Spotlight on the Foundation of Emotional Intelligence

Picture this: You are enjoying a summer walk in the woods at dusk – the mosquitos are everywhere. Before arriving home you are fully aware of all the bites and the annoying itching. Or think back of your childhood to one of the probably many times you fell and hurt yourself. I am sure it came naturally to notice those sensations. It’s not exactly like you have to make an effort to notice how bad your skin is itching.

I just wished it were the same later in life, with other sensations and feelings, and especially in the workplace. I wished the feelings of beginning nervousness in a conversation, of unease when reading a document, or of doubt about a decision would be as poignant as the result of that mosquito bite or as the stinging sensation when you fall on your bare knees. But it isn't. We haven't really learned to pay close attention to our sensations. We've been taught, at least in Western culture, to focus and not be distracted. Luckily it has become somewhat more common this past decade to focus on intuition, to address inner processes and how they might alert you to some aspect you might otherwise neglect or that might go completely unnoticed. But even then, if we do notice our sensations and feelings, many of us do not know how to effectively address these feelings nor the underlying or resulting processes.

So your question to yourself can be: Am I present and aware, in the moment – in this moment? Am I using all my senses?

Or

Am I distracted, am I chasing the many thoughts that enter my consciousness at any given time? Am I ignoring things rather than noticing them?

The following should be absolutely clear. It's not about condemning the distraction, your sensations, or your thoughts. It’s about noticing them, knowing how they impact you, and it’s about bringing yourself back to the here-and-now, wherever that is and whatever you’re doing. 

If you search my blog for 'awareness' you'll find more articles on the topic - what it is, how it works, and how to increase your awareness.

In brief: take time to stop, notice, sense, and feel. Adjust your attitude, approach, and behavior accordingly. Or don’t adjust them, and just know how external distractions such as events in your environment and how internal distractions (often related to external events) such as worries, fear, and tiredness influence you.

Weekends are generally a good time to practice and enjoy your awareness, but aim to use it on the job, in meetings, when feeling tight, during presentations, while working on a report... You get the picture.

Just do it!

Improving Team Performance as a Team Member

There are numerous team performance strategies and team improvement practices. Many of them are very useful but they generally focus on what the team leader should envision, say, model, inspire, and accomplish. I’d like to take a different perspective and look at what team members themselves can do to improve their team’s performance.

What works best obviously greatly depends on the purpose of the team, it’s maturity, the context, and much more. I’d like to highlight a few factors that I have seen work across the board during my 22 years in the business of increasing team performance. Factors that every team member can take to heart and that they can influence to their team’s advantage.

Manage and lead yourself first

Know yourself, be aware of yourself, be honest with yourself, and be creative with your improvement goals and actions. I am referring to the much discussed Emotional Intelligence. How do you score? Do you know at all? Do you actively solicit feedback and really listen to what is being said about you? Before you can influence, let alone lead others, you have to lead yourself. Who is your sparring partner who? Who will really tell you what she sees and what she thinks about your assumptions, choices, behaviors, and results? How successfully do you reflect and redirect?

Learn to lead others

It’s known by now, I’m sure: You don’t have to be in a leading position to lead. Luckily not, otherwise there wouldn’t be too much leading going on in the world. In order to lead others in your team (read: inspire, motivate, stimulate), you have to learn about and tap into each team member’s values, dreams, goals, and fears. Yes, this means you have to really get to know each other and learn how to inspire commitment to work hard and smart. This means you have to know each other in order to find ways to support and energize your team members when things aren’t going well. Leading others starts with knowing and respecting others.

Identify, Live, and Enforce Core Values

Core Values are most often set by leaders in collaboration with their team, or so it should be. In every day life it’s the team that must make these values a reality in practice. It is you! So how do you life the identified values? Where do you get off course and with what consequences and adjustments? How do you help inspire and enforce your team’s values? Do you really hold yourself and each other accountable? This is another responsibility that in most organizations falls squarely on the leader. In a high performance team, however, you see mutual accountability at work. If a member of the team fails to deliver you don’t want the leader to have to intervene. You want the team to do that and you are part of that team. This is what makes a team a mature team. However, when holding yourself and team members accountable, make sure to identify and solve real problems rather than dancing around the hot pot and using distractions to shy away from what really needs addressing and improving.

Strive for continuous performance improvement

Complacency, satisfaction-overdose, and entitlements are devastating forces that are negatively related to team (and individual) effectiveness. Teams do not exist to create feel good situations. Leaders decide to invest in building great teams because great teams can enhance the organization’s performance significantly. Teams exist to make the enterprise more effective, flexible, innovative, and successful. If a team’s performance is not improving, the team must figure out why and resolve the issue. All teams are ultimately evaluated on their performance. Don’t let success be the breeding ground for complacency.

Get comfortable with tension, conflict, and team rivalry

The other side of the coin called team rivalry is that it weeds out inefficiencies, it keeps people focused, and it fuels the natural competitive nature of high performers. As Mark de Rond tells us: “Don’t confuse what things feel like, with what they really are… Differences of opinion are not just inevitable - They are useful and they are crucial”. They inspire new ideas and ways of doing things and they unravel blind spots and groupthink, all leading to more and better results. What team member or leader wouldn’t want that?

What have you done lately to improve the performance of the team(s) that you are a member of? 

When Facing Difficulty

Most of us tend to see difficulties as problems that need to be solved and many times we’re right in doing so. We often perceive difficulties to be problems that have good and bad solutions, that have right and wrong answers, that are either-or situations. We have learned to perceive and think this way during much of our education and upbringing. In quite a few cases this serves us well and we solve real problems. And in other cases it serves us very poorly since what we perceive to be a problem is really a polarity. Barry Johnson explains the difference between problems and polarities: “Polarities are ongoing, chronic issues that are unavoidable and unsolvable. Attempting to address them with traditional problem solving skills only makes things worse. There is significant competitive advantage for those leaders, teams, or organizations that can distinguish between a problem to solve and a polarity to manage and are effective with both”.

So we tend to see difficulties that are really polarities as problems that can and must be solved. This is a limited and counter-productive perspective and approach, knowing that quite a few difficult and challenging situations in life and business aren’t problems to be solved with an either-or solution, but polarities to be managed with the help of integrative thinking, through creating third alternatives, with ‘and also’ or ‘at the same time’ thinking. Some examples that you might find appealing:

-       Effectively manage your many work commitments while at the same time dedicating yourself to prioritizing home commitments.

-       Continuously seek to reduce costs while at the same time focus on improving the quality your products and services.

-       Embrace and initiate change and new opportunities while at the same time respect the value of stability, predictability, and tradition.

I therefore urge you, when faced with difficulty at work and at home, with colleagues and with family and friends, to ask yourself some fundamental questions:

1.    Am I dealing with a problem to be solved or a polarity to be managed?

2.    Do all involved agree on this assessment?

3.    How have I possibly contributed to this situation?

4.    To what extent do beliefs, perception, and awareness influence my assessment of this situation?

5.    What could be two totally different perspectives in addition to mine?

6.    Is this difficulty a problem that I can solve or an ongoing polarity that I'll have to manage?

7.    What role do my values and my fears and those of others play?

8.    What am I avoiding while dealing with this difficulty?

9.    How can the complexity of the situation be simplified without being simplistic?

10  How can we convert resistance to change and improvements into a resource for ongoing willingness and ability to growth and change?

11  What can I initiate to move from 'either-or' thinking to integrative 'both-and' thinking?

Wishing you insightful reflections and creative and integrative approaches when facing difficulty.