NIGHTMARES OF NETWORKING: EQ>>IQ

Nightmares of Networking with "The Mad Genius"

30 years ago Alice Cooper wrote “Welcome To My Nightmare.” Alice has been playing too much golf, because he has no clue of what a nightmare really is. I am The Mad Genius, and welcome to “Networking Nightmares” where you shall truly know terror.

For my IT friends out there, this is not a computer network or a Web 2.0 social site. This is real face to face human interaction that has turned into a train wreck and then a horror story. But unlike the over glossed and grossed Hollywood fiascoes (including Jar Jar Binks), Networking Nightmares is a true psychological thriller (sans cameo by Hitchcock) because these stories happen every day, everywhere. And if you are unlucky enough to stumble into one, these Nightmares could happen to you!

Now you are probably wondering who The Mad Genius is. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Seriously. I know how, and have the people and other means at my disposal to take care of yours. Your whereabouts and remains would be as mysteriously lost as Hoffa or Ricky Martin's career. You shall know when the time is right, but three things you can know now:

1. I have more degrees than a thermometer.

2. I am legally brain damaged.

3. I have been referred to as the Lex Luthor of my field.

Yes, as my friends in Boston say, I am “wicked smaht.” But high IQ does not always translate into success, often because of a low EQ, or Emotional Quotient. Which brings us to Bob.

What about Bob? Bob was a Fraternity Brother of mine, a second generation engineer at one of the oldest and most reputable engineering institute's on the planet. Bob also did not learn (since he was an engineer from birth) that you do not talk AT someone, or even TO them, but with them. Bob's attempts at pickups are legendary in their futility, or were until he changed and evolved by learning one simple ratio that the Mad Genius will reveal to you once you have seen the horror of these errors.

Bob is a genuinely nice guy, and would do almost anything for his friends and co-workers. He is hard working, and fairly good looking. He smokes, which is as attractive as chewing dip or rubbing manure all over yourself (and smells just as good overall. Great way to turn off 80% of the population while endearing yourself to the other 20% of addicts out there. Why not go inhale pitch-blend and road tar, it is quicker and will cost less?).

Bob was a great guy to work with and be around, until he started interacting with the fairer sex or authorities. Then it was as just fun to sit back and watch the show like Friday the 13th, especially when you wanted to yell “Don't go through that door!” But he'd go through that door, and then there was blood. A lot of blood. We almost felt bad for him. Almost, but it was sooo entertaining!

Once as a freshman Bob was at a mixer with the Dean of Students. Normally we tried to keep young Bob away from influential people because of his bad case of “Pedial/Oral Syndrome” aka “Foot in the Mouth Disease”. This time there was no one to run interference between Bob and the Powers that Be on Campus so the Dean was stuck, in a corner, listening to Bob diatribe on ice fishing outside of Buffalo in a shack with 90 year old men stinking of camphor and cheap whiskey. Luckily we saved the Dean before Bob got into the part about the skinny dipping, varicose veins, and CPR.

Another time, Bob went begging for a grade from a professor. And he did have a semi-logical case, but his sales and negotiation skills were, umm, let us say, inferior to a drunk and lobotomized Barbie Doll trying to explain the intricacies of the SALT II Treaty.. After an hour in the hot little office with Bob (who hadn't showered in a week), the Prof just gave up, essentially crying “I have no clue what you are talking about! You have proven to have at best absolutely no knowledge of the basics of thermodynamics, something that is so intuitively obvious that the most casual of observers on 15^th Street would understand. You exhibit a total lack of comprehension, comparable to a brain damaged sea cucumber! In the history of idiocy, you are clearly a Hall of Fame caliber nincompoop! But I will pass you Bob if you will just leave my office and de-stinkify yourself!” Bob got his “C”. OK, so maybe that time it worked.

One time, Bob was actually able to seal the deal with a girl. Was probably a combination of law of large numbers (ten thousand rejections before an acceptance), an alignment of the planets, and the fact that the girl was a nut-job. Like nutty enough to make a squirrel explode with endorphic enthusiasm. Bob told us later that they were lying there in his bed and she just kept going on and on about how much she loved bacon. For over an hour. At three a. m. And it was a surprise to him, because somehow he missed the flashing red lights and Robbie the Robot yelling “Danger! Danger Will Robinson!” And the thirty minute conversation on ketchup wasn't enough of a clue for Bob to realize that this was not the person to try to take home, unless home is Arkham. But maybe, just maybe, she held up the mirror for Bob to look at himself in.

After that he got much better. The changes were slow, and sometimes there were step backs (occasionally over a cliff), but Bob started to realize that in interactions, there is give and take, and in conversation at least is is better to be a taker than a giver.

Then a wise alumni informed the young engineer of the Golden Ratio in communication, the way to get what you want because people appreciate what a great conversationalist you are. And the ratio is this my little networkers: you have two eyes, two ears, and one mouth, and they are to be used in that proportion. Once I clued young Bob in on this, his successes exploded: the peach internships with a top financial company and with a Senator, the liaison position with the Trustees, eventually the Presidency of the student ambassadors on campus. Today Bob is the head salesman for a distillery, having unique success because as much as he loves to talk about his product, he watches and listens to understand what to talk about to his consumers to get maximum efficacy and make them feel like they are in power.

Not too bad for a high IQ low EQ engineer with a smoking addiction: two eyes plus two ears plus one mouth yields success.

Thus ends our Nightmare for this month my humanoid little friends. That beeping sound may be your alarm clock waking you, calling you back to your little reality. Or it may be awakening you to something more, a world you never knew that is bigger and bolder, filled with Network Nightmares you can only start to comprehend. We shall see, we shall see....

For more secrets, you may visit the TNNW Bio of "The Mad Genius", if you dare.

*******
Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER (TNNW). All rights reserved.

To subscribe for your free TNNW Newsletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/ For the complete National Networker (TNNW) Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/

You are also invited to click our buttons:

-------
Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

NIGHTMARES OF NETWORKING: EQ>>IQ

VIEW FROM THE C-SUITE: Leadership and Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

View from the C-Suite with Joyce Grillo

We often hear people say, “Joe must be high in EQ.” Or, “ Mary’s low in EQ.”

But what do we really know about emotional intelligence (EQ)? Why is it important to a leader’s effectiveness and can it be learned? This article is the first in a series of articles that will explore these questions as well as the connection between EQ and leadership. We will begin by focusing on one of the core components of EQ – self-awareness.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

EQ is the social equivalent of IQ. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence, there are five components of EQ. The first three components of EQ are all about managing oneself. The last two are about managing relationships with others.

Self-Awareness – the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effect on others.

Self-Regulation – the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods.

Motivation – a passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status.

Empathy – the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people.

Social Skill - the proficiency in being persuasive and managing relationships and building networks.

What Is The Connection Between Leadership and EQ?

In my work as a leadership consultant and coach to executives for the last 20 years, I have seen first hand how EQ has played a critical role in what makes some successful and others derail. As you go up the corporate ladder, your technical skills – what you were initially hired for – become less important and your EQ becomes more important. This poses a challenge for those leaders who rely only on their “smarts” to get to the C-suite.

Why do technical skills become less important over time? In order to be truly effective a leader must know who they are and how to stay calm in a crisis. Their agenda is not personal and because they are self-aware they understand what makes people tick and use that to inspire and motivate people to change. All of these are components of EQ.

In one study conducted by Goleman of highly effective leaders, intellect, cognitive skills and IQ were rated important but emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important for jobs at all levels. We know that effective leaders usually vary their style to fit the situation at hand. There is, however, one thing effective leaders have in common and that is that they all have a high degree of emotional intelligence.

Developing Self-Awareness

There is a reason that self-awareness is the first component of emotional intelligence. As Socrates said thousand of years ago, “know thyself.” Unless you first understand who you are or what I refer to as one’s “default style” it is difficult to understand others and score highly on the other four components of emotional intelligence.

Self-aware leaders are confident because self knowledge acts as an anchor to how they relate to the outside world. They are centered and honest with themselves being neither cynical nor unrealistic. Further, they know and accept their strengths, weaknesses, needs, drives, values and emotions. They know how their feelings affect them and others. For example, one leader I coached realized that the colleague he had the most difficulty relating to displayed behaviors similar to those of his father with whom he had a strained relationship. Knowing this enabled him to understand the impact this person had on his emotions and he was able to objectively step back and neutralize his frustration.

Can You Recognize EQ in Yourself?

The challenge for many is how can you recognize it in yourself? It’s difficult to measure your own EQ. There are ways of finding out where you are on the EQ scale. The least effective is through a self-assessment alone for obvious reasons. Over the years, I have been amazed at the number of people in mid-life who were lacking in self-awareness and the impact their behaviors had on others.

The most effective way is by combining a self-assessment and a 360-degree evaluation process where you get feedback on various components of EQ from your boss, colleagues and direct reports. When this is done and debriefed by someone independent such as a leadership coach, it assures a higher level of accuracy, which helps you develop in those areas where you are weak. If the company you work for does not offer 360 evaluations, then select some colleagues and friends who know you well and ask them to rate you on the components of EQ.

Can EQ Be Learned?

The goods news is EQ can be learned. Scientific and psychological and developmental research suggests that some people are born with certain amounts of EQ and that nurture also plays a role. What we do know is that it can be learned but not in a one day training program.

First you need to be aware of your behaviors and the impact you have on others and then be motivated to change. It is then that you are ready to begin breaking old behavioral habits and replacing them with new ones. This process of doing and reflecting takes time. Malcomb Gladwell in his new book, Outliers, makes the case that it takes 10,000 hours to reach a level of mastery at something. Trying these new behaviors at the outset may not be the most comfortable so you need to hang in there and not give up. It is only in experimentation and repetition that lasing behavioral change occurs.

It is important to keep in mind that building one’s EQ is not an event but a process that occurs over time. Although it may be painful, discovering how you rate on EQ is important if you want to be a good leader. I have also seen many situations where getting fired for a lack of EQ is a “wake-up” call for many to go on a journey of self-discovery. Don’t wait for that to happen. Given the right amount of motivation and the skills to change, most leaders can learn the emotional intelligence capabilities necessary to be successful.

Stay tuned for next month’s article on Leadership and Self-Regulation.

For more information contact me at joyce@grilloleadership.com.

___________________________________________________________

Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newsletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free, continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/. You are also invited to click our buttons:


Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

VIEW FROM THE C-SUITE: Leadership and Emotional Intelligence (EQ)