We are delighted to announce that Six Seconds has opened its seventh office in the world.  The new office is located in Amman, Jordan and will be managed by certified Six Seconds practitioners Mr. Nadeem Nahhas and Ms. Souhair Dahdaleh.

Nadeem’s commitment to developing the people-side of performance began when he worked in Sales and Marketing across different sectors within the service industry.  After 6 years as a trainer and consultant, he became increasingly committed to the core skills of emotional intelligence as “the difference that makes the difference” in performance.  His Noble Goal is “To influence people positively towards healthy and fruitful living” and he is committed to living his life as a role-model manifesting the principles of emotional intelligence.

Having worked for about 9 years in the Marketing and Management fields, Souhair found out that her real calling in life lies in helping and empowering people. Her noble goal is “To passionately foster inspirational support and empowerment.” In order to live this noble goal, she did a career shift from Marketing to soft skills training and coaching. She became passionate about EQ after attending a short workshop in Jordan and reading a number of EQ books and then joining Six Seconds’ programs in the region.

The new office is in line with Six Seconds commitment to spread the transformational skills of EQ into even more places in the world, and specifically expand in the Middle East region.  The Jordan office brings group of highly prestigious and certified Arabic speaking professionals to its pool of certified Emotional Intelligence (EQ) practitioners which incorporates more than 3,000 members worldwide.   The timing is perfect with the momentum and growth Human Capital Development is witnessing in Jordan and the Middle East area and the need to build stronger, healthier, and more prosperous communities, businesses, families, and nations in the region and beyond.

With the global economic slowdown, Jordan’s GDP growth has suffered and foreign assistance to the government in 2009 dropped; slowing down the government’s efforts to control the large budget deficit. Jordan is mainly a services based economy where services consist of more than 65% of total GDP. This means that Jordan’s Human Capital represents a major asset and has a direct impact on the economic growth in the country.  In introducing EQ to Jordan, Six Seconds Jordan team is committed  to carry out a positive role in developing the skills and capabilities of the employees of various development sectors, and apply up-to-date training and consulting methods to meet the needs and wants of the different organizations in the private and public sectors.

As Nadeem put it: “We feel elated and proud to have been chosen to represent the Six Seconds network in Jordan.  It gives us great pleasure to launch Six Seconds’ unique Emotional Intelligence (EQ) training and consulting services, and become a real contributor to the latest research and development in this arena.”

For press coverage of the launch, see AME Info (English) or Al Malaf (Arabic)

We’ve all worked for or with those leaders whose first priority seems to be garnering credit and praise — so what is it that lets a rare few truly galvanize others around the mission? While the archetypal CEO is brash, even arrogant, and struggling to appear powerful, the real stars have an ancient and invaluable gift: Humility. EQ leadership consultant Bruna Martinuzzi - author of The Leader as a Mensch – offers a practical guide to this essential attribute of Level 5 Leaders.

Many years ago, one of my university professors mentioned that “windowsill” was voted the most beautiful word in the English language. Being an armchair linguist, this factoid naturally stayed with me. Words have enormous power. They can make us erupt into laughter or bring tears to our eyes. They can influence, inspire, manipulate and shock. They can build and destroy. Some words have different effects on different people. One such word is humility. It is one of those words that are seldom in neutral gear. Some, like me, love the word and all it stands for. Some almost fear it and interpret it synonymously with lack of self-confidence or timidity.

The dictionary defines humility as someone who is modest, who lacks pretense, someone who does not believe that he or she is superior to others. An ancillary definition includes: “Having a lowly opinion of oneself, meekness.” The word humility first struck me in the context of leadership when Jim Collins mentioned it in his seminal work Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.[1] In this book, Collins examined companies that went from good to great by sustaining 15-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market, and after a transition point, cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next 15 years. Among the many characteristics that distinguished these companies from others is that they all had a Level 5 leader. Level 5 leaders direct their ego away from themselves to the larger goal of leading their company to greatness. These leaders are a complex, paradoxical mix of intense professional will and extreme personal humility. They will create superb results but shun public adulation, and are never boastful. They are described as modest. An example of such a leader who epitomized humility is David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, who, in Jim Collins’ words, defined himself as a HP man first and a CEO second. He was a man of the people, practicing management by walking around. Shunning all manner of publicity, Packard is quoted as saying: “You shouldn’t gloat about anything you’ve done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do.”

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Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman, handed this article to me several years ago. It’s stuck with me as a powerful set of guidelines for being impeccable with words. The children, Patty and I have discussed the “three gatekeepers” often over the last years; we started when the kids were 4 and 6 years old and have carried it forward. I highly recommend you put this one into practice!
- Josh

Because we can’t see them, we throw words around without much consideration for their effect. But words leave lasting impressions. Dr. Wilder Penfield, the great Canadian neurosurgeon, describes vividly the experiments that demonstrated how easily words we thought were long forgotten can be revived by electric stimulation of the brain. It’s all still there, recorded deep in consciousness – emotional depth charges ready to explode when they are triggered.

That is why the Buddha considered Right Speech to be as important as Right Action. I think he would have liked the Arab proverb that everything we say should pass three gatekeepers: “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”

Any little remark that fails these tests – a joke, a wisecrack, thoughtless gossip, an unverified “fact” or tightly-clenched opinion – can wreck a relationship, destroy trust, even cost a job. But the most glaring violation of Right Speech is the everyday quarrel. We just don’t seem to know how to disagree without being disagreeable.

It starts simply enough: someone says something we disagree with, and for some reason we get angry. (Why? I have never seen the connection.) Or, of course, we say something they disagree with and they get angry. Either way, after just a few words, tempers fray and language starts deteriorating.

How many times have I heard even educated people begin an emotionally charged dialogue with the best of intentions: “We won’t quarrel. Let us confine ourselves to the subject at hand.” Within five minutes one is saying, “That’s not what you told me last Saturday in front of the Wide World of Shoes!” And the other replies – see the absurdity of it! – “That wasn’t in front of the Wide World of Shoes. It was the Narrow World of Shoes.”

Anything to quarrel, anything to contradict.

After that, the quarrel has nothing to do with the subject. It is mostly “You must have done this even as a child” and “I’ve heard stories about the way you behaved in high school.” We may know we are being foolish, but by then we are caught; we can’t escape. All of us have been in arguments like this.

I used to ask my teacher, my grandmother, “Granny, if you found yourself in a situation like this, what would you do?” It took years for me to understand her simple answer: “Son, I wouldn’t get into a situation like that.”

This is very practical advice. Even if somebody is being rude to you or unkind, it doesn’t help to be unkind in return. It doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help you. The more unkind you are, the more angry the other person is going to be – and then the more angry you are going to be, until two people have ceased to be human beings and have gone back to a previous stage of evolution.

Out of control
If we could see what happens in the mind at times like these, we would be embarrassed. The mind simply slips out of control, like a speeding car that careens all over the road. Only when we have some say in where our attention goes can we keep our hands on the wheel.

That is what meditation is for. Then, when we see the mind beginning to break loose, we can brake a little, check the words that are about to burst forth, and choose speech that is kind, constructive, and respectful instead.

If we were to ask the Buddha why we lose control at times like these, he would give a precise diagnosis. First, he would say, the mind never was really in our control. The very nature of the mind is to be fickle, distractable, constantly in motion – in a word, to do whatever it likes. For it to behave the way we like, we have to train it through meditation.

But the real problem, he would say, is self-will: the fierce attachment to our little personal self, our opinions, our ego, that insists on having its way whatever the consequences to others. We just can’t bear to be contradicted, so we get angry and lash out with hurtful words. Most of us would be chagrined to see the underlying message: “You aren’t worth my respect. My ideas are superior; you don’t count.”

Bear with others
To break this cycle, we have to learn to be patient under provocation. “Suffer hard words,” the Buddha says, “as the elephant suffers arrows in battle. People are people, most of them ill-natured.”

There you get the Buddha, who really knows human nature. He doesn’t try to idealize. He doesn’t say, “Everybody is beautiful. Everybody is divine.” He says, “Factually speaking, most people lack courtesy.” This is the characteristic touch of the Buddha, standing firmly on the ground and then trying slowly to help us rise until our heads touch the stars.

For an Indian audience, the elephant is a familiar illustration. The elephant is the mightiest creature on earth, so tremendous in strength and endurance that in battle he ignores his wounds and goes forward gallantly even when his body is bristling with arrows. But he is also a very gentle creature. If you offer him a peanut on the palm of your hand, he will take it without even touching you.

The Buddha’s audience would have grasped the message immediately. Shrug off the daily darts and arrows that life sends, he is telling us, but never shoot such arrows at others. Never upset people, never be unkind to them, never hurt their feelings or treat them with lack of respect, how-ever they might behave themselves.

“In other words,” he says, “in personal relationships, be prepared for a certain amount of impoliteness and discourtesy – not because people are bad, but because they have self-will and can’t control it, just like you.”

This is one of the curious fallacies of self-will. We expect others to show courtesy to us, but we also expect them to bear with us if we happen to be a little unkind. We expect to have our way, but why should others have theirs?

It’s good, I think, not to get upset if you find somebody not showing respect to you, for the simple reason that you may well not be showing enough respect yourself.

Here the Buddha asks a simple question: If you get displeased when others are unkind to you, why don’t you get equally displeased when you are not kind to others? In other words, there is no mystery about these things. You don’t like anyone to be unkind to you. Why don’t you remember that the other person is just like you? Like you, he doesn’t like unkind words. Like you, she appreciates courtesy and respect.

Oddly enough, the person who usually gets upset is the man who expects extreme courtesy for himself, the woman who finds it easy to be discourteous to others. The realist is the mystic, who says, “Well, the world is like that. It takes all sorts.”

In The Imitation of Christ – a marvelous book of spiritual inspiration for any religion – we often come across this same counsel: “Bear with people. Don’t answer back.”

Believe me, for those of us who have lived in the world of education and had our intellect sharpened to be sarcastic, it’s very difficult to restrain oneself. At a meeting when you’re being criticized or attacked, it’s considered part of your academic responsibility to answer back with compound interest.

I, too, was in the habit of doing that, until I began to understand that if somebody attacked me, there was no need for me to get exasperated. After all, most people are capable of using their judgment. So I started just repeating my mantram silently – Rama, Rama, Rama – and keeping quiet.

It was not at all easy. To make things worse, it was sometimes misinterpreted. Somebody who used to keep quiet would think I was at a loss for an answer and join the others in jumping on me. It was difficult training, but very soon I began to see that I was getting detached – not from my colleagues, but from my own opinions. When they were criticizing somebody, they weren’t criticizing me. They were criticizing a statue they had sculpted and set up in the corner. Why should I be bothered if they threw darts at a statue they themselves had made?

This doesn’t mean making a doormat of yourself. Just the opposite. It is training. You are getting your mind under control. First you learn to break the connection between stimulus and response. Once you have a measure of detachment, you can reply to criticism without identifying yourself with your opinions or the other person with hers. Then you are free to choose words that are kind, respectful, and to the point.

The more self-willed and insensitive the other person is, the more reason for you to alert your mind to be calm and compassionate – and, if necessary, to face opposition firmly but tenderly.

We aren’t helping self-willed people when we give in to their demands or let them walk all over us. It only feeds self-will to let them have their way. We have to learn to show respect by opposing them – tenderly, nonviolently, but firmly.

This is a lesson all of us need to learn, and it’s not at all easy. Particularly in personal relationships where people are insecure, they will feel resentment but they will not try to oppose tenderly. When self-will gets inflated, you look upon others as part of your own ego – a kind of ego-annex. This is very common today, especially between parents and children. In such cases it is particularly painful – and all the more necessary – to learn to oppose tenderly, with detachment and respect.

The mental attitude
Criticism, of course, can be useful only when it is constructive. Comments can be useful only when they are friendly. Persuasion can be useful only when it is loving. Even from the point of effectiveness, then, unkind comments only add to the problem. Disrespectful criticism makes the situation worse.

Often, of course, it is necessary to make a constructive comment or suggestion. It is the mental attitude – the tone, the respect, the loving concern – with which we put forward ideas op-posed to others that makes the contribution effective.

I would suggest that whenever you feel you have to make a suggestion opposed to someone else’s, take time to get a little detached from the situation by repeating the mantram silently. Then, when your mind is calm, offer your suggestion in a friendly, warmhearted manner with great respect for the other person. This takes practice, but you will find that it works. It is effective.

Here it helps to remember the Buddha’s observation: most of our problems arise from inflated self-will. And one of the surest signs of inflated self-will is in an inability to see the person’s point of view. It is not that we have to accept the other person’s point of view, but under no circumstances should we refuse to acknowledge that the other person has a point of view – one that deserves to be listened to with respect and evaluated with detachment.

Everyone acknowledges this in principle, but in practice it is all too rare. On campuses I have found even the best-educated scholars sometimes unable to concede that others have a cogent point of view.

This is the intellectual climate I was trained in. It took years of retraining my mind through the practice of meditation to learn to listen with respect to utterly opposite points of view and yet retain my own.

When you are able to do this – to be completely loyal to your ideals and yet not reflect on other people’s integrity – often the other person begins to respond. What matters is the friendliness you show, the lack of ill will – and, more than anything else, the complete absence of any sense of superiority. The more spiritual you become, the less superior you feel to others because the less separate you feel from others. The superiority complex is most rampant where separateness is inflamed.

Right Speech
By making Right Speech part of his Eightfold Path, the Buddha is giving us a precious clue. Right Speech is not just a nice way to behave. It is a spiritual discipline, part of a very skillfully designed path for self-realization.

Once we grasp this, every disagreement becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Facing anger, for example – your own or others’ – is one of life’s best opportunities for training. It’s very much like learning to lift weights. You start by lifting chairs, then tables, then a desk, and after a while you’re lifting a VW Bug. You can pick up a thousand pounds, raise it over your head – what do they call it? “clean and jerk” – and then drop it onto the mat with a lot of noise.

It is the same with anger. You start with those absurd little quarrels about the Wide World of Shoes. As you learn to be patient, you get confidence. Next time, when a bigger outburst comes, instead of retaliating, being unkind, making sarcastic remarks, you use the incident for training the muscles of your mind by repeating the mantram.

Just as we admire people who can lift a thousand pounds, we all benefit by being with somebody who can be patient under attack, kind when opposed, and detached enough to see the situation clearly and compassionately. This is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.

Daily review
Athletes, I understand, often keep a daily record of their training. In the same spirit, I take a few minutes every evening to get a bird’s-eye view of training my mind and see where I can improve the quality of my daily behavior.

This is not a negative survey. You are not finding fault with yourself. You are asking, “Where can I be a little more patient? Can I be a little more loving toward Amelia tomorrow? Can I be a little more helpful to John?” These are the positive ways in which we can improve the quality of our daily living tomorrow in the light of what we have done today.

Interestingly enough, this makes every day new. Tomorrow is never the same old day. There is always something more to be done: one or two more steps to take on the path upward, some greater care to avoid the mistakes that all of us make in some small way. Instead of repining over mistakes or being resentful over them, I would suggest taking every possible care not to repeat those mistakes tomorrow and make at least a little improvement in your daily behavior.

This is why we have been given the competitive instinct: not to compete with others, but to compete with ourselves. Every evening you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “You did a pretty good job today, I agree. But watch out! Tomorrow I’m going to outdo you.”

Original goodness
When you refrain from unkindness, you are uncovering your real nature. That is the real meaning of the Buddha’s word nirvana: the removal of every shred of the selfish conditioning and self-will that brings such sorrow to us and others.

When we have removed all anger, what remains is compassion. When we have removed all selfishness, what remains is selflessness. When we have removed all hatred, what remains is love.

This is the glory of the mystical tradition: We don’t have to make ourselves loving; we have only to remove hatred from our hearts. Those who have learned to be kind even when others are unkind move in the world with freedom. Their love flows to all around without any question of “Is he being nice to me? Is she being kind?”

Life holds us hostage with such questions. But when we are free – when we attain the stage where there is no possibility of my dancing to your tune or making you dance to mine – all sorrows come to an end.

“You cannot add to the joy of such a man,” the Upanishads say. “You cannot add to such a woman’s security. Whatever life gives, whatever life takes, they are always full.”

[First published Nov 11, 2003]

Lately life has been somewhat tempestuous at home.  Emma’s 4-1/2-year-old priorities conflict with Max’s 2-1/2-year-old priorities — add two work-a-holic parents and their own stresses, and voila, you have a powder keg. Recently it got to the point I was looking forward to travelling so I could have a few days of peace.  I take that as a bad sign.

The last few days gave me new insight into my job as a parent — and equally essential lessons as a consultant and manager.  Most managers tell me their biggest struggles are managing conflicts and relationships — so perhaps this story about managing the conflicts at home will provide ideas even to those without kids.

Last week I had time with Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman and Founder.  We talk frequently about my little family and about her grandchildren.  As many EQ Reflections readers have told me, grandparent-hood sounds like the best of parenting: all the love, none of the “hot buttons.”

The next day I happened to talk to a colleague and the psychotherapist sitting next to her.  I talked a bit about my struggles at home, and I was struck by the dramatic difference between the therapist’s approach and Karen’s.

The therapist said, “It sounds like you are letting you kids run things in your house, and you can’t do that.”

Somewhat testy, I said, “Actually, I can do it — but I agree it might not be a good idea.”

“You need to be clear about who’s in charge,” she went on, ignoring my frail jibe, “and consistently reward the appropriate behavior and have consequences for the inappropriate behavior.  You have to be more consistent.”

Not bad advice for a cocktail party.  Then I considered Karen’s advice from the evening before and how different it was.

First Karen asked me what is happening — what’s the pattern.  I explained that a conflict escalated, Emma’s behavior got explosive, and I sent her to time out or her room.

“Is that working?” asked Karen.

“Not really.”

“So you probably don’t want to keep doing it, do you?”  Under Karen’s clear gaze, there was only one available answer.  I shook my head.  “Do you and Emma talk about what happened?”

“Emma would rather not,” I say starting to feel a bit pathetic — how did I give a four-year-old so much power?

After a few more minutes, Karen summarized our discussion into this experiment:  “Why don’t you try this:  Next time you send Emma to her room, say, ‘When you are ready to talk about what happened, come get me.’  Then, discuss what happened and make an agreement about what Emma and you will do differently next time.  Write it down where Emma can see it.”

Before I tell you what happened, what’s the difference between Karen’s advice and the unknown therapist’s?  Notice who had the power or “right” in the adult-to-adult conversations.  Notice how each approach changes the power dynamic between Emma and me — one actually escalates the power struggle, the other side-steps it.

My sense is that Karen’s advice also focuses on the long term vs. short term — Emma needs to make decisions for herself, and eventually these will be fairly serious decisions.  What am I doing now to equip her for that challenge?

This weekend when one of the “inevitable” conflicts occurred, I had a surprising experience.  While I was caught up in the conflict, I did not feel the need to explode — I didn’t feel hopeless.  This is the power of having a new strategy.

I asked Emma if she wanted to talk about what happened, when she grouched, “NO,” I followed Karen’s advice.  A few minutes later, Emma was ready to talk.  I began my Self-Science process and asked, “What happened?”

I discovered that looking at the whole event was too complex, that Emma really had trouble telling the story.  So I began telling what I thought happened, and after each little piece, I asked if she agreed — really asked, not to get agreement but to get her view.  We agreed on some parts, not others, and didn’t debate it — we both identified the story from our sides.

Then I identified the part that was upsetting for me:  “I felt ignored when I told you to stop grabbing your brother for the second time and it did not seem like you listened.  Were you listening?”

“No,” said Emma, and I could see the realization sink in.

We put up a chart paper in her room and I asked what I should write.  Emma said, “No Ignoring.”

I was surprised again when the next day there was a minor tussle between Emma and Max.  When I asked what happened, Emma told me, and said we need to go write on the list.

I suspect that a large part of my own reactivity with the kids comes from feeling so powerless — from feeling like this won’t end, and I can’t stop it.  So the lesson for me as a parent:

• keep practicing optimism (it WON’T last forever and I CAN make a difference if I try).
• keep experimenting with new ways of communicating.
• to stay out of the power struggle — make my job be “help them learn” rather than “enforce.”

Reflecting on the two different styles of giving me advice, I see three key points to remember an “expert,” consultant, and manager supporting others.

Ask, help them see the story, the pattern.

Challenge the “insane” (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results)

Offer questions, alternatives, and experiments rather than answers.

I need to remember I don’t have the answers to my own challenges, let alone yours!  Perhaps the best we can offer one another is a compassionate ear and the encouragement to keep learning.  It’s probably harder to sell than “the answer,” but I suspect there’s a lot more value in it.

Warmly yours,

- Josh

Recently…

• I told Emma (8-year-old daughter) she needed to get dressed to go. Instant protest, heel-dragging, power struggle. Yet we were going to do something she wanted!

• I observed a new cross-functional team starting up. The person assigned to schedule the first meeting asserted, "Since no one else wants to, I will chair the team." People rolled eyes and crossed arms (mostly hidden!). Yet she was right — no one else wanted to chair.

• I was presenting at company and I told participants to discuss their ideas from a worksheet with the person sitting next to them. A few evaluation forms were quite negative, some said that I was "making them share to much." Yet they all said they wanted to get closer as a team.

What’s the common thread?

This defense response is wired into the very core of the human brain, and when it becomes activated we’re more likely to get dissent — followed by descent into in conflict. The reaction is a "basic rule" of emotional intelligence: When people feel attacked, they defend. Understanding this rule provides invaluable insight into how to work with (rather than against) people in all areas of life. It’s an awareness that becomes even more critical in today’s climate.

Big surprise – people are stressed! Between global climate change, recession, war, and all the "noise" of our daily lives it’s no wonder. But the stress also comes from our success. It’s a terrible paradox: on the one hand we have an abundance of choice and possibility. On the other we’re wallowing in the deluge. While people are seeing myriad options — options of where and how to work, a billion choices for information and entertainment, the liberty to be anywhere in the world — they are also facing a concurrent level of chaos and risk from the unknown.
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Blame. Why do we do it? Is blame a necessary component of group interaction? What’s the real difference between blame and accountability? How do we foster one and not the other?

If blame is contagious, could accountability be contagious too? Wouldn’t that be useful?

Below is a link to an article about a new study from USC Marshall School of Business and Stanford University about the root of why we blame and what the outcomes often are. One of the most compelling sections centers on the cascading effect of watching blame happen in a public way.

http://uscnews.usc.edu/business/people_like_to_play_the_blame_game.html

What do you think about blame? The study centers on workplaces but would all the same principles apply in a family? In a school? In a community?

I”m not close with one of my sisters. This is a painful truth. I could give you theories to explain why we’ve grown distant but that could take days. When family (or workplace) relationships disintegrate, it takes time. Trust is lost and then more trust is lost until a canyon of suspicion separates us and obliterates bridges of empathy and understanding.

I’ve been getting requests for training in motivation. Many employers seem mystified-how can they get their workers to care? A complex question! And I’m reminded of my struggles with my sister. It’s tempting to blame her but I know that we have both created our relationship. Workplace dynamics are equally complicated. Employers often hope for a magic wand to transform their “lazy” workers into enthusiastic employees. But, unless a disengaged worker is simply unwilling to work (rare), the employer is probably contributing to the problem. To motivate workers, employers may need to start with changing themselves. Have they taken the time to know the employee and see what intrinsically motivates him/her? Is the company creating a product or service that the employee can offer with pride? Has the employee received enough feedback and training to do his/her job? Is this employee the right person for the job?

The bad news is that recovering lost trust and interpersonal harmony is hard work. The good news is–each side has the ability to improve the frustrating situation. For my sister and I–we may achieve only a truce. But at least we know we’re both responsible for our struggles. We begin with that knowledge.

Nurturing a positive workplace culture unleashes creativity and enthusiasm. Such a transformation will not be instant, but it can happen if employers seek to change not only their employees, but also themselves.

I admit it’s a terrible habit – again sitting in a restaurant listening to the next table… but the guy was so loud I could hardly not!  Three people, “Joe” and 2 friends, Joe says he’s so glad to see them again and launches into a story.  Eventually says, “but I don’t want us to just talk about my stories…” and the proceeds to dominate the conversation for half an hour of virtually nonstop monologue.  Every once in a while the others manage to slip in a word but Joe grabs back the conversation.  It seems like Joe KNOWS he dominates and has at least a vague intention of sharing the stage, but doesn’t.

So:  Is Joe self-aware?

And, if he is, what’s missing?

Sometimes people talk about emotional intelligence as “paying attention to feelings,” which is nice but inadequate.  Maybe even useless.  We do need to ACCURATELY identify and understand feelings, but I contend that to be “intelligent” we also need to use that data effectively.  When we use mathematical intelligence we accurately identify the info and use it to come up with answers that solve problems.  How about when we use EQ?

(And, how about my admission of my terrible habit?)
♥

This was sent to me from a friend and illustrates the ‘everyday-ness’ of EQ in action which, sometimes, is the best kind!

From a Six Seconds Network member (with a fabulous sense of humor, by the way!):

“My daughter and I walked into Peet’s coffee on a Saturday morning.  We had trouble approaching the front door because of the massive group of runners gathered just in front of it, and all over the sidewalk.  When we made our way in, I said something witty to the woman behind the counter, Barbara (who I know because it’s my neighborhood Peet’s) about having to serve all those people and what the lines must have looked like and why in the world anyone let the running club know that this Peet’s was open on a Saturday, etc.  The crowd had clearly already been inside; the coffee house itself was almost empty by the time we were in there.  When she handed me my coffee, she said it was “on her”.  When I looked surprised, she said (something like) it was because I had a sense of humor and could look around and appreciate what it must have been like to have been deluged with all those customers, that I could see she had worked hard..

So that’s it.  I was just being myself…sort of witty and empathetic and appreciative (on a good day, anyway), and it so blessed another person that she wanted to give me a free cup of Peet’s (which is like gold, in my book). As I reflected on the whole wonderful exchange, I felt like it was empathy in action, aided and abetted by humor, which is almost always a great combo, if delivered sensitively.  The principle seemed to be that we all need to have our reality, our hard work, our moment of affliction, our success, our effort, our “little life that we’re living” ACKNOWLEDGED from time to time.  It blessed her to have someone recognize what she had just endured, and help her laugh off the stress of it all.  Don’t we all need that?  Wouldn’t the world be better if we could all do that for each other more often, more easily?!”

Do you have EQ moments every day? How do the competencies play a role in everything we do?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what happens to our EQ competencies when we’re stressed or compromised. This came about after taking the SEI several months ago and then taking it again recently with dramatically different results. I thought about the ‘snapshot’ concept and tried to place my frame of mind the first time I took it. Upon reflection, I could think of quite a few reasons why the results might have been as surprising and low as they were the first time around, based on my state of mind and body and heart at the time. I could also imagine many reasons my results might be different the second time around (including actual growth of my EQ!)

I then had a productive debrief with another person where we did a combination of debriefing each other as well as discussing the process in general. We ended up delving into all the valuable information we can gain from seeing which parts of our EQ are actually compromised most when we find ourselves in a difficult time, either for the short or long term. What a great way to approach the tool! It completely changed my view of the first SEI I took. All of a sudden I saw this enormous opportunity to learn amazing and important things about myself from that first report.

Extrapolation? It’s important to realize all we can learn from the ‘down’ side of things if we can open our eyes and hearts and not be afraid to look deep inside.

A true story.

Rick and I are selling our home. Several weeks ago, we readied ourselves to interview several realtors. Still, we knew our tendency—to go with the first person we met. That was Bob. Nice guy. After hellos, we sat at our dining table and Bob took us through his glossy brochure. He described his brokerage, his sales strategies, and selling philosophy. Then we paged through the contracts. After an hour, we were ready for a walk-thru. As we pointed out improvements and made excuses for eccentricities, Bob said little. We moved quickly from room to room, shook hands, and Bob left.

“So, he seems ok, right?” Rick knew our busy schedules and how much we both hated this interviewing process.

I wanted to go with Bob so we could be done with interviews, but his silence felt like disinterest, or worse. How could he sell our home if he was apathetic (or appalled)?

I arranged another interview. Denise came over the next evening, while Rick was at a Cubs game.

She shook my hand and launched into the living room. Denise had worked designing new homes. I feared she would detest my unconventional art and my “unusual” design choices. But Denise wasn’t a snob. She immediately began talking about what she saw-the furniture, the colors, the architecture. She “got” my style and offered helpful suggestions to make our home more “mainstream.” We spent two hours, going from room to room.

It was now 9 pm. Denise was in heels, but she impulsively began moving my furniture. I grabbed the other end of a couch so it wouldn’t drag on the oak floors.

“Do you always do this on your first visit?” I teased.

“Only with clients who will let me.”

Denise and I had never sat down. She had never formally pitched herself or her company, but here she was, at the end of a long day, moving furniture throughout my home. Her passion for real estate was palpable.
Rick came home from the game to a newly staged living room.

While Bob seemed competent, ethical and kind, Denise’s incredible zeal closed the deal. From the minute she entered the room, it was clear we would employ her talents and enthusiasm. In all lines of work, there is no substitute for passion.

What are you passionate about? Is there a way to bring your passions to your work?

Authenticity is a rare and invaluable leadership trait — the foundation of credibility and trust, authenticity is even more critical in times of challenge and complexity. Adapted from a chapter in Bruna Martinuzzi’s new book, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow, this article provides a clear explanation of authenticity as a leadership imperative, and offers practical strategies to develop this trait.
Read the rest of this entry »

I keep noticing that the success of my daily interactions depends on my own clarity and inner honesty. If I’m upset or scared, this will come through in my nonverbals, no matter how hard I try to avoid this.

Here are two recent examples. A new roommate moved into my office space. Some of her coworkers started to visit and talk loudly in our tiny shared office as I tried to work. What to do? At home, I rehearsed carefully worded “I” statements. It was my problem; I was the one who found it difficult to work with nearby conversations. Still, I worried that my coworkers would be angry if I made any requests regarding sound.

As I sat with the issue, I realized that the context of this interaction was also key. I had barely given my roommate a chance to settle in and I was ready to ask for more quiet. As I explored my feelings, I realized that my intuitions (that the conversation could be unproductive) were warning me.

No matter how perfectly I communicated with my coworkers, I doubt it would have gone well because of the fear and anger hidden in my own psyche. After examining my feelings, I began to see that it was my inner-pessimist that was afraid and upset (“My quiet workplace-ruined forever!”). Once I admitted these deeper feelings, I recognized that my desire to jump in quickly with “assertive” communication was really an unconscious desire to control the new situation. If I tried to talk with my coworkers without understanding these feelings, they would come through. My colleagues would probably sense my fears and anger.

Emotional awareness is vital in these everyday dilemmas. If I am conscious enough of my feelings, I can admit them (“I’m feeling afraid that my quiet workplace…”). This “I” statement is more likely to work, since I’m “owning” my feelings and not unconsciously “throwing” them at my colleagues. Without emotional awareness, I’d be unable to do this. My coworkers would be right to be offended: I would have acted on my feelings without even knowing if they were justified.

After discovering my deeper reactions, I immediately felt better. I also knew that any conversation would now be much more successful. My willingness to handle the uncertainty of the situation took the pressure off myself (and my co-workers).

Postscript: within a short time, I adjusted to my terrific, new officemate. If my work required extra quiet, I used a pair of earplugs.

Another example:

My husband and I enjoy traveling and spending time with my parents. But when they recently talked about joining us on a cruise together, I felt strangely uncomfortable. Why? As I quizzed myself, I realized I was worried about my father’s fragile health. Was he really able to handle a cruise? What if something happened to him while in my care? I was worried about my Dad but also forced to admit my more selfish concerns. Would our dream vacation become mired in taking care of a sick parent?

I didn’t like seeing my own selfishness, but it was important to acknowledge. I could then make a choice. I wanted a carefree vacation but I also love my parents. I knew I’d be happy to support their choice in joining us on a cruise.

Unlike my earlier example, in this case I concluded that I needed to share my concerns with my mother. Was this really a good trip for Dad? My new clarity meant that our conversation wouldn’t be confused by my own inner contradictions. Before my awareness, my concerns may have merged with my more selfish fears. Now I knew my own inner truth: I was concerned and also ready to support their voyage, if they chose to go.

The only way for me to act with integrity is if I know the deepest dimensions of my reactions. Armed with this knowledge, I have the best chance of not sending a mixed message to others. Mixed messages cause stress for the receiving party. This is why a mixed message (I am trying hard not to be angry with you but am actually very angry with you) often results in conflict.

I first must communicate with myself before I can communicate with another.

I Want That Marshmallow Now!!
Barbara A. Fatum, M.Ed., Ed.D.

Another longitudinal study surfaced this month, reporting results that support the development of Emotional Intelligence (EI) competencies. The May issue of The New Yorker carried an article entitled, “Don’t,” which chronicled a 40-year groundbreaking study which initially videotaped six hundred and fifty-three 4- and 5-year old children struggling with self-control. The children were told to pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. A researcher then made each child an offer: either eat the treat right away or wait a few minutes while the researcher stepped out of the room. Successful waiting would yield two treats. Walter Mischel, the Stanford professor of psychology in charge of the experiment, found that only about thirty percent of the children were able to successfully delay gratification. They struggled with temptation, but found a way to resist.

Mischel and colleagues continued to track the subjects into their late thirties and found that high delayers (children who were able to resist the allure of the treat, usually a marshmallow) got higher S.A.T. scores, were more focused, got better grades, experienced more stability in their relationships and careers, and were more successful in life. Mischel came to believe that personality tests were on the wrong track. He believed that traits measured by personality tests were not broadly consistent, but varied by context. Individuals who could adapt to a changing context were the most successful. Mischel pioneered defining personality as context-specific – a measure of a person’s successful responses under differing conditions. If personality can’t be separated from context, how is it that some individuals are able to successfully adapt a variety of responses to differing contexts? What allowed high-delayers to wait in a research context like the one Mischel developed?

Mischel’s answer is Metacognition – the ability to think about thinking, weigh options, and create a plan. For the 4- and 5- year old children who were successful at waiting for the marshmallow, the plan included distraction. These children covered their eyes, hummed a tune, or told themselves a story while waiting for the researcher to return.

What is metacognition? In EI terms, it is becoming aware of options, weighing the value of those options, and realizing that choice is available in any situation. Self-awareness and Self-management are, according to the Six Seconds model of emotional intelligence, created through the first six EI competencies: developing emotional literacy, navigating emotions, applying consequential thinking, recognizing patterns, using optimism, and discovering intrinsic motivation. When we teach these competencies, we help children develop metacognitive skills which allow them to make good decisions in a variety of situations. At Six Seconds, we also believe that personality is not fixed, but fluid and plastic. When we practice metacognitive skills, we develop neural connections that increase our ability to understand our relationships and our environment, even as it changes.

For the second time this week, I am thrilled to find a longitudinal study that supports our conviction that children (and adults) need to develop EI competencies which will aid their individual, relational, and community-oriented success. (Another longitudinal study, the Harvard-based Grant study, emerged this month in The Atlantic, maintaining that social adeptness and relationships hold the key to both healthy aging and success and happiness in life.)

Walter Mischel is continuing his studies with schools in Pennsylvania, modeling behavior that teaches self-control. I wonder if he hasn’t missed the real point. Self-control develops from recognizing patterns, weighing consequences and using emotional data to make good choices. Intrinsic motivation is developed through the type of discussions generated by a program like Self-Science, which teaches young children to become aware of their emotions and to navigate them as they study themselves. These EI competencies are the real precursors to self-efficacy and self-control. As my dissertation research suggested, children who understand themselves develop intrinsic motivation which they are able to apply through changing outside circumstances. Shouldn’t we be teaching children to study themselves to develop EI competencies, rather that modeling behavior and rewarding its performance?

What Makes Us Happy
Barbara Fatum, M.Ed., Ed.D.

It’s an age-old question; “what makes us happy?” Is it true love? Is it fulfillment in our careers? Is it status, respect, intelligence, money, family, friends, health, or any combination of these factors? Well, we have an amazing source to turn to for some answers to this question. For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930’s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. The architect responsible for continuing the study, Dr. George Vaillant, has dedicated his career since 1967 to following the men of the Grant study. (Arlie Bock, a physician who took over the health services at Harvard in the 1930’s, conceived the project with his patron, department-store magnate W.T. Grant.) Dr. Vaillant has said, “To be able to study lives in such depth, over so many decades….it was like looking through the Mount Palomar telescope.”

Dr. Vaillant identified with the longitudinal method of research, which tracks relatively small samples over long periods of time, in 1961, while a psychiatric resident at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. Dr. Vaillant points out that longitudinal studies, like wine, improve with age. As the Grant study men entered middle age (in the 1960”s) many achieved wonderful success. Four members of the sample ran for the U.S. Senate, one served in a presidential Cabinet, and one was president. There was also a best-selling novelist. But there were also darker stories. By age 50, almost a third of the men had at one time or another met Dr. Vaillant’s criteria for mental illness. Although the Grant study men remain anonymous, some have revealed themselves. Ben Bradlee, the long-time editor of The Washington Post and John F. Kennedy both revealed themselves as part of the study. (President Kennedy’s records have been withdrawn from the study office and sealed until 2040).

Dr. Vaillant’s central question in the analysis of the Grant men has not been how much or how little trouble the men met, but rather precisely how-and to what effect- they responded to that trouble. Calling these responses “adaptations,” or defense mechanisms in the traditional psychoanalytic tradition, Dr. Vaillant feels that adaptations shape or distort a person’s reality. There are four categories of adaptations from worst to best. The unhealthiest adaptations are “psychotic” adaptations – like paranoia, hallucination, or megalomania. The healthiest or “mature” adaptations include:

altruism (commitment to others’ wellbeing – i.e. empathy)
humor (acquired through knowing yourself)
anticipation (creating a sense of positive outcome – ie optimism)
suppression (a conscious decision to postpone an impulse or decision, to be
addressed in good time – ie consequential thinking)
sublimation (finding outlets and expressions for feelings that promote growth and
good decisions – ie, pursuing a noble goal)

Interviews, physicals, assessments with standardized instruments, and extensive physiological measurements (brain scans, heart scans etc.) have been the basis for analysis of the men’s lives. The data is rich, in qualitative style, and empirical, in the tradition of 1960’s psychological assessment. After following the study for a quarter of a century, Dr. Vaillant identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically: employing positive adaptation, education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Dr. Vaillant has said that the major difficulty in healthy aging is alcoholism, which he termed “the horse, not the cart, of pathology.” The key to happiness, according to Dr. Vaillant? “It is social aptitude, not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” When asked what he had learned from his 40 year association following the Grant study men, Dr. Vaillant replied, “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

When I finished reading the article describing this study in The Atlantic recently, I was incredibly excited, struck by how much the Grant study validates the importance of Emotional Intelligence (EI). The healthiest “adaptations” are EI competencies that are a core part of the programs that we teach. Altruism is another word for Empathy; Humor is acquired through knowing yourself, being able to step back from a situation, and choosing how to respond; anticipation is a combination of understanding patterns and consequences; suppression is taking six seconds to allow emotions and cognitions to connect; and sublimation is giving yourself to others in a socially acceptable, selfless and noble manner. Dr. Vaillant’s conclusions are echoed by the work and teachings of leaders of the emotional intelligence and social-emotional learning movement: Daniel Goleman, Peter Salovey, John Mayer, Martin Seligman, Maurice Elias, the Dalai Lama, Sam Goldstein, Edward Hallowell, Roger Weissberg, Patricia Wolfe, Karen Stone McCown, Anabel Jensen, Marsha Rideout, and Josh Freedman.

We are very privileged to have the research from the Grant study to draw on. The fact that it supports the main EI precepts that we teach is incredible validation. We need to shout this to the world!!

More about the Atlantic Article is in Tessy’s EQ Planet post below