Emotional Intelligence

Happy Workplaces Are Good For Business

In management circles, it’s generally believed and accepted that a positive environment in the workplace leads to higher productivity, minimal employee turnovers and over-all better healthy outcomes. On the other side of the coin, a workplace that is hostile and insensitive, reeking with anxiety and negativity usually produces poor job performance, low creativity and little innovation. A fairly recent Harvard research study has shown that when leaders and top honchos are humble, inclusive and frequently encourage their staff to voice out their feelings or seek help, employees are generally happier and become more engaged. An oppressive corporate culture over time, simply goes against achieving positive results. What You Can Do If you’re one of the team leaders or senior managers of your company, here are three tried and tested rules that will help bring out honest and constructive feedback, important to managing your people, and ultimately, your company better. When you want to correct your employees, do so in a positive context. You may even want to criticize or confront your subordinates. That’s okay, but give out as many as three or four positive statements for every negative one you make. This makes a lot of sense. Our brains tend to focus more on negative feedbacks than on the positive feedbacks. So, when you say a lot more that is encouraging, supportive and appreciative, these will sort of neutralize the brain’s partiality to negativity and will ergo, lead to a higher degree of employee engagement. Research studies say that where there is positive communication, you’re likely to see the best results; good engagement and high morale. Center your communication on the strengths of your colleagues and employees and their unique contributions. It has almost become a habit for us to harp on what’s wrong with our employees. However, by focusing on their weaknesses alone we may just inadvertently be creating competence. By centering on their strengths, we are creating excellence. Be as specific and detailed about your positive feedbacks as you are about the negative ones. Sometimes, we’re guilty of simply glossing on their strengths much like a ship that passes in the night and yet we delve on their weaknesses like the 4th of July fireworks. Put a lot of emphasis on teamwork and commonalities. When talking about the negative incident, be objective. Try to describe the problem in detail rather than evaluating it, and identify the specific consequences that resulted and your personal feelings that came with it without placing blame. Try to stay away from arguing who’s right or who’s at fault. Instead suggest acceptable, reasonable and fair alternatives in correcting the situation. Given an understanding of the foregoing, it won’t hurt to do an honest and candid self-critique to objectively find out where your corporate culture stands. If you feel it could do with some improvements, the guidelines above could pretty well serve as starting points for your top managers and team leaders.

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Are you a genuine person? let’s have a look at the behaviours….

6 Behavioral Patterns That Say You’re A Genuine Person Most research studies have shown Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to be essential to job performance. In tests conducted among hundreds of thousands of people, it explains fifty eight percent (58%) of success in various types of jobs. Reports have it that ninety percent (90%) of top business leaders have high EQ and are known to make, on average, an estimated twenty nine thousand dollars ($29,000) more than people with low EQ. The Lowdown On Emotional Intelligence It’s a given truth. Emotional Intelligence is a force you can steer towards one direction and achieve great results. There’s just one catch to it. It doesn’t work if you’re not genuine. That’s because people don’t usually accept displays of Emotional Intelligence at face value. They’re skeptical. They don’t just want to see it. They’d like to know it’s real, sincere and honest and is not being used to manipulate things and people. This is a fact found in most surveys which say that leaders who are sincere are a lot more effective in motivating people. They inspire trust and respect with what they do rather than with what they say. In other words these genuine leaders walk their talk. Here are 6 habits that’ll help you determine if you’re one of the genuine people. Genuine people don’t go out of their way to please others. They are who they are. What you see is what you get. They know not everybody will like them neither will everybody dislike them but they’re OK with that. They’re not going to let that stand in the way of doing the right thing. They won’t hesitate to take unpopular positions or make unpopular decisions if that’s what situations demand. Genuine people don’t pre-judge. They keep an open mind which most people find interesting because they don’t make a judgment on people or form an opinion before they get to know them first hand. At the workplace, a person’s open-mindedness is important, as it makes him/her approachable allowing for access to new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. Genuine people treat everybody with respect. Whether you’re a big client or a busboy in some fast food restaurant expect genuine people to treat you fair and square . They believe they’re no better than anybody else. Genuine people aren’t boastful or swell-headed. They are not insecure or in panic that if they don’t talk about the great things they’ve done, no one will notice. No. these genuine guys are confident about their accomplishments and know the merits of what they’ve done will stand on its own. Genuine people aren’t materialistic. For them, it’s not about fat checkbooks or fancy, glittering jewels or fine dining in posh restaurants. Not that they have anything against those things. They just don’t need them to feel happy. It’s from within that their joy comes. Family, friends and a sense of purpose … they’re what makes their lives full and rich. Genuine people share. They don’t hold back anything from you … not knowledge, not resources. They’re not afraid you’ll outshine or outperform them when they give you access to what they know and whom they know. They’d want you to do well. They believe your success is theirs as well. Putting it all together, you’d realise genuine people are sure enough about themselves and are firmly grounded in reality. They’re not figuring out somebody’s own agenda or even worrying about their own. They know who they are. If you still are in doubt as to who you are, go through these six behavioral patterns. Get them all right and I’d say … “Welcome to the Club!”

Are you a genuine person? let’s have a look at the behaviours…. Read More »

Watch your vocabulary and improve your emotional intelligence…

Pull “Interesting” Out Of Your Everyday Vocabulary And Improve Your Emotional Intelligence  You get into a conversation with co-workers in the office and talk about how hard it was trying to fit the small budget into a critical project. Somebody says, “That’s interesting.” and stops right there, not explaining why he finds the subject interesting. Somebody else comments that the project allotment being small may have had to do with the new finance guy who had no clue of the team’s real needs. Again, somebody comes up with “I find that interesting.” What The Heck, Does “INTERESTING” Mean? “I thought the convention was rather interesting.” … “I’m interested in reading that new book on China.” When used in conversations, “interesting” comes across as something you say when you don’t want to say anything, but feel you have to, for fear of being perceived as unsociable or indifferent. Sometimes you tend to use “interesting” when you don’t know how to express your thoughts verbally, or when you simply don’t want to entertain your true feelings deep inside. In other words when you use “interesting” in formal or informal talks and not expound on why you find such subject or item interesting … it means nothing! So, doesn’t it make sense to delete the word from your vocabulary? Go for honesty instead. It’s a whole lot more productive because it’ll show you listened to somebody and took the time to think through what was said so you can give a sensible, useful response or comment. It’s when you do this that you get more in tune with your emotions that should lead to more productive, relevant interactions. In the process you just might learn more about yourself and other people around you. You shall have then raised the level of your emotional intelligence. Does This Mean You Can’t Use “Interesting” In Future Interactions? Of course you can! But use it for the right reasons and within the correct context. In most cases “interesting” doesn’t contribute anything to a conversation. In fact, it would appear that the person who says it, doesn’t want to get involved in whatever is being talked about. It’s a cop-out, nothing abrasive .. nothing encouraging and nothing too profound either. It’s just a neutral cop-out. “Interesting” very rarely means that a person or a thing or a situation is exactly and truly interesting. So the next time the word crops up in your head and you inadvertently use it, be conscious. Break down what you mean by it. Does it mean it’s something new to you or something that never entered your mind? Do you believe it’s a good idea but today may not be the right time? Do you sincerely think it’s a terrific concept but not everybody will buy into it? Then, express these things! Process your thoughts. Try to figure out what’s really in your mind before saying it out loud. You’d be amazed at how many better, more appropriate and honest words and phrases are available out there. Find them and improve your EQ.

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Are You Working In The Happiest Or Unhappiest Industry?

Is it in software engineering or the exciting film-producing industry that have the professions with the happiest workers? As it turned out, a recent large survey, (borne out by a CareerBliss tally of 9,800 company reviews, on a scale of one to five) says both these industries are regarded to have jobs that make people pretty satisfied and happy. In the order of their rankings the top five industries perceived to have the happiest employees are: The software publishing industry. It got the top score particularly on the evaluated subject of “people you work with.” This makes a lot of sense. Software developers are generally smart, very tech savvy while being imaginative at the same time. The electronic broadcast media industry (Radio and TV). With a rating of 3.9, bosses and colleagues who work in this industry are well-liked and respected. The corporate culture is well-appreciated as is the job itself, which is generally regarded as rewarding. The Educational services. To find this in the top 5 industries with the happiest workers is heartening. It means those teachers and professors we teasingly describe as being grouchy and crabby are actually happy teaching kids and teens and guiding them towards the right career direction. These are the men and women who devote their lives to teaching History and algebra and loving it because they find it meaningful. They’re intelligent and caring. They want nothing more than to make a positive impact on their students’ lives. Management of corporations and business outfits. For those no-nonsense guys, who are pretty much into turning organizations into lean and mean, effective machines and making great profits at the end of each year, it is in this field that they’d be in their elements. It is here they can have an extremely fulfilling, satisfying career. Motion picture and video producing industries. Evaluated pretty much like the top-rated industries, people who work here are happiest because they like their bosses. They like their peers. They like the way they work. Naturally, working in this industry can be an everyday thrill as chances are, you’d bump into Angelina Jolie or Steven Spielberg. The rush you’d get writing a screenplay that gets approved and produced, or designing costumes of 15th century Spain and getting nominated in the Oscars can be mindboggling. And the industries or services where you’ve got some of the unhappiest people? At the bottom of the list are 1) Administrative and Support 2) Waste Management and, 3) Remediation services. This is where you’ll find everyday secretaries and garbage collectors. These, by and large are pretty awful jobs where you get snapped at a lot, blamed for the mistakes of other people while going through days of tedious tasks as answering phone calls and typing letters. Growth opportunities? It’s a dead end. The data that’s been made available here may help give you an idea on where you might want to direct your career. The important thing to remember is being true to yourself particularly in what will make you happy as you go about looking or assessing your current job. My happiness at work job is not listed there neither!!

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New Financial Year? Define or Redefine your goals

Help Your Employees Set And Define Better Goals It oftentimes happens that with the start of a calendar new year or a fiscal year among business companies, employers set up their employees to develop and achieve goals. Left to their own devices, these guys could pretty well be writing down traditional new year’s resolutions as in reducing weight or, they may simply go through the motion of listing down objectives as nonchalantly as doing the grocery list. Of course, it’s got to be a little more serious than that. Reason enough why employers should play a role in their staff’s goal setting. Here are several ways you (as a business owner or entrepreneur with employees) can help your guys set better goals: Reiterate the company’s mission. It’s funny. In a survey of three thousand US workers, only about four in ten know what their organization stands for and what makes their brand different from the rest. You have got to help employees better understand the over-all mission . Redefining this and sharing the company-wide goals will get your guys working towards goals that will run parallel to your company’s. Make the employee goal-setting a two-way affair. You can’t let this be the employee’s sole responsibility. You, as a manager have got to jump in and make it a collaborative process. Why? Because it’ll help to get those objectives more aligned with your company’s mission. Ensure you help make those goals as specific as possible as to include the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s and why’s of it. And, use concrete numbers so you can quantify and measure the results in realistic terms. Set your employees up for success. Work out goals that are within reach or, you may want to break down long-term goals and set up timelines for what has to be done and when. This will make short-term, smaller goals more achievable which should provide the motivation to push on. Map out an achievement plan. Don’t stop at simply setting and defining goals with your employees. A goal achievement plan is essential as well. This is where you need to have control points as you get to know what needs to be accomplished for the quarter and how all concerned should actively work to address any issues that may have risen. This should also help to keep your guys on track. So you’ve been the conscientious manager who assisted the team members in the setting of goals. Now take a step back and review what you’ve collaboratively put down. Honestly, ask yourself the question … “Are these the goals that will inspire passion among my team members? Will these drive them to go the extra mile?” If you’re getting affirmative answers, give yourself a pat on the back and treat yourself to the biggest ice cream cone at Dairy Queen. If not, I don’t have to tell you… it’s back to the drawing boards till you’ve got something that’ll fly!

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