Emotional Intelligence is Key to Getting Things Done
(Originally Created by Brendan Alan Barrett of StartInPhx.com)
In this series, Don’t Let Adversity Derail Your Work, 7 Things to Remember That Will Keep Your Work on Track, we’ve discussed how negotiation, personal responsibility, and owning up to the fact that your colleagues don’t see the world as you do can be the difference between doing great work and falling short of career goals.
Simply knowing that the people you work beside don’t approach their day with the same doer’s perspective as you doesn’t magically make it easier to do great work. With this knowledge you become responsible for navigating the emotional mine field that is working with people who think differently than you.
In my last post for this series I mentioned that your colleagues will often present you with barriers to the things you hope to achieve. I also discussed that some of those barriers are only the tip of the iceberg, that you’ll have to work to uncover the root to what is obstructing your success.
Seldom are the colleagues with limiting outlooks or beliefs eager to share the full story of why they’ve decided something can’t be done. For this reason it becomes your responsibility to unearth the full story, because only with all the facts can will you have the foresight to overcome the supposed roadblock.
A major theme in Joe Navarro’s book, Louder Than Words, is that in most cases people aren’t trying to lie to you and that most people aren’t being malicious when they omit important details. Their withholding of information is more likely to be the result of their own discomfort with telling you the whole story.
It only takes a little bit of what Navarro calls non-verbal intelligence – Daniel Goldman might consider it emotional intelligence – to clue into the discomfort that people have when they tell you something other than the whole truth.
Navarro’s Louder Than Words is a great introduction to what some of the clues are. Being able to identify discomfort is important because it is the signs of discomfort that will tell you there is more to a story; more facts that you can use in overcoming an obstacle to your goal.
It could be in their tone of voice, it could be the way they shift in their chair, or the way they hold their hands that lets you know that the reality of the situation has more depth.
Even if the person is purposely keeping information from you, as most are in the antidotes Navarro shares in Louder Than Words, building rapport and gently circling the conversation back to topics that have caused someone to feel uneasy is how he was able to get the full story from some of the FBI’s most wanted criminals.
Chances are your work doesn’t require you to interrogate criminals trying to maintain their innocents. It’s much more likely that the people who are placing limits on the things you are trying to accomplish aren’t telling you the full truth because they don’t want to look incompetent.
If you’re a team leader or manager learning not to accept anything but the desired outcome can help you accomplish a lot. It’s important however, that you inquire about what others consider to be roadblocks in a way that doesn’t cause them to become defensive; in an emotionally intelligent manner.
Navarro’s method of circling back to topics in conversation is meant to be indirect. In a working environment this might include asking questions of team members that help you both to better understand the circumstance and its possible solutions.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brendan Alan Barrett, writes about professional development at www.StartInPhx.com, a blog dedicated to the mission of career success without student-debt. Brendan is also the author of READ WRITE DO Professional Development and Career Success Playbook, a book written for people who want to jump start the career they’ve wanted for way too long.
