The title of this post is identical to the title of a chapter in Daniel Goleman’s book “Emotional Intelligence.” A new competitive reality is putting intelligence at a premium in the workplace and in the marketplace. Shoshone Zuboff, a psychologist at Harvard Business School pointed out to Goleman, “corporations have gone though a radical revolution within the 20th century, and with this has come a corresponding transformation of the emotional landscape. There was a long period of managerial domination of the corporate hierarchy when the manipulative, jungle-fighter boss was rewarded. But that rigid hierarchy started breaking down in the 1980s under the twin pressures of globalization and information technology. The jungle fighter symbolizes where the corporation has been; the virtuosic in interpersonal skills is the corporate future.”
All the deleterious effects of agitation on thinking discussed in previous healthy memory blog posts operate in the workplace too: When emotionally upset, people cannot remember, attend, learn, or make decisions clearly. One management consultant, likely many management consultants, have said, “Stress makes people stupid.”
A discussion of the importance of emotional intelligence to three issues of the workplace will be presented: being able to air grievances as helpful critiques, creating an atmosphere in which diversity is valued, and networking effectively.
The worst way to motivate someone is through personal attacks rather then complaints that can be acted upon. One of the more common forms of destructive criticism is a generalized statement like “You’re screwing up,” delivered in a harsh, sarcastic, angry tone that provides neither a chance to respond nor any suggestion of how to do things better. The person receiving it feels helpless and angry. From the point of emotional intelligence, such criticism displays an ignorance of feelings it triggers in those who receive it, along with the devastating effect these feelings will have on their motivation, energy, and confidence in doing their work.
This destructive dynamic was found in a survey of managers who were asked to think back to times they blew up at employees and, in the heat of the moment, made a personal attack. The angry attacks had effects much like they would in a married couple: the employees who received them reacted most often by becoming defensive, making excuses, or evading responsibility. Sometimes they stonewalled in that they tried to avoid all contact with the manager who blew up at them. If these employees had been subjected to the emotional microscope of John Gottman used with married couples that was described in the blog post “Intimate Enemies,” they would no doubt have been shown to be thinking the thoughts of innocent victimhood or righteous indignation typical of husbands or wives who feel unfairly attacked. If their physiology were measured, they would probably also display the flooding that reinforces such thoughts. Yet these managers were only further annoyed and provoked by these responses. Goleman suggests that this would be the beginning of a cycle in the business world that ends in the employee quitting or being fired. This is the business equivalent of a divorce.
J.R. Larson, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana, notes that “most problems in an employee’s performance are not sudden. They develop slowly over time. When the boss fails to let his feelings be known promptly, it leads to his frustration building up slowly. Then, one day, he blows up about it. If the criticism had been given earlier on, the employee would have been able to correct the problem. Too often people criticize only when things boil over, when they get too angry to contain themselves. And that’s when they give the criticism in the worst way, in a tone of biting sarcasm, calling to mind a long list of grievances they have kept to themselves, or making threats. Such attacks backfire. They are received as an affront, so the recipient becomes angry in return. It’s the worst way to motivate someone.”
Harry Levinson, who is a psychoanalyst turned corporate consultant, gives the following advice on a critique, which is intricately entwined with the art of praise:
“*Be specific. Pick a significant incident, an event that illustrates a key problem that needs changing or a pattern of deficiency, such as the inability to do certain parts of a job well. It demoralizes people just to hear that they are doing “something” wrong, without knowing what the specifics are so they can change. Focus on the specifics, saying what the person did well, what was done poorly, and how it could be changed. Don’t beat about the bush or be oblique or evasive; it will muddy the real message. This, of course, is akin to the advice to couples about they “XYZ” statement of a grievance: say exactly what the problem is, what’s wrong with it, or how it makes you feel, and what could be changed.”
Levinson points out, “Specificity is just as important for praise as for criticism. I won’t say the vague praise has no effect at all, but it doesn’t have much, and you can’t learn from it.”
“* Offer a solution. The critique, like all useful feedback, should point a way to fix the problem. Otherwise it leaves the recipient frustrated, demoralized, or unmotivated. The critique may open the door to possibilities and alternatives that the person did not realize were there, or simply sensitize her to deficiencies that need attention—but should include suggestions about how to take care of the problem.”
“*Be present. Critiques, like praise, are most effective face to face and in private. People who are uncomfortable giving a criticism—or offering praise—are likely to ease the burden on themselves by doing it as a distance, such as a memo. But this makes communication too impersonal, and robs the person receiving it of an opportunity for a response or clarification.
“* Be sensitive. This is a call for empathy, for being attuned to the impact of what you say and how you say it on the person at the receiving end, Managers who have little empathy are most prone to giving feedback in a hurtful fashion, such as the withering putdown. The net effect of such criticism is destructive: instead of opening the way for a corrective, it creates an emotional backlash of resentment, bitterness, defensiveness, and distance.”
The key to dealing with diversity is to see value in diversity. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the United States, if not is greatest strength, is the diversity of its population. It is a country of immigrants coming from many different cultures. Unfortunately, too many people see diversity as a problem or a challenge rather than an opportunity. Efforts to restrict immigration are not only hypocritical, as with the exception of the first Americans, the native Americans, we are all immigrants, but also harmful to our continued growth and productivity. Such people are selfish with the attitude of we’ve got ours, so screw you. They are likely highly prejudiced against people who do not look like them or worship as they do.
Prejudices are a kind of emotional leaning that occurs early in life, making these reactions especially hard to eradicate entirely, even in people who as adults feel it is wrong to hold them. There is a healthy memory blog post, “Implicit versus Explicit Prejudice” which discusses implicit biases. There is also a website
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ that provides tests for implicit biases. There are tests you can take to measure your implicit bias. Do not be discouraged if you score high on certain biases. These are implicit biases that might well be the result of your experiences and learning when you were young. If your explicit behavior does not reflect any biases, then you can reward yourself for overcoming your biases. However, be very careful. We humans are very good at fooling ourselves, and we have many subterfuges for hiding biases. Moreover, it is irrelevant whether we regard ourselves as being bias free. This judgment is better made by other people, preferably people who are the source of your biases. The bottom line here is to work to rid ourselves of all bias. Bias is bad personally and to our country, and the world. We need to work toward zero tolerance for intolerance.
There is a relationship between diversity and networkingy effectively. Networking effectively entails being knowledgeable about the skills and areas of expertise of your coworkers. Clearly any racial, ethnic,or religious biases will degrade or destroy networking effectively. Peter Drucker, the business maven who coined the term “knowledge worker” noted that with knowledge work, “teams become the work unit rather than the individual himself.” This implies that emotional intelligence, the skills that help people harmonize, are central to networking effectively.
Group intelligence has been discussed in previous healthy memory posts. This idea of a group intelligence comes from the Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg and his graduate student Wendy Williams. They developed this concept when they were seeking to understand why some groups are far more effective than others. When people come together to work as a group, each brings different talents. Goleman writes that “while a group can be no “smarter” than the sum total of all these specific strengths, it can be much dumber if its internal workings don’t allow all of these specific strengths, it can be much dumber if its internal workings don’t allow people to share their strengths.” Although HM certainly agrees with the second part of this statement, he strongly disagrees with the first part. The group can be smarter than the sum of its parts. Synergy is the term to describe this.
The first step in networking effectively is to find as much as you can about potential collaborators. Try to develop personal relationships to learn what they know, what they can do, and what they can contribute. Even if the individual or group does not seem to have relevance, one can invite individuals or groups to meetings to see if they have any ideas as to what they can contribute.
© Douglas Griffith and healthymemory.wordpress.com, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Douglas Griffith and healthymemory.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content
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