Presentation for Monadnock SHRM

Raise your hand if:

- you'd like to generally be more healthy
- you'd like to experience less anxiety
- you'd like more romance in your lives
- if you think you are in the wrong presentation

Good Morning, my name is Martha Mendoza and, yes, you are in the right place: welcome to Using Emotional Intelligence to Create Stronger Connections, and, yes, I will show you how health, anxiety and romance relate to EQ.

Here's my premise: I believe the stronger the connection -- to yourself, your boss, co-worker, your neighbor, or to a wider audience like your workforce, management, customers, even competition -- I believe the stronger the connection, the stronger the influence.

Leaders connect. Leaders connect often. Leaders connect strongly.

Using your emotional intelligence skills you can be a leader that connects strongly.

During our time together I'd like to introduce you to Emotional Intelligence: what it is, including what high-eq characteristics look like in individuals and inside organizations. I'll briefly discuss the history of EQ and we'll do a couple of interactive exercises to help us begin applying right away the foundational skill of identifying emotions. I'll tell you about the neuroscience of leadership and point you to some assessments. I'll wrap up by inviting each of you to launch an EQ discovery endeavor of your own or your company's.

Emotional intelligence is an intelligence we all have and can develop within ourselves and within our organizations. In it's most basic form, it's people intelligence......social intelligence........interpersonal intelligence, to borrow from Gardner's famous list of the seven intelligences.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. He asserts that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, he proposes seven different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are (slide 1):

- Linguistic intelligence (word smart -- writers, poets)

- Math intelligence (number/reasoning smart - engineers, scientists)

- Spatial intelligence (picture smart - architects, designers)

- Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (body smart - athletes, dancers)

- Musical intelligence (music smart -- composers, musicians)

- Interpersonal intelligence (people smart -- salesperson, teachers)

- Intrapersonal intelligence (self smart)

If you are an educator and have applied this, you've discovered there are seven pathways to learning.

What this means for organizations is that knowledge workers, leaders, managers must be equipped to use at least seven relatively autonomous intellectual capacities to approach problems and create products. We can actively create environments where we tap into these intelligences for use and practice. In other words, Bobby Fischer might inherently have had the potential to be a great chess player, but if he had lived in a culture without chess, that potential would never have been manifested, let alone actualized.

What's possible if we actively created environments ripe for emotional intelligence?

Without the right environment, without the right opportunity to use and practice, we confront disharmony, stress, anxiety.

That's conflict.

So my premise is: Connection not Conflict.......in our time together I'd like to help you -- to borrow from one of today's hottest global issues -- I'd like to help you reduce your conflict footprint.

Now, we only have a little more than an hour together, so I have put this presentation on my website. In encourage you to refer to that later, as it also contains links to articles or books or resources that I might mention as well as ideas for further study.

So, no need for you to scribble down my slides. Instead, if you are going to take notes of any kind, I'd invite you to write down the questions that bubble up for you and take note of those places where you become curious .... or concerned. In other words, write down what tickles your brain. (If you are reading this, leave them as comments to this post.)

HISTORY

Let's begin by understanding the trend of EQ and where it came from. Many are inclined to think it's a relatively new field, even a fad.

And for good reason. The phrase "emotional intelligence" was first coined by John Mayer and Peter Salovey, only recently, in a 1990 paper.

~~~> for further study: Jack Mayer's website and Peter Salovey's website

And it was only in 1995 that Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who was editor of the New York Times Science section, wrote the book that put EQ into the mainstream. That book was "Emotional Intelligence".

~~~> for further study: Goleman's book, Goleman's blog

But while these two facts may appear to be the extent of the history, actually the study of emotions goes back. Way back.

Two thousand years ago, Aristotle, was intrigued not only with man's ability to reason, but was also intrigued with emotions as they applied to ethic. He came up with a list of emotion words and contemplated their use and usefulness. For example, he wrote: "Anyone can be angry, That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way, this is not easy."

Aristotle believed emotions were an integral part of life and he believed that the heart was where emotions and sensations lived. Curiously, he didn't consider them brain functions. In fact, he considered the brain to be more like a temperature regulating system for the body than the seat of emotions.

Of course, he was wrong about that as you'll soon learn.

~~~> for further study: Aristotle's List of Emotions

Five hundred years ago, a popular theory taught in European universities was physiognomy. Physiognomists were also intrigued with what the face reveals. They believed there were correlations between facial features and character traits.

For example, if you were to take your face and cut it in half, you'd see differences in each side. The right side is about what you're like in public (as in work, including politics). The left side reveals what you're like in private (with family members, close friends).

~~~> for further study: Wikipedia info on Physiognomy, ActiveEQ

Let's try an experiment on this old idea. Take the mirror on that's on your table and with a piece of paper, hide half your face. Do you see differences?

If for example, eyebrows, eye, nose tip, mouth all are higher on the right side, it might means you value your public image over your private identity.

Is your nose right-angled? It might mean you crave fame and power.

Of course, they were wrong about that. Today, we know physiognomy is a pseudo-science.

See? Studying the face IS interesting.

It's actually what we are hard-wired to do.

~~~> for further study: Michael Shermer's TED talk on reading faces

If you found that amusing, then I'm sure you'll like this next story.

Let's fast forward to about 125 years ago. At that time let me tell you a story about a great scientist got home and became very intrigued when he noticed what his dog did when he grabbed the leash for a walk. His tail wagged, he seemed to smile, he looked happy. Intrigued, the scientist put the leash back in its place and the dog stopped wagging his tail, laid down with put his head on his paws. He looked sad. He observed and studied his toddler baby and noticed similar expressions. Being a great scientist, he asked what's going on? Why do expressions of an emotion occur? This great scientist was Charles Darwin, and he wrote "The expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" in 1872, 13 years after origin of the species.

In it he argued that emotions had a universality. In other words, he argued that emotions were universal regardless of sex, age, culture, etc. He theorized that emotions and their expressions were used and identified by anyone. This was just as radical as his notion that we descended from apes. That we were hard-wried to emote was just as revolutionary as his theory of the origin of the species.

And it was not just for religious reasons this notion was largely ignored. The prevailing scientific thought among scientists that emotions were behaviors and behaviors were culturally created.

But Darwin was emphatic that emotions in man and animals were identifiable and universal. In his book, he'll show pictures of an angry dog and then an angry person, and you'll see the same curled lips and exposed teeth.

~~~> for further study: Darwin's book (note Ekman's preface)

It was not until the late 50's, when a behaviorist, of all things, named Paul Ekman reignited the issue of emotions. He suspected Darwin had been wrong. Eckman did not believe that emotional expressions were universal. So he went off to prove this in a series of studies all over the world. To his great surprise, his studies showed that emotional expressions DO show universality.

Further he concluded that emotional expressions occur without choice. We can't supress emotional expressions. And it's true, that some people are great at poker faces, Ekman's studies showed that there is always "leakage" or "micro-expressions". The face never lies.

Ekman also took his studies further. He studied what and how emotional expressions communicate. Just like Aristotle and Darwin before him, he identified a list of seven core emotions: sad, mad, glad, afraid, disgust, contempt and surprise. Each, he discovered, had
1. facial expressions we all share universally
2. contained a message we all interpret universally
3. are accompanied by universal physiological changes

For example, let's take anger. How does anger show on the face? What is its message? And, what are the physiological changes we all experience.

The first facial indicator of anger is thin lips. On a more extreme end, people show their teeth in anger, clench their fists, flare their noses. The message is "get out of my way", "this is unfair". Just as in fear, the blood rushes away from brain and rushes to major muscle groups -- in case you really do have to fight or run. This, of course, doesn't aid us when we get angry with our nosy mother in law or clueless neighbor or micro manager.

We are hard-wired. His work has made him the leading expert on telling lies, helping US customs, immigration, law enforcement, even homeland security to detect liars.

~~~> for further study: article on Ekman's work, Ekman's website, Telling Lies, Emotions Revealed

In particular, Jeff Hawkins, pioneer of the palm handheld device-turned brain scientist, shows how the brain scans the face. Look at the intensity of the way we look at eyes.

He shows how the eye makes saccades across a human face. About three times a second your eyes make a quick movement, called a saccade, and a stop, called a fixation.

Look at the fixation on the eyes.

~~~> for further study: Hawkins' book On Intelligence, Hawkins' presentation at TED

Group practice identifying emotions (panicked, playful, upset)

~~~> for further study: Take the entire reading eyes test here

That brings us to today. There's meaning in emotion, and with the right skill set we can use our analytical skill to make sense of this data bank called emotions.

This brings us to our next topic which is the neuroscience of emotions.

NEUROSCIENCE

So, we've got Ekman reading faces. Then, enter stage right, neurologists who want to read brains.

A neurologist by the name of Antonio Damasio, proved without a doubt that emotions assist in decision making. Far from interfering with rationality, the absence of emotion and feeling can BREAK DOWN rationality and make wise decision making almost impossible. He proved that emotions assist us in making better decisions.

Didn't we know this intuitively?

Antonio Damasio proved this neurologically. He showed the connection between the limbic system -- the old brain -- the reptilian brain -- with the new brain -- the cortex -- the reasoning part of the brain.

How was he able to prove this?

You see, when Damasio did his work, it was the early 90's. This was a fascinating time for neuroscience. In fact, the 90's became known as the decade of the brain. During this time fantastic progress in techniques for obtaining functional images of the brain were invented. Previously, we only had mri's -- static images of the brain. But fmri, functional mri, gives us color images that reveal precisely what brain structures are activated and deactivated when certain emotions or behaviors occur in human beings.

~~~> for further study: Damasio on video

Today there are leagues of scientist discovering more and more about our brain and how it processes emotions.

So, what have they discovered so far?

How's this for starters?

They've discovered:

1. That the brain smiles. Damasio discovered that the neural machinery that controls the face in a "true" smile is different from the machinery for a voluntary smile. The true smile is controlled in the limbic system. On the face, Darwin and Ekman identified a real smile and a fake smile in terms of muscles....a real smile lifts the cheeks. Remember the implications of facial expressions in telling lies. Could we have a future where lie detector systems evolve to include fmri.

2. Where happiness lives. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin discovered that people with negative temperaments displayed a pattern of activity in the regions of their right prefrontal cortex. Those with more positive temperaments, it occurred in the left prefrontal cortex instead. When he measured a Tibetan monk, this subject was farther to the left of anyone ever tested.

Maybe we should all start sleeping on our left side. Or better yet, learn to meditate. The study also focused on whether meditation practice made a difference, and it did.

So this could also be where health lives and reduced anxiety can be experienced. The same study gave some of the sample population a flu shot at the same time they were learning to practice meditation. They showed a healthier immune response to the flue shot.

The mind body connection is here. Positive thoughts leads to positive feelings which lead to increased health.

One of the premier case studies for EQ in business came from American Express. Their financial advisors demonstrated a 60%-400% improvement in productivity over their peers which led to an average increase in sales of 25%. The same program also showed marked decreases in stress and improvement in life satisfaction.

3. Where empathy lives. They live in something called mirror neurons.

Forgive me while I get totally passionate about this concept. You see, I am a student of empathy, having even done my graduate thesis on empathy in sales, and I devour everything I can on empathy. And empathy is at the core of emotional intelligence. So this is incredible to me.

Want to see your mirror neurons at work? (lemon exercise)

This concept of locating empathy is so critical, let's watch a video from 2005 which aired on PBS

Fascinating.

And the best news of all is you can increase your empathy skills.

In fact, Tufts University, just a handful of years ago, was the first to implement empathy training for their medical students in order to achieve better medical outcomes. And in order to reduce malpractice lawsuits.

So, the brain is fascinating. The more we know about it, the more we know about ourselves.

~~~> for further study: Executive Summary of National Geographic's "The Mind is what the Brain Does"

~~~> for further study: The TED Conference Presentations on the mind and brain, Strategy + Business article on "The Neuroscience of Leadership"

I heart the brain.

DEFINITIONS / EQ MODELS

Which brings us to defining emotional intelligence.

What is Emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence has come to mean many things to many different people. For some people it is about being "nice". Others see emotional intelligence as an oxymoron: they can't believe that emotions can be intelligent. Or still others think that EQ is about being in some way over emotional, or about wearing your heart on your sleeve.

But it's none of those things.

Quite simply, emotional intelligence is

Intelligently thinking about emotions.

I like to define EQ as the acceptance that emotions are data. As data, they must be looked at with the same vigor and analysis as other data. EQ is tapping into your analytical powers to help you make sense of emotion -- "there's meaning in that thar data!"

That's really all there is to EQ.

I could talk about assessments, but really they are boring.

Instead, please visit my website and you'll get links to some popular assessments.

I'm certified to deliver the MSCEIT assessment. But really, I'm not an assessment pusher.

I advocate simply thinking intelligently about emotions.

~~~> MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test
~~~>ECI (the Hay group)
~~~>BarOn EQi (Dr. Reuven Bar-On)
~~~>Emotional intelligence Appraisal
~~~>6 seconds

HIGH EQ INDIVIDUALS & HIGH EQ ORGANIZATIONS

So, now let's put all this together to observe the behaviors exhibited by hi-eq individuals and organizations.

Research shows that hi-eq workers/people:

- They are more romantic. In tests with over seven thousand people in the United States and eighteen other countries, the benefits of being able to read feelings from nonverbal cues -- a foundational EQ ability -- included being better adjusted emotionally, more popular, more outgoing, and—perhaps not surprisingly—more sensitive. In general, women are better than men at this kind of empathy. And people whose performance improved over the course of the forty-five-minute test—a sign that they have a talent for picking up empathy skills—also had better relationships with the opposite sex. Empathy, it should be no surprise to learn, helps with romantic life.

- Take time to reflect on daily events.

- Stay aware of their tendencies, their weaknesses and their strengths.

- Can express weaknesses to others

- Make a consistent and direct effort to cultivate relationships. In fact, in one study with college students it showed that the ability to interact well with others and having a good group of friends, meant students were more likely to remain in education, whereas those with emotional difficulties tended to drop out.

- Test themselves more, despite the risk

- Are more inclined to accept criticism

- Can tell if people are lying

- Tends to be somewhat higher in verbal, social and other intelligences

- Tends to be more open and agreeable than others

- Is less apt to engage in problem behaviors and avoids self-destructive, negative behaviors such as smoking, excessive drinking, drug abuse, or violent episodes with others

- More likely to have possessions of sentimental attachments around the home

- May be more adept at describing motivations goals, aims and missions

- May have better cognitive capacities. For example, depression interferes with memory and concentration. Psychological tests show feelings of rejection can dramatically reduce IQ by about 25%. Rejection increases feelings of aggressiveness and reduced self-control. It is this quality of self-control, rather than being impulsive, which is regarded as necessary to perform well in IQ tests. So a low emotional intelligence may limit intellectual performance.

- Set priorities

- Orient positively toward future endeavors

- Accept the concept of making incremental improvements

- Repair negative moods before they spiral down

- Lean into discomfort -- or what I call being comfortable being uncomfortable

- They are less bored -- new research shows that people who are inept at understanding their feelings and those who become sucked in and distracted by their moods are more easily bored.

- Are happier and healthier. Recall the study where people in positive mental states exhibited higher immune systems. When the mind is flooded with tension or distress, it signals the body to decrease the energy it expends to fight disease.

Please pause to imagine these abilities in your environments. Imagine these abilities in your workforce, in individual knowledge workers, in leaders of teams, departments, process improvement initiatives, whole companies. How about in your 14-year old daughter starting to get into the social scene, or 23-year old son who just graduated college. How about our own individual roles as wives, husbands, coaches, volunteers, trainers and managers?

Let's examine what hi-eq organizations look like. These organizations

- Routinely achieve high quality decisions

- Have open information flow, i.e., have rapid and unrestricted access to information

- Have a continuous learning culture

- Achieve objectives more through people and less through politics.

- Have a strong network of connection and support between its members. This accelerates learning, enabling the team's reactions to be rapid and responsive to challenges.

- Look after their own: Individuals are not left to fend for themselves, and staff retention is high because people feel a strong sense of belonging.

- Are well connected with other teams and with corporate objectives. Like a healthy organ in the body, it knows what its function is and serves the greater good through rough times and smooth.

- Replenish themselves, growing its members, and is constantly learning to better adapt to its environment.

- Display a strong sense of meaningful participation, which the members are all nourished by.

Emotionally intelligent organizations continuously work on creating positive emotional climates and working practices, and encourage leadership styles that make their people want to bring the whole of their creativity and enthusiasm to work, as opposed to just showing up.

Can you think of some high-eq organizations?

How about some low-eq organizations?

~~~> for further study: EQ in teams, Teaching an Anthill to Fetch: Developing Collaborative Intelligence @ Work

Let's take a closer look at low-eq organizations.

What becomes readily apparent is that the higher you progress up the corporate ladder, the more difference emotional intelligence makes - because results at higher levels are determined not solely by technical ability but increasingly by how well you can unlock the potential of teams.

Research shows that middle managers stand out with the highest emotional intelligence scores in the workforce. But up beyond middle management, there is a steep downward trend in emotional intelligence scores. In low-eq organizations, CEO's, on average, have the lowest emotional intelligence scores.

~~~> for further study: TalentSmart Whitepaper

An emotional intelligence training plan really does work in individuals and in organizations.

There are hi-eq organizations with hi-eq CEO's. HP comes to mind. Bill Hewett's and David Packard's book "HP Way" is all about people.

~~~> for further study: The HP Way

So, to assess your organization, ask that tough question. As you go up the management hierarchy, does EQ increase? Here is your opportunity to allow EQ to have the most impact.

It's time for a reflection exercise. Remember, hi-eq people take time to reflect.

Take a few moments to reflect on what are some emotional problems your organization faces?

For example:

- a boss that everyone is scared of, who consequently only hears about bad news when it's too late

- resistance to change, based on fear

- high staff turnover

- a dysfunctional team, where no-one is addressing the people problems

- a negative emotional climate, where people come to work because they have to, not because they want to

- people who are scared to take the initiative in case they make a mistake

Take some notes.

And because hi-eq people share weaknesses they've become self-aware of, please turn to someone nearby and share this weakness with them. Take two minutes to share this obstacle, and then switch roles and have your friend share their weakness.

Let's Apply.

How do we improve our emotional intelligence. It's a lot like improving math intelligence -- we don't teach math intelligence, we teach algebra, long division. In much the same way, we don't emotional intelligence we teach how to identify emotions, how to communicate emotionally, for example.

So let's spend some time helping increase our skill of identifying emotions.

Emotions are primarily signals -- signals about people, social situations, social environments, interactions and relationships.

Remember, it's a foundational skill, one that helps you access a rich databank, and as mentioned before, can even help relieve boredom.

First, let's get our brain engaged again

- list of weapons

- list of emotions

- pair up and combine

- list on flip

- tell story

The takeaway -- what you want to start doing starting today is accessing this large emotional vocabulary we have to accurately identify yours and others emotions. Articulate emotions, and articulate often. This databank is rich with meaning and the more strongly you connect to this databank, the more influence you will have.

This is how leaders connect. They connect to the universal world of emotions. Leaders connect often, leaders connect strongly.

IN CONCLUSION:

The next frontier:

1. NICE systems

2. Emotional web (blogging, avatars)

3. Ending exercise

Here's a final exercise that helps you begin to apply EQ your org, or to yourself, or both if you want the extra challenge

Think about yourself or your organization, and a particular area you want to influence.....say influence a habit, or influence a board, or influence a neighbor, or influence a market.......

Now answer:

- what do you WANT to feel about it?

Then answer:

- what are you feeling about it now?

Here's your gap. And by studying that gap, it could create a plan or road map to training, hiring, marketing or recruiting initiatives.

Thanks for your time. I've tried very hard to create a strong connection to what you know and feel about EQ.

I hope I have succeeded.