Are You Blind?

Today, I want to talk to Visionaries and Integrators about something called emotional intelligence.

Here’s how I want you to think about this…  Do you have any blind spots around how your actions and behaviors are impacting the rest of the team?

I wonder if you’ve seen any of these examples. Sometimes the way that we say things can be perceived by the person receiving it as beating them down. Another is if someone’s talking to us, and we’re not fully engaged or don’t appear to be. They may think, “They’re bored with what I have to say, and they don’t really care.” The other is if we show up late to a meeting, we’re on our electronics or doing something else like this – that’s really the ultimate sign of disrespect. It’s the ultimate “F you” as one of my good friends would say.

We need to be aware of how our behaviors and actions are perceived. There’s a whole field of study around this called emotional intelligence. I want to ask you today, are you self aware? Is your Visionary/Integrator counterpart self aware? Do they have any of these issues? We need to rely and be able to lean on our teammates to help us see these blind spots. That’s why they’re blind spots – they’re hidden from us.

If your counterpart is not self aware and doing things that are having an unhealthy impact on the rest of the team, how can we create more self awareness? How can we deliver that message? I want to give you three steps to help you get there.

The first is that you need to decide if you’re going to handle this in the context of your Same Page Meeting™, or if you’re going to handle it in the leadership team meeting with the whole team there. Second, you need to decide the three best data points that you can put together to present to them and help them see what they’re doing. The third thing is, frankly, have them watch this video. Have them hear this message and see it from an objective outsider’s perspective.

For some additional reading that may help you along this path, there’s a book called Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman. I encourage you to take a look. Then a second book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradberry and Greaves. Both of those can help enrich your perspective on this concept.

Finally, realize it’s possible that even after you bring this to their attention – they may not want to change. Most of the time when someone has this kind of an intervention and someone who cares about them brings them this truth, you will see some change.

Three keys points to wrap this one up:

1. Decide if you’re going to do this one-on-one in the Same Page Meeting™ or in the context of the overall Leadership Team.
2. Get your three data points together to illustrate to them why this is an issue for them.
3. Have them watch this video.

Until next time, Go ROCKET!

Cheers,

Mark