Judith Germain - Talent Management

Why increasing your Emotional and Social Intelligence guarantees that you get ahead

When I think about leadership I find that I agree with John Maxwell, (internationally recognised leadership expert, speaker and author), when he says that leadership is about influence, nothing more and nothing less.

One of the ways to gain influence is to become an expert on understanding the effect that you have on others when you interact with them, and what changes you should make for your interaction to be a positive experience for both parties. This is something that can be learned, although it can be hard to do so without appropriate self awareness or the help of others.

Social Intelligence is not as well known as Emotional Intelligence and confusion remains between the two of them. Salovey & Mayer (1990) described Emotional Intelligence as “a form of Social Intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action”.

This is a fantastic description and accurately describes how Emotional Intelligence relates to the individual. I see Social Intelligence as the ability of taking Emotional Intelligence and applying it to social situations. It concerns itself with how you interact with others and how you assess the situations/environments around you, to achieve a win/win solution or best agreed alternative solution. Social Intelligence is also about how you respond to the different situations and environments that you find yourself in.

When passion is destructive

Get the passion right and the rest will follow - Churchill

No-one has ever followed a leader that didn't have passion. Passion for who they are, what they believe in and the direction that they want to go. Even quiet leaders have passion, they may not have the oratory skills of JFK or Martin Luther King, but they have, nevertheless, the ability to stir their followers to a cause - a vision to strive for.

So passion is a good thing ... it helps us keep going when times are hard, rallies others to a cause, it builds global brands and companies ... without passion a leader has no followers.

When passion is applied without good intent it can rapidly become destructive. Mavericks are generally very passionate people and can become very focused on singular activities. They have vision, strength of purpose, drive and direction - to the goals that they want to achieve. If their goals are not aligned to the organisation, then real sparks can ensue. Troublesome talent, the mavericks, will do what they want to do, when they want to do it ...

So how does the organisation stop their passion from becoming destructive - after all, often the maverick cannot see the destructive nature of their activities.

 

Welcome to my blog

I am passionate about developing leadership talent. If you click here, you will be able to hear from me why I developed this passion.  By clicking here you can watch my 4 minute video on managing mavericks.

My aim is to explore how leadership talent can be developed by applying talent management and social intelligence competences. All leaders whether formal or otherwise, rely on their reputation and their social intelligence in any given circumstance, to influence others to cooperate and work with them. Most leaders find that the best results are when they seek to first understand before being understood. All leaders are engaged in social networking.

Leaders seek knowledge form others to hone and build their skills. This blog is essential reading for individuals that need to be at the top of their game and harnessing the abilities of those they lead and influence.

John Maxwell said 'Leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less'

You may be interested in reading the discussions that take place in the Soft Selling for Leaders Club that I run on Ecademy. They can be viewed by clicking the entries in the box below. If you want to read the whole post (with comments) on the subject - click again on the title.

Influencing how others feel ...

Is important if we want to influence the outcome of our interactions with others. This is necessary if we wish to have our intentions turn into reality, in the quickest and least offencive way. After all people remember us not because of what we say but how we make them feel.

The UK newspaper The Times quotes Daniel Goleman talking about toxic and nourishing behaviours, and interestingly the health benefits attributed to reducing the number of toxic interactions that you partake in.

Toxic behaviours are those that make us feel devalued, frustrated, bullied or angry. Nourishing behaviours help us encourage open mindness, empathy and the feeling of being valued. Toxic behaviour repels people and nourishing behaviours attract people to you. If you want people to do the things you want, you must at first attract them. You must then invest the time to deepen and maintain a healthy relationship.

Invest in the emotional bank account you have with others because you can never be sure when you will need a withdrawal.

At first glance, it can be assumed that Social Intelligence is just a new name for making people feel good or a heightened way of expressing empathy. I don't believe that this is the case at all. I do understand however, that the concept of Social Intelligence isn't new. Recent definitions are encouraging us to consider how we build healthy relationships with others so that they cooperate with us.

This is an invaluable skill and has far reaching consequences in the way that we conduct our personal and professional lives. Social Intelligence may be a method of applying our IQ, and EQ, and other personality traits on a subconscious level to the way we interact with others. Are objective would be to encourage win-win situations in our lives so that our likelihood of personal success increases.

Take care

Judith

A different type of smart ...

I'm not sure about you but I feel that the time when we considered that IQ was the only measure of human intelligence is well and truly over. As complex human beings we have multiple intelligences that we draw on all the time during our social interactions with others. Successfully navigating our world really relys on our ability to take our IQ, and EI (emotional intelligence) and SI (social intelligence) and apply them in a way that enhances our success.

K Albrecht defines Social Intelligence as the ability to get along well with others and to get them to cooperate with you. I will exploring the concept of Social Intelligence over the next few weeks.

Troublesome Talent - A barrier to outstanding performance

Troublesome Talent™ is the type of person who is recognised as having huge potential and yet has many rough edges and is normally causing problems with colleagues and peers.

Here's a typical scenario:

Colin runs a creative department in a large media firm. His department contributes 25% of the company profit and is well known in the Industry as being a true leader in photography and print manipulation. Their client list is amongst the most well sought after in the country. Things are going well ... However, Colin has a problem.

Roger has worked in the company for years, starting as a lowly paid printer and becoming one of the key talents in the company. Most of the top photographers only work with him because his creative talent, his skill, is phenomenal and he knows it. If he leaves, he may take 30% of the client list with him. In the past, the Company has bribed him to stay by giving him inflation busting payrises and putting up with his creative temperant. Things have to change however because Colin's boss Sarah is getting fed up. Roger has started to come in whenever he likes, and is no longer meeting his deadlines and his behaviour is becoming erratic.

Sarah has told Colin to sort things out, she is fed up of the complaints that she is getting from the Directors and from the other employees. She is also concerned about the morale of the department.Colin is worried. He tried to talk to Roger about it before, but Roger laughed at him - after all he knows he is needed in the Company - would they dare sack him? Colin needs to act fast - what should he do?

In Jan 2006 - I posed this question to Ecadamists to see how they would respond when faced with this type of dilemma. Click here to see their initial responses which generated 8 possible options. This was the result of the vote, break the activity and speak to Roger.

The solution:

Colin approached Roger and explained that he was concerned about his recent behaviour and wanted to discuss it further as he wanted to find the root of Roger's behaviour and to see whether there was a solution that was acceptable in the future. He invited Roger to a meeting (in an informal setting) for the next day asking for Roger to think about what he wanted to achieve and why he was behaviouring in this way.Roger was surprised and unbalanced at this approach - this wasn't expected, but he was determined that the meeting was going to go the way that he wanted.

The next day Colin was prepared for the meeting. He had analysed Roger's skills and experience that he had gained over the years and realised that Roger wasn't being strecthed adequately and had started to react when the company had decided that all printers had to focus on printing and reduce client contact. He suspected that Roger had felt threatened by this. Roger's knowledge of Client Management was out of sync with his experience in this area. Colin was unsure what to do next - as he was reluctant to provide more client contact for Roger unless he was sure that Roger wouldn't abuse this and put the company further at risk.

Colin spoke to Sarah (before his meeting) outlining his concern and to find out how much leeway he had. Sarah told him to do whatever he thought was appropriate. Having Sarah's backing gave Colin more confidence to act.At the meeting Roger was sullen and resentful. He was determined he was going to defeat Colin - he wasn't prepared to change his behaviour. However, Colin began to challenge Roger and seek to understand why his behaviour had become steadily worse.

He explained why his behaviour was unacceptable. Roger admitted that he was bored being a printer (he had been doing this for years) and had really begun to enjoy the client contact. When this had begun to be reduced he felt threatened and thought the company was abusing him as he had enabled the Company to make alot of profit over the years.

Through careful challenging, concilitary but firm approach Colin negotiated the following with Roger:

1) For a trial period Roger would move into Client Management - using his printing skills for most important clients only. This would be supervised by the Manager of that department

2) Roger would adhere to the company procedure regarding Client management

3) Roger would be provided with a new contract at the end of the trial period, which would include confidentiality and non compete clauses

4) Roger would change his behaviour to be more acceptable to the Company

5) If the above did not work then Colin and Roger would revisit the situation on a more formal basis.

At the end of the meeting Colin was convinced Roger was happy because he had achieved most of what he (Roger had stipulated) was important - Colin was happy because he had achieved a win / win situation and had finally drawn a line under Roger's behaviour.

Making mavericks shine

Do you need to find the framework within which the maverick can shine?

The problem with having a team of talented people is that they can be really hard to manage, especially if you have one member that is influential in the group and seems hell bent on being destructive. At least it seems that way...

The key to turning your maverick around is to choose to take a multi faceted approach. It is important to realise that what you are experiencing is a symptom of the problem and not the problem. When you begin to see the maverick as part of the solution it is easier to find a win/win solution between you and your team member. This is the key to turning around a dysfunctional team that is being influenced negatively by one individual.

There are many things that you will need to consider regarding Talent Management, in this situation. Here are a few ones to get you thinking:

1. What are the causes of your maverick's behaviour?
2. How are you contributing to their behaviour?
3. How aligned are they to the Company's goals?
4. Does the structure of your company hinder or support the change in behaviour that you are aiming for?

The importance here, I believe, is a keen understanding of the main factors that are driving the maverick's behaviour and flexibility in your approach. It is imperative that you are clear in your own mind, of what your aims are and the end result that you desire. Lack of clarity will only produce inappropriate outcomes and will be costly in time and money.

It will lower morale in your team and may even lose respect from amongst your peer group. Worse still, the maverick will have no incentive to change!

The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) commissioned a survey on Talent Management. They found that 95% of its respondents found that In-house development programmes were effective or very effective as a delivery model, and 87% found that Coaching was effective or very effective as a delivery model.

I believe that whatever delivery model (tailored or otherwise) chosen, needs to consider all the factors that are driving the problem. These drivers which may include the answers to some of the questions posed above. The solution, therefore needs to be flexible and be tailored to the needs of the business.