Emotional Intelligence, Simplistic Sameness and Relativity
In his textbook Essentials of Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins, he defines Emotional Intelligence (EI) as referring “to an assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities and competencies that influence a person’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.”
In very plain speak, I simply define it as knowing how not to be a jerk. Meanwhile, Robbins goes on to say that EI is composed of five dimensions, including:
• Self-awareness
• Self- management
• Self- motivation
• Empathy
• Social skills
Self-awareness is where it all begins. Self-awareness is not just knowing who you have been and who you have become. It is also knowing who you want to become, while understanding your abilities (see last months’ “The Secret to Success.”).
As Clint Eastwood says, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
That’s not a defeatist’s point of view. That’s being realistic. For example, I like to tell people that I refuse to be constrained by the shackles of choreography. That means I can’t dance. But, if I applied myself, I could probably learn the electric slide. Aside from the fact that I have taken a lifetime vow to never learn or participate in the electric slide, I could probably learn it and keep up with the rest of the crowd at the next wedding reception if I so desired. But I could never be a world class ballerina. I know my limitations when it comes to dance, and they stop somewhere just north of the electric slide.
Self-awareness is critical and is often the first and last point of failure for people because they either think too highly of themselves, or not highly enough. It is a real tricky balance to know your limitations, and then maybe push yourself just a little bit beyond them. So using my dance example, sure, I could learn the electric slide, and while I could never be a world class ballerina, I could perhaps learn and do a relatively mean Tango. I’d be no Antonio Banderas in the movie Take the Lead, but I believe I could pull it off better than Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies.
Self-management and self-motivation require really no explanation. If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t be of much help to others. Many people have physical conditions, chronic or temporary, that make it difficult or impossible to physically take care of themselves, and that is not what I am talking about here. What I mean here is twofold: taking care of yourself emotionally, and taking care to do the things necessary to push your abilities. I will come back to the emotional aspects later. Meanwhile, from the motivational point of view, Anotonio Banderas, as much as some of you may like it, is not going to just show up at the office and teach us how to Tango. We have to go out and stalk him. Of course by “stalk him”, I mean, we have to have the discipline to put down the sandwich and go out and take Tango lessons.
The next dimension of EI is empathy. Empathy, for me, is not just listening to and telling someone “I feel your pain. Let me tell you about a time something like that happened to me.” First, the person talking to you doesn’t want to hear your story. Not right now. Maybe later, after Tango lessons. Second, and most importantly, they need someone to not just hear them, but to really understand them. To be a truly empathetic listener, it is my opinion, that you really have to become somewhat of an actor. Not phony. But an actor. You don’t have to have had the same or a similar experience as the person you are communicating with, but it helps if you can imagine yourself as that person. How would you feel, or what would you do, not if you yourself were in their shoes, but if you were actually portraying that person. If you sort of become that person for a moment, you can have a much better appreciation for their needs or for what they are saying, doing, and asking. You become empathetic.
Finally, social skills rounds out the list of the five dimensions of EI. Social skills aren’t limited to not picking your nose in public, and having good social skills does not mean you are always the life of the party. It is knowing how to engage with others. Sometimes that means getting out of our comfort zones. We might prefer to be quiet in a social setting, but if we are empathetic to the needs of others, we might recognize that they want us to engage. They might want us to offer our own opinions and be part of the conversation.
They might just want us to step out of our cubicle or offices once in awhile, walk down the hall in an approachable manner, look them in the eyes and say “Hello. How are you today? It’s nice to see you.”
Conversely, we might prefer to be the one talking, but if we are empathetic to the needs of others, we might recognize that right now, they really have something to say or need to have the floor. Social skills include remembering to be polite, even when we are really upset. At work, it’s remembering to be professional, even under the most extreme circumstances.
I am a firm believer in simplistic sameness and relativity. As I was recently saying to a friend, I believe that there are only a handful of unique problems in the world. We plug different variables in to what is essentially the same equation and we get different results. The results for one person is no less deep, no less stressful, or no less joyous than it is for someone else. It’s all relative.
As an example, again in my opinion, one of the world’s biggest and most common problems is that most of us are trying to get through life by attempting to motivate others, over whom we have no real influence or control, to do what it is we want or need them to do. This is one of life’s very few unique “equations” or problems. Now let’s plug in some variables.
I want my children to go to college, learn a profession or trade, and generally exhibit good, ethical behavior. That’s what I want. But I can’t make that happen. Realistically, I can only provide a handful of variables such as setting an example (either a good or bad one), providing them with some lessons learned and letting them know that these are my hopes and expectations for them. But all kinds of variables are outside of my control. There is, of course, their own freewill and the influence of others. Sometimes they just end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. But the equation is the same. I want to motivate others, in this case my kids, over whom I have limited influence and control, to do what I want them to do, which is essentially to position themselves to be able to take care of themselves (and by “themselves” I, of course, mean “ME!!!”).
Someone else may not have children, but perhaps has a puppy that they just adore. Same equation, only this time the desired result is to not have to clean up piles of doggy doo doo in the house every day.
You might look at these two examples and say “Well, obviously, teaching your children to become good contributing citizens is much more important than teaching your dog not to mess up the carpet.”
But using my own theory of relativity, I’d argue it is not. Everything is relative to your own situation. There is nothing anywhere that says that what is important to me is in fact more important to me than what is important to you is in fact important to you. That’s a funny sentence, so I will repeat it in another way. You cannot assume that your issue is any more important to you than someone else’s issue is to him or her. And when you peel back the covers, you will find that in most cases, the variables are different, but the problem is the same. And when you understand that, you will also see that all things, and how we feel about them are relative. Jon’s theory of simplistic sameness and relativity. And good EI skills are critical to helping you implement that theory.
Finally, now back to the emotions referenced earlier. Having good EI requires you to be on your game all day long. It can completely wear you out physically, mentally and emotionally. I have a lot of friends and family who work physically hard for a living. They come home with muscles aching, dirty and worn out. It is easy for me to see and understand why, especially since I regularly watch “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel.
But it is not so easy for them to see how I can come home every day feeling the same way. I sit in an air conditioned office and basically make a living communicating. How hard can that be, right? You will not see Mike Rowe doing a “Dirty Jobs” episode on being an office worker any time soon.
But being emotionally intelligent and “on” all day long has many of the same physical and mental effects as, say, working construction. It just plain wears you out. It is therefore very important that you allow yourself some down time. That might mean having a hobby, physical activity, meditation, prayer or any number of things. “What it is” is not important. “That it is” is important.
So learn, practice and use good emotional intelligence in most of the things that you do. Try applying my little theory of simplistic sameness and relativity. But recharge every day by letting it all go and doing something that helps you shut it off for a bit, even if that something is the electric slide.
