?

Often, our stories of ourself spring from our relationship with the world and with past events which have, we believe, shaped and moulded us.  They include a large measure of familial and societal – even workplace – programming, of which we are largely unaware.  We may look to those we lead to embrace change and feel frustrated by others’ lack of flexibility even whilst being unaware of those areas in which we, too, are unwilling to flex.  And yet it is our job to flex and it is our willingness to flex – even our willingness to flex the stories we tell ourselves about who we really are – that lies at the heart of our effectiveness in the role of leader and the ease with which we fulfil our role.

So, as you reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the year ahead, I invite you to consider the questions David raises in the passage at the top of this posting and to ask yourself what one story you tell about yourself – if you were simply to change your story and live life as if something else were true – would most transform your life?

In his letter David tells readers about a change he made in his own story and how it panned out for him.  I look forward to sharing how it panned out for me and also hearing how it panned out for you, too.

The trouble with (audience) participation

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Autumn is here with its traditional themes.  I have been enjoying bursts of deep reds, yellows and oranges as well as indulging my fascination for various kinds of fungi – I find so much beauty in this season, even as it takes us towards long nights and increasingly low temperatures.

I confess, the autumn is also a season for cosying up in front of the television – maybe even a little more often than I care to admit.  My nephew and I have been enjoying Young Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, usually exchanging observations if we haven’t watched it together.  You’ll also find it hard to get me out on a Saturday evening at this time of year – at least, you would have done until now.

On Sunday, I was shocked and disappointed when Ella Henderson and James Arthur, surely favourites to win this year’s X Factor, were pitted against each other in the ‘sing off’ following the audience vote.  That’s the trouble with audience participation:  give people a vote and just look what they do with it!  (And for any X Factor fans – who is voting for Christopher Maloney?!)

I have to say that, in the Young Apprentice, I see a different problem arising, with project managers failing conspicuously to draw on the input of their team.  Patrick McDowell struggled valiantly last week to convey the point that the team’s planning needed to take into account where they were starting from and needed to get back to at the end of the day.  I wondered what other ideas might have helped the teams to succeed if only the project managers had been listening.  Didn’t it make sense, for example, to make it a priority to phone round and get some prices for what looked like the largest purchase – a German car, taxed and ready to drive away?  And wouldn’t it have helped to engage in a conversation about how best to organise the task before getting stuck in?

I wonder if, as a leader, you struggle with both sides of this coin.  After all, the theory says that engaging people’s ideas through a participative style of management increases engagement and motivation.  Daniel Goleman and his colleagues, in The New Leaders:  Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results, describe how using what they call the democratic style helps to build buy-in or consensus, or to get valuable input from employees.  But this style does have its limitations.  Sunday’s X Factor results show one of them – you don’t always get the outcome you want from inviting ideas from your staff.

This style also has its limitations in the eyes of staff.  There’s nothing worse than being asked for ideas and then told that, actually, it’s the bosses ideas that are going to be taken forward, especially if it’s always the bosses ideas that are taken forward (or you think it is).  This can undermine the confidence of your staff or their respect for you.

So are there any things you can do if you want to use this style effectively?  Here are a few ideas:

  • Don’t invite input from staff when you already know what you’re going to do:  It may seem obvious, but if you set about appearing to use this style but are not sincere, staff will soon sniff you out.  NEVER use this style to give the impression that staff have been consulted when you know full well you have already made your decision;
  • Separate out consulting staff from the decision-making process.  There may be times when it’s appropriate to make a decision democratically but there are also times when it’s appropriate for you to make a decision yourself.  Be clear in your own mind which is which – and be rigorously honest with your staff about the likely decision-making process.  This way, team members know from the beginning how their ideas may or may not be used;
  • Be honest with yourself about the current level of capability of your staff and use this to inform your decisions about consulting your staff.  Invite their input in areas where you know they have something to offer so that they can add real value by their contributions and you can show how you have taken their ideas on board;
  • Combine your use of this participative style with other leadership styles.  Goleman and his colleagues point in particular to the need to provide clarity of expectations and to coach members of your team.  Helping your team to understand your overall vision and how they can contribute to it and providing coaching to develop their skills both play a role in increasing the likely quality of their contributions and ideas in team discussions;
  • Invite team member’s ideas at their growing edge.  With effective coaching support from you, the quality of team members’ contributions will constantly improve.  Keep inviting ideas at team members’ growing edge to stretch them and so that you both know how much progress they’re making;
  • Respond constructively.  The minute you dismiss an idea as stupid or worthless you send a powerful message to the whole team which makes it less likely that they will want to contribute in future.  Quite quickly, you’ll be saying that your team members have no ideas to offer.  Say thank you for all the ideas team members contribute no matter what you think of them.  If you can’t see how an idea will work in practice, test it with your team and ask them to test it with others if appropriate.  You may find a hidden gem and if you don’t, you may still all have learned something;
  • Be prepared to be surprised.  Engaging your staff in team discussions may be a stretch for you as much as for your staff.  Be ready to examine ideas that you might initially find strange and to find the ones that really might work.  Be prepared to try some knowing that they might work and they might fail as part of expanding your own thinking and showing your support for your team.

I’d love to know how you get on.

Armistice day for the family

Emotional Intelligence, ,


“Comrade, I did not want to kill you.
If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I stabbed.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.
I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle;
now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.
Forgive me comrade.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours,
and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony
– forgive me comrade;  how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front

On Sunday, I took a moment to reflect on Armistice Day, drawing on the above extract from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Today, I am taking a few moments to translate the passage above for the family:

“Beloved, I did not want to snap at you.
If you did the same again, I would not snap at you, if you too would hold back.
But you had become an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth an appropriate response.
I snapped at that abstraction.
But now again – maybe even for the first time – I see you;
I see that you are human, like me.
I thought of your shortcomings and felt the pain they stimulated in me;
now I see your face, your place in our family and my own.
Forgive me.
I always see it too late.
Why did they never tell me that you are human just as I am,
that you, too, feel the pain of misunderstandings,
and that we both fear the loss of identity and needs unmet as we negotiate family life
– forgive me beloved; how could you be my enemy?”

Armistice day for the office

Emotional Intelligence,


“Comrade, I did not want to kill you.
If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I stabbed.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.
I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle;
now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.
Forgive me comrade.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours,
and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony
– forgive me comrade;  how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front

On Sunday, I took a moment to reflect on Armistice Day, drawing on the above extract from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Today, I am taking a few moments to translate the passage above for the workplace:
“Colleague, I did not want to speak ill of you at the water cooler.
If you acted in the same way again, I would not do it, if only I could be sure you, too, would not speak ill of me.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I spoke of.
But now, for the first time, I see that you are human like me.
I thought of your department and the way you never deliver on time,
I thought of the risk to my own department and our reputation across the company,
I thought of the way you always seem to get promoted ahead of me even so;
Now I see that, like me, you have a mortgage to pay, a family to feed –
You are doing your best.
Forgive me colleague.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you – in Accounts, HR, IT, Sales – are poor devils like us,
That you are as anxious as we are,
and that we have the same fear for our jobs and the same doubts buried beneath our fears
– forgive me colleague;  how could you be my enemy?”

Avoiding an office affair

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

After quite a long spell of writing two or three blog postings a week, I have gone a whole month without publishing anything.  In truth, I have been running to catch up for months now – and something had to give.  It’s become clear to me that I want to write fewer blog postings going forward – perhaps one a week or two at most.  At the same time, I want to add depth to my postings.  You can expect them to be longer in future.

I thought I’d come back with a bit of a bang – a term I may come to regret given the topic of my posting.  I was drawn last week by a posting on LinkedIn entitled Six Tips for Avoiding an Office Affair.  If the early responses (mine was one) are anything to go by, this is a highly contentious subject.  It’s also a taboo subject – I know that I was drawn to read the posting precisely because I have seen any number of office affairs take place and yet this subject is rarely addressed in public.

Facing up to sexual attraction in the workplace

No matter what we consider to be ‘professional’, we all of us – at times – are attracted to colleagues.  The workplace is one of the key places in which people meet their life partners – a place where people see each other often and get to know each other well.

But what if you’re already in a relationship?  It doesn’t stop you feeling attracted to people and you may even spend more time with your colleagues in the workplace than you do with your partner at home.  Once you become a parent your opportunities to really connect with your partner may be even fewer.  Perhaps your work with a colleague brings you close together or maybe it’s your work colleagues who hear and understand just how challenging life is for you when your spouse is unsympathetic (or maybe the source – in your mind – of your woes).  In the heat of the moment you may find it hard to resist the temptation of embarking on one relationship (an “affair”) whilst still being committed in another.  You may even be surprised to realise that you have embarked on an affair before you even realised it – the writer of the article I mentioned above uses the term “work spouse” to describe a special friend of the attractive sex.

Perhaps you have no problem with having a workplace affair.  If so, this article is not for you.  Perhaps, though, you are feeling the heat of the attraction and struggling to know what to do.  Or maybe, right now, you have lost sight of the potential consequences of following a path that can lead to the breakdown of your marriage, to disruption in your relationships with any number of loved ones, to the loss of respect from your colleagues, to the loss of your own respect for yourself.  It’s not that relationships don’t break down – they do, and at times this is clearly for the best.  Even so, embarking on a workplace affair has a raft of consequences that you may not be ready to choose or face up to.

Avoiding an office affair – a different set of tips

Author Gretchen Rubin gives one set of tips in her article Six Tips for Avoiding an Office Affair.  I offer my own, below:

  • Get clear on your values ahead of time:  It may seem obvious, but getting clear on the values you want to live by helps you to make choices in the moment with the long-term view in mind.  Take time to think about the values you want to live by in your intimate relationships so that you can make decisions in the moment in the full awareness of your highest aspirations;
  • When you feel attracted to someone, talk about it:  Rather than denying that you feel attracted to someone, talk about it.  Whilst denial can stoke the flames of an attraction, talking about it can help you to acknowledge it and begin to engage with it.  It also provides the basis for making decisions.  Choose carefully who you talk to.  Perhaps you have a coach or therapist who can help you to step back from the attraction and to think things through.  Perhaps you have friends.  It may even help you to name it to your spouse or the object of your affection – though this takes maturity on your part and may not be the best place to start;
  • Ask yourself why the attraction is so compelling:  Perhaps it’s meeting your needs just to feel the attraction (or to know that someone is attracted to you).  Perhaps you imagine that an affair will meet some as yet unmet needs.  Understanding what those needs are opens up the possibility of meeting those needs in different ways.  This may be about addressing needs in the context of your intimate relationship, but not always – if you find that your need is for empathy and understanding, for example, you can choose to seek support from friends and reduce the risk of an affair;
  • Address issues in your intimate relationships:  Perhaps you’ll discover that you’re unhappy in your marriage or intimate relationship.  If you do, don’t ignore it.  Perhaps it’s time to address the balance in your life between work and family, or to discuss with your partner issues that are troubling you.  You may even want to seek professional help.  This is a critical moment in your marriage:  it’s a moment when you could save your marriage.  It’s also a moment when you could handle a break-up with dignity and without falling into the first pair of arms you find;
  • Finish one intimate relationship before you start another:  It may seem simplistic and still, if you set yourself the rule that you won’t embark on one relationship before you’ve finished another, you will think hard before embarking on an office affair.  This could help you to realise how important your marriage is to you before it’s too late.  It could also help you handle a break-up with dignity and compassion and to enter a new relationship knowing you have honoured values of honesty and integrity.
I sign off with both compassion and curiosity – I look forward to your comments.  And if you’re struggling to avoid a work-placed affair, please know that you are not alone.

The amygdala hijack: is it OK to be human in your workplace?

Emotional Intelligence

Today this posting is published for HR practitioners on Discuss HR and I thought you might like to read it, too.

Last week I came back from a week’s holiday to news of ‘Plebgate’.  MP Andrew Mitchell had acknowledged his tirade against Downing Street police officers but denied the use of certain words, specifically that he had told them – as logged in the officers’ records of the incident at the time – that they were “plebs”.

Amidst the news reportage The Daily Telegraph published the full police log on 24th September, a contemporaneous record of what – according to the police officer involved – Mr. Mitchell had actually said.  A posting on the paper’s website included a poll with the question, “Has Andrew Mitchell’s integrity been so damaged that he must now resign?”  At the time I read this article, close to 13,000 respondents – an overwhelming 91% – had said yes.

I do wonder how often we look in the mirror.  Who hasn’t lost their temper every now and again and been horrified – shamed and embarrassed – after the event by their choice of language or, at the very least, by the lack of grace they had been able to bring to a situation in which their emotions were high?  Coming back from a week away with my mother I had certainly experienced the occasional sting of strong emotions in response to situations in which my needs were not easily met (though I notice I want to add that I didn’t respond with a string of insults and expletives).

Now you may be wondering:  why do I raise this incident in the context of this blog?  I do it because, despite the increasing talk of emotional intelligence in the work place, I wonder if we’ve really grasped the full implications of everything we’re learning.  Daniel Goleman (amongst others) has done so much to share with us the importance of emotional intelligence and it is by reading his writings that I have become quite familiar with the term “amygdala hijack” – for this is precisely what Andrew Mitchell experienced on the evening of Wednesday, 19th September, 2012.

It seems to me that, in our response to Mr Mitchell’s unfortunate words, we are at risk of going beyond condemning his behaviour to pretend that real people – nice people like us – never feel the sting of strong emotions.  In truth, it’s a very rare person who has never spoken in ways they regret and a rarer person still who has never experienced an amygdala hijack.  In the workplace, such a view can manifest in strange forms.  Where we have power, we can justify the occasional rant as some kind of righteous anger in response to the ineptitude of those we lead, even whilst taking firm action against a member of our frontline staff who has lost his or her temper with a colleague or, horror of horrors, with a customer.

In writing this posting, I don’t want to let Andrew Mitchell off the hook.  His behaviour really wasn’t pretty.  I do, though, wonder if we need to cultivate a more compassionate context for responding to the occasional loss of temper, which recognises that it happens to most of us sometimes.  In such a context, Mr. Mitchell might have been able to make a sincere apology and to know that yes, it is possible to draw a line under an unfortunate incident and move on.  In such a context, we would be slow to question someone’s integrity and quick to forgive.

What would this mean in the workplace?  In the first instance, it might mean providing the kind of training that helps people to understand how an amygdala hijack manifests itself and how they can manage their response both to their own feelings and to the feelings of others.  It might also involve using some kind of structure to support people following such a loss of temper.  This might include support for the person who has lost their temper as well as for anyone who has been on the receiving end.  It might also include support for the kind of dialogue between the people affected which restores understanding and goodwill.  Yes, there would need to be some way of addressing such behaviours if they had significant immediate effect or were regularly used by an individual and even then, I would hope for compassion and understanding for the individuals concerned.

I don’t think I am naive or a misty-eyed idealist, not least because I have had the privilege of practising such an approach in my own life and supporting others in this area:  I know what’s possible and I know that even this kind of restorative dialogue is no ‘soft touch’.  I wonder how you respond though – to Mr. Mitchell’s behaviour as recently reported, to the behaviours of colleagues in your workplace, to the ideas in this posting.  Please share your thoughts.

Handling a knotty discussion with a member of your team – can (s)he make it as a line manager?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

Recently, a member of the Training Journal’s discussion forum raised a knotty question – how to handle discussions about the potential for promotion to a line management role with an employee who, whilst technically competent, lacked the “people skills” for the role.  The individual concerned had asked for the opportunity to step up.  His manager wasn’t convinced he could succeed and had told him so.  Still the staff member wanted to further his career in a line management role.

Maybe you’ve encountered this kind of thing before – fielding this kind of request can be a heart-sinking moment.  Even with all the HR wizardry in the world (a clear description of the behaviours needed to succeed as a manager in your organisation, 360 degree feedback which shows where this individual’s strengths and areas for development are and so on), you face the prospect of spending more time than you really want to trying to explain why you aren’t willing to promote him.  Secretly, you may have a concern that his reasons for requesting a promotion have more to do with increasing his pay packet (or status, or some other thing) than with a real desire to manage others.  This can be a real problem when time is already at a premium.

Worse still, the pressure to promote can lead to people taking on roles for which they really don’t have the skill.  This can undermine the morale of those being managed and may have disastrous consequences for the person who has been promoted.

How do you move forward in this kind of situation?

It’s all in the framing

As long as you’re thinking “I have to persuade him he’s not suited to a line management role” and “he doesn’t understand his limitations”, you’re at risk of setting up an impasse – you persuade, he resists, you persuade some more… until you’re both frustrated and exhausted.

There is another way.  A second approach is to take a more open view – to acknowledge your view that your team member is not ready for (and even may never be suited to) a line management role, whilst agreeing to work with him to explore this as a possibility and to do this in a way which keeps the business on track, and keeps his dignity intact – whatever you both discover.

Against this backdrop, you can take a number of steps on a path of exploration:

A step-by-step approach

Here are some of the steps I recommend you take on this path of exploration:

  • Explore his motivations for wanting to follow this path:  It may be obvious and still, the more you can understand his reasons for wanting to become a line manager, the more you can explore with him what ways he can meet his needs whether or not he gets the promotion he desires.  If he says he wants to have more influence in the business, for example, you may discover he’s quite happy to have coaching support to increase his ability to influence – and less concerned about promotion once he has this support;
  • Let him know that promotion is not guaranteed:  Most organisations promote people when a vacancy becomes available.  If this is your policy, you need to explain this from the beginning.  Your team member needs to know the nature of the journey so that (s)he can decide whether or not (s)he wants to go ahead;   
  • Let him know what you’re looking for in your line managers:  You may have a competency model or something similar to help you and even if you don’t, you still need to let your team member know what behaviours you need to see him demonstrate before (yes, before) you’re likely to support a promotion into a line management role.  The more you can help him to understand your expectations, the more he can work towards them as well as to assess, “is this really me?”;
  • Seek feedback from the business:  Whether you have a fancy 360-degree questionnaire or simply time to ask people for their views, ensure that you gather feedback early on in the process about your team member’s strengths for the role and areas in which (s)he will need to develop.  This helps to “keep it real”.  Use this information as the basis for a discussion with your team member:  let him know what people are saying and explore the implications;
  • Test and explore “hard truths”:  One of the most difficult aspects of this kind of exploration is when you see difficulties that your team member doesn’t appreciate – it’s easy to run away from this aspect of the discussion by telling yourself “he just doesn’t get it”.  It’s important to test your understanding with your team member and to speak honestly about your concerns, whilst also leaving ownership with him for his own choices (for example, “John, it sounds as though you believe you have the listening skills you need – is that right?  I think the feedback is telling us staff want more empathy from you, even though you think they should be able to work effectively without your understanding.  I think there’s a risk for you that, because the business can see you don’t see empathy as important (which we do), senior managers may be reluctant to promote you into a line management role.  I can help you to develop in this area but I will only do this on the basis that you understand the importance for your staff of showing them understanding”);
  • Agree a development plan:  A development plan for your team member needs to highlight key strengths and how these can be leveraged to make progress (or how they may limit progress if they are used as the basis for a people management approach).  It also needs to highlight key areas for development – those areas in which your team member needs to make progress in order to be an attractive candidate for promotion;
  • Give support in the form of assignments and coaching:  You can do a great deal to support your team member by giving him assignments which help him to develop in key areas, coupled with effective supervision and coaching.  Is it influencing he wants to develop?  Talk to him about the need to get buy-in from your project steering committee for an increase in funding – discuss tactics, explain why you propose certain actions, allocate actions to him.  A key to your overall success is to take a step-by-step approach, building the skills of your team member over time and making sure that any failures are relatively minor and leave his dignity as well as your business results intact;
  • Include a “get out of jail free card”:  This suggestion takes us right back to the beginning –  you think your team member may not be cut out for a line management role and you may be right.  Still, using persuasion and only persuasion is unlikely to succeed.  At the same time, it’s possible that the more your team member is exposed to the responsibilities of line management the more (s)he will understand this for himself.  However, if (s)he has the faintest sense that you might be waiting to tell him “I told you so” (s)he may be reluctant to share this insight.

The return on your investment

It’s possible that the outcome from this process is that you will be surprised – discovering that, despite your worst fears, your team member slowly develops the skills needed to become a valuable member of your management team.  Going into this process with a willingness to be surprised greatly increases the chances that this may happen.

It’s possible that your worst fears will be confirmed – not only does your team member fail to make any progress towards developing the skills (s)he needs, but (s)he also fails to develop any insight into his need to develop in order to manage others effectively.  This can be frustrating for you and everyone concerned though it does seem unlikely.  I have found that it’s rare for this to happen when so much support has been given.

Finally, it’s possible that your team member will come to understand that, no, this isn’t for me.  If you’ve included the “get out jail free card” I described above, it’s also easy for him to say so.

Perhaps there’s a larger context to consider.  Hopefully, all the actions outlined above will gain the loyalty of the team member concerned – you may well become the manager he remembers with gratitude in years to come.  And if this is the experience of one team member, it’s likely also to impact the experience of your wider team.  You don’t have to spread the word (and nor does your team member) for staff to recognise something special about the organisation they work for.

What are you taking from this posting?  I look forward to your questions and comments below.

Not being heard? Time to do something differently

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Recently a friend sent a card by (if I remember rightly) Daily Telegraph cartoonist, Matt.  The card depicted a boardroom scene and the caption was along the lines of “That’s an excellent idea, Miss Smith.  Would one of the men like to put it forward?”  It must have spoken to some real or perceived truth – it made me laugh out loud.

As to that “truth”, it may have been about sexism in the workplace or it may, equally, have been about influencing others – whether you’re a man or a woman, and whether you are seeking to communicate with your seniors, your peers, or those you lead, there will be times when your message isn’t being heard.  When this is the case, what do you do next?

All too often, the key reason our message isn’t being heard is this:  we are expressing it in our own language (be that logical persuasion, using facts and data or by some other means) and assuming others will think about the same issue in the same way.  So, a good place to start is by putting ourselves in the shoes of our audience.  How do those we want to influence think about these things?  This can be hard – if all your boss ever thinks about is how to catch people out who are doing things wrong, you may be reluctant to speak his or her language.  Still, to speak the language of your audience may be enough to transform the conversation into one in which you get heard.  More than this, it may be enough to transform an important relationship, so that you are heard with ease again and again and again.

The Matt cartoon also speaks to a deeper truth – that sometimes you’re just not the person to put forward a message or idea.  If your agenda is to attract approval or appreciation, you may find it hard to stand to one side and still, letting someone else deliver an important message can be an effective way to be heard.  This is one reason why organisations (or rather, people in organisations) commission outside consultants to do research and then deliver a message which isn’t easily heard from people inside the organisation.  It’s hard to speak up as an individual and say “you ask for our ideas but you always shoot them down so we’ve stopped putting them forward”.  It can be more compelling to hear that “members of your board expressed the widespread view that whilst you ask for ideas, you are highly critical of ideas such that people feel it’s not worth offering ideas”.

There are ways to promote an idea without going to the expense of hiring in external consultants (which is, in any case, a rather hit or miss affair).  Savvy leaders know that ‘socialising’ an idea before making a formal presentation is an important part of gaining support for a proposal.  If you’re going into a meeting wondering if your proposal will be approved, you probably haven’t done your homework.

Sometimes, effective leaders make some dramatic gesture to get their message across, like the leader who, after several months of seeking unsuccessfully to engage staff in dialogue about the need to turn their part of the business into profit, announced the closure of the department.  Suddenly staff were ready to talk and, what’s more, to contribute ideas to enable a radical re-shaping of their department and, in this way, to secure its future.

Why is influencing important?  Because the more senior you are, the more you need to work with and through others.  And the more you need to work with and through others, the more you need to be able to gain support for ideas, proposals and plans of action.

I wonder, how does this idea land with you?  It could be that you understand the need to influence and still, you don’t know how – for you, the challenge is in turning this intention into effective action.  Equally, it could be that you find the ideas above uncomfortable and even repulsive – for you, the challenge is squaring the need to influence with values around openness and honesty or even with your preference for getting the work done.

I’d love to hear from you in via the comments box below – how does the idea of influencing others land with you?  What has worked for you?  And where are you stuck and still needing to make progress?

How to be an outstanding leader whilst also being yourself

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

A few days ago as I walked through my local supermarket I caught a glimpse of an interview quote, inviting the reader to buy a magazine in order to learn more.  The quote was something along the lines of “I won’t cut my hair, because it’s who I am”.  It could equally have said “I won’t change my clothes/ adapt my accent/ take the ear-ring out of my nose…” and many more things besides.  I found myself thinking “No, these things are not who you are.  They’re ways you choose to express yourself”.  Several days after I walked past this magazine, I realised that the headline was pointing me to an important truth for those of us in leadership positions:  we can be outstanding leaders AND be ourselves.  At the same time, we need to be clear on who we really are.

Why is this important?  At one level it’s about fashion in the world of leadership:  it’s so fashionable to be “authentic”.  If you pop the words “authentic leadership” into your search engine you’ll find all sorts of scholarly articles and theory.  A number of authors have written books on the subject.  It’s in vogue on the discussion groups on LinkedIn.  At another level, authentic leadership draws our attention because the challenge of being an outstanding leader whilst also being true to ourselves is one that exercises people in leadership roles – many people at some point in their leadership career find themselves grappling with what appears, on the surface, to be an irreconcilable dichotomy.

Take Jurgen, for example.  Promoted at a young age into a senior leadership role, Jurgen looked around him and formed a view of what it meant to be a leader in his organisation.  He started to adopt the behaviours of his peers, especially those he admired.  In his tough-talking, fast-paced organisation he started to adjust his style to make sure his staff were in no doubt what was expected of them and what the consequences would be if they didn’t deliver the results expected of them.  He reduced his focus on people and increased his emphasis on results, identifying key projects, making plans for each project, allocating work amongst members of his team and tracking results.

Jurgen thought he was doing the right thing but he quickly discovered it wasn’t working.  It wasn’t working because his colleagues – previously his peers and now members of his team – seemed to be offering less cooperation than before so that achieving results was getting more and more difficult.  He didn’t know it but it wasn’t working in the eyes of those who had recruited him either, who expected he would bring a softer approach than other members of the senior management team, in line with their aspirations for a less “macho” and more emotionally intelligent leadership style.  Above all, it wasn’t working for Jurgen because it felt deeply uncomfortable – it just “wasn’t him”.  Jurgen felt like an imposter in the role, because he didn’t feel comfortable doing it the way others were doing it and he thought this was the way it needed to be done.

Jurgen took the initiative to organise a coach, who helped him to understand that he could be himself and still be an outstanding leader.  He developed a statement of values in which authenticity was key.  He dropped the persona he had adopted when he first stepped into his role in favour of an approach that was more natural to him.  It seemed like he was on track.  At the same time, when I met Jurgen a few months later, I noticed that I had a suspicion about some of Jurgen’s behaviours – it seemed possible to me that some of the behaviours he identified with as an expression of his authentic self dated back to a time in his early life and had not been examined since.  He thought he was the person who was always kind to people and he was – but he didn’t know why or even what kindness meant to him.  In moving away from the leadership persona he had adopted to a more “authentic” way of being, Jurgen had stepped into a set of unconscious behaviours which, in turn, were not always effective or even truly him.

Meeting Jurgen prompted me to identify and share some of the things I have seen leaders do who have learnt to be highly effective whilst also remaining true to themselves.  Here are just a few of them along with a few words about how Jurgen has applied them:

First, set your intentions

Jurgen set an intention to be authentic in his role as a leader and, following our conversation, added his intention to continue to develop as an outstanding leader.  This set up what you might call an inner dialogue as he started to explore what it meant to be both.

This was coupled with being clear about his intentions in specific situations, for example when he had to address a performance shortfall in a member of his team.  He sensed that being an outstanding leader in this situation meant addressing the issue and bringing it to a resolution – to an improvement in performance or to the recognition that his team member wasn’t in the right job.  At the same time, he also wanted to embody his core value of kindness and compassion.  He set the intention to explore how he could address the issue with kindness and compassion whilst still bringing it to a clear resolution.

Then, discern between your intentions and the means by which you achieve them

Jurgen realised that in attempting to be kind to his team member, he had been holding back on addressing the issue at all.  He’d let his team member flounder and he’d stood back and watched as colleagues became increasingly frustrated at the levels of performance they witnessed.  As the annual appraisals season approached, Jurgen knew he would be basing his year-end performance rating on behaviours he witnessed but not discussed with his team member.  The more he looked at his approach, the more he realised that it was anything but kind, even though kindness was at the heart of his intentions.

Once he had examined the effects of his existing approach, Jurgen was in a better position to explore what different approach he might take.  At this point, it made sense to him to ask more experienced colleagues how they handled this kind of issue.  He discovered that those he most admired were most likely to address the issue head on.  He also discovered that they were the most skilful in the way they framed the issue.  This gave him the basis for a different approach which was still consistent with his core value of kindness.

Ask yourself, “is this really me?”

Jurgen went one step further, and took time to examine why kindness was so important to him.  In doing so, he became aware of the extent to which he’d taken on a value of his mother’s – sometimes even at his own expense.  Examining his value in this way helped him to decide both to keep this value and to re-frame it.  He decided he needed to include kindness towards himself as an essential part of this value.  He likened it to the oxygen mask in the plane – realising he had to put on his own oxygen mask before helping others.

Jurgen started to develop the habit of examining his beliefs about himself and found that, sometimes, the outcomes surprised him.  He discovered some beliefs he decided to let go, realising he had thought they were his own and finding they were not.  As a result and, over time, he developed a stronger and deeper understanding of himself and greater confidence and self belief.  It seemed paradoxical to him at first and still, alongside this greater sense of self, he found he was less attached to doing things in particular ways – he became more flexible in his approach.  And as he became more flexible in his approach, consciously adapting his behaviour to meet the needs of the situation as well as thinking about what it meant to be authentic, he found his effectiveness as a leader improved.

How about you?  To what extent is it an aspiration you hold:  to be both authentic and effective in your role as a leader?  And how consciously do you explore what it means to be you?  How open are you to new insights about yourself – how conscious are you?  Please share what comes up for you in the comments.

Struggling to stop working?

Emotional Intelligence

My brother was in Japan for a few months at the turn of the year where habits of working way exceed our own.  Where else but Japan has a word (Karoshi) for ‘death by overwork’?  The International Business Wiki reports estimates of 10,000 deaths a year from Karoshi in an article on Japanese Work Ethic.  So prevalent is this issue that some companies are warned to reduce the number of hours worked by their employees.

So I was intrigued, a few months back, when the Harvard Business Review’s Morning Advantage included a brief article entitled Want to Play?  It included the reminder that, in 1930, John Maynard Keynes made two predictions about economic growth:  that living standards in “progressive countries” would be four to eight times higher by 2030 (he was right) and that workers would enjoy a 15-hour working week (…mmm… didn’t he get that one wrong?)  Morning advantage points to an essay in Jacobin by Mike Beggs, who offers a number of explanations for Keynes’ miscalculation.  Here’s what they say:

“Theoretically, we could spend our increased wages by choosing to work less, as Keynes predicted, but we don’t.  Instead, we choose to spend our excess cash on commodities – which seems irrational since all of us complain about our lack of free time.  So why don’t we make choices that maximise our pleasure? Well, it’s not so easy, especially since our work habits – productivity over play – are the result of social norms.  A shift to more free time can happen, Beggs notes, but only if it’s a ‘collective one’.”

HBR also points to the possibility of a different future:

“Take HBR author Leslie Perlow, whose research shows that productivity increases at companies that make planned and uninterrupted time off a top priority.  Everyone wins, right?”

I notice how much I resonate with the idea that many of us spend more money on commodities even whilst yearning for more free time.  And yes, it is irrational, because we are not, fundamentally, rational beings.  We don’t always know why we are working so hard – or we have an idea of our reasons for doing so which does not stand close examination.  Equally, we don’t always know why we buy what we buy.

So, on the eve of this Bank Holiday, you might like to take a moment to reflect on the hours you are working and notice – really notice – why.  Notice the things you are telling yourself.  Go deeper and ask yourself, and what does that do for me?  And again, and again, and again… if you do this with openness and curiosity you may be surprised at the needs you are trying to meet and at the emotions – tender, vulnerable, sweet emotions – that accompany new insights…

…Or perhaps, you might want to commit to three days without work.  Each one can be just as good.