Building Social Intelligence - Part # 1

THEME: Fall 2010 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

Monday morning: November 8, 2010

Dear friends,

When I got out of college, I was lost about what to do next. I had learned a lot of things and had many fantastic adventures but with a major in history, I really wasn’t very career minded. As a result, I ended up working Crew for the Farm and WIlderness Foundation in Plymouth, Vt. Our work consisted of doing maintenance on the physical plant for the six camps the Foundation ran each summer. This also included milking cows by hand, logging, and making maple syrup. I loved this job and I loved living in a cabin in the Vermont woods for a year.

During this first post college experience, the person who was the Crew Coordinator for our group got fired. As a result, I was approached by the Executive Director of the Foundation to be a part of the “new” Crew Leadership Team. Thinking back, I really did not know what I was getting into, but as Lao Tzu the ancient Chinese philosopher once wrote: “If you live in a country run by a committee, be on the committee.” Over the course of the winter, this dysfunctional group met on a regular basis. And by spring, the Executive Director came to me and asked if I would just run the whole thing. So, I did.

When I reflect on this convoluted journey to leadership and what I am seeing now in the work place, I realize that more and more people are in positions where they haven’t a clue about what to do. Often, they are in over their head. They were the last man or woman standing around, and all of sudden they were the supervisor. Or they were the least crazy person in the bunch and someone who actually got some things done so the mantle of leadership was handed to them.

One particular element that intrigues me within these situations is the number of people in leadership positions who also lack any social intelligence or interpersonal intelligence. Popular science writer Daniel Goleman has drawn on social neuroscience research to propose that social intelligence is made up of social awareness, including empathy, attunement, and empathic accuracy, and social cognition and social facility, including synchrony, self-presentation, influence, and concern.

Our challenge on the business front this fall is that we are also running into role ambiguity and, at times, task ambiguity. This in combination with a lack of social intelligence is a very difficult affair. While it would be helpful to train everyone on how to be socially intelligent, and I am sure someone out there offers workshops on this subject, I believe we can start today by clarifying roles, not just clarifying tasks. I have noticed that collaboration improves when roles are clear.

Next, we as leaders need to be both task oriented and relationship oriented once roles are clear. During the early stages of strategic projects, we need to be tasked oriented to create structure and goal clarity. At the same time, we also need to develop internal team “culture” through modeling and clarifying expectations. Next, we need to remember that the precursor to success is extensive networking to build relationships before we need them, and to understand the core strengths and differences of people within the pool of potential team candidates. While the above actions will not fix issues related to a lack of social intelligence, I believe they will help.

This week and this fall, we must relearn the following:

- organizational change is the sum of individual change.

- individuals change better when the work environment is healthy.

- healthy relationships are the foundation of individual change.

- trust and respect are the foundation of all change.

Have a great week,

Geery

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257

THEME: Some Thoughts On Current and Emerging Trends

FOCUS: The Intersection of the iPad, Community, and Social Intelligence

Monday morning: August 16, 2010

Dear friends,

With the introduction of the iPad this year and it’s projected 2010 sales being close to 10 million, Steve Jobs noted earlier in the summer that a new iPad is bought at a global level every 3 seconds. With such rapid acceptance, we are witnessing an amazing transformation in technology. This in combination with Goggle’s decision to not utilize Windows due to on-going security problems means the way we work is changing faster than in the past. While I do not think it completely signals the decline of the PC market as Steve Jobs suggested might happen back in June at the D Conference, it clearly signals the start of a whole new way of thinking about the speed of acquisition and the utilization of technology.

First, we need to recognize that software and hardware are skipping past the lap top platform and moving straight to slate based computer systems and smart phones. With texting as the new e-mail system and social media like Facebook topping half a billion users this summer and becoming the new foundation for creating and maintaining relationships, we enter a world were fragmentation is no longer acceptable and seamless integration is the new goal.

It is interesting to note a generational difference rising in the midst of this transformation, particularly between Baby Boomers and Gen Y’s or Millennials. For Baby Boomers, the expectation is that when a light switch goes up, the electricity will always be on. For Gen Xers and Millenials, when a computer or cell phone is on, then the expectation is that there will be 100% connectivity to the internet. The internet is their new electricity.

For generations before the Baby Boomers, there was a gratefulness for just having electricity. For the Baby Boomers, there was an expectation that it should be on and perfect all the time. Now that the internet is the new electricity, the expectation is the same for younger generations. They have an expectation for “electricity level” connectivity and delivery of internet content, and they expect it to move as fast as an electric light switch when turned on.

There is another recent generational difference noted by British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. We could potentially end up living in a two class society with mostly the younger generation being “the people of the screen” who quick skim and scan the web which lodges in the brian’s short-term memory and is quickly lost, and a mostly older generation who are “people of the book,” who through slow reading experiences generate long term memories. The result is a very different level of understanding and interacting with the world between the generations.

Yet in the midst of these differences and the ongoing desire for more speed and simplicity in technology plus the growth of digital life experiences, there continues to be a growing desire for more real and authentic sense of community. John Naisbitt in his books, Megatrends and Megatrends 2000, wrote that we enter a dualistic world of high tech and high touch. While I recognize that Facebook is being utilized by many if not most of the affluent people in society, the result of this choice is the development of some very unique relationships. For example, people on Facebook may have 1,000 “friends” but only know and communicate with a handful well on a face to face level. Some would argue that young people may not understand that real relationships are first built off-line before going on-line.

Furthermore, we now have entering and influencing the workforce a younger generation that knows how to connect electronically and at the same time chooses different pathways to building relationships than Baby Boomers. For example, it is recognized that most Millennials are good at working on teams and with teams, multi-tasking and utilizing technology to increase productivity. Still, we have to recognize that people who work on successful teams are born from a healthy work place community. And when a team completes it’s work, it, namely the members of the team, will return to the work place community. In short, the source of healthy teams can not be replaced by electronic apps on iPads, or digital, Facebook level only connections.

During the coming years, our work as senior executives will require us to invest in new technology and to learn to interface with the rapidly changing and accelerating global technology platform. Nevertheless as high tech speeds up, we must also come to value high touch, i.e. slower face to face connections that require a degree of social intelligence. In a world that can access more information faster than ever before, we are discovering that more and more people are connected and at the same time feeling disconnected. With so many families scattered across the nation and the globe, and so many traditional social networks like churches and civic groups struggling to maintain membership, we must come to recognize that the building of community within the work place is more important and valuable than ever.

This week understand that the pace of change will continue to accelerate, and that the need to build social intelligence will be as important as digital and technological intelligence.

Have a marvelous week,

Geery

P.S. For those of you who are looking for a good article, I suggest you read “Powerlessness Corrupts” by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the July-August 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review. This is a short but very thoughtful essay about how powerlessness, particularly in the middle ranks, can fuel resentment, infighting and intergroup conflicts over resources. If you are looking to find a thoughtful way to start a team meeting, this single page essay with good observations and perspective is a good place to begin.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257