4Thought

Emotional Intelligence and the EQi 2.0 Questionnaire

Copyright © 2011 Multi-Health Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Based on the original BarOn EQ-i authored by Reuven Bar-On, copyright 1997.

We appreciate that the idea of Emotional Intelligence has been about for some time – and as a concept pre-dates the work of Daniel Goleman who arguably did so much to popularise the subject.

Emotional Intelligence still matters though. Given that leadership is predicated on influence and engagement (you can’t have leadership without ‘follower-ship’) our capacity to understand our own emotions, the impact they have and the emotions of others is of critical importance.

The EQi 2.0 Emotional Intelligence questionnaire :

The EQi 2.0 comprises five composite scales and fifteen subscales that together give an overall rating and impact Performance and Emotional and Social Functioning. The five EQi 2.0 composite scales are:

Self-Perception – The “inner-self”: assesses feelings of strength, confidence and persistence in pursuit of personally meaningful goals and understanding the impact of emotions on thoughts and actions.

Self-Expression: the outward expression, or action component, of one’s internal perception. Assesses the propensity to remain self-directed and expressive of thoughts and feelings, while communicating these in a constructive and socially acceptable way.

Interpersonal: the ability to develop and maintain mutually satisfactory relationships, understand and articulate another’s perspective, act responsibly while showing concern for others e.g. the team, or wider organisation.

Decision Making:  understanding the impact emotions have on decision-making, including the ability to manage impulses, remain objective and avoid rash / ineffective problem solving.

Stress Management:  capacity to cope with emotions associated with change, and unfamiliar and unpredictable circumstances. The ability to remain positive about the future and resilient in the face of setbacks and obstacles.

Based on the work of Dr Reuven Bar-On the EQi 2.0 questionnaire is normed, validated and reliable. The questionnaire is available in two main formats, a self-completion version and also a 360 feedback version which is ideal in enabling people to gain insight into how they see themselves and how that compares to what they convey to others.

Currently we are using the EQi 2.0 as part of our 1:1 coaching activties and also as part of a leadership programme enabling individuals to explore the impact of their leadership style in influencing / engaging others.  If these may be of interest to you, or if you would like further information about the EQi 2.0 questionnaire, please contact us at info@prescience.eu.com

What We’ve Been Learning

We have recently started selected activities based on a framework that members of the team are now accredited to provide.

Vertical Leadership Development & The Harthill Leadership Development Framework (LDF)


© Copyright Harthill Consulting Limited

The LDF has been developed by David Rooke and William Tolbert and is based on over thirty years research into factors distinguishing leaders’ ‘Action Logics’ and the impact this has on their leadership style and effectiveness.

The questionnaire and overall LDF assesses and identifies differing levels of development – the Action Logics – that people deploy in how they interpret and make sense of their situation and circumstance.

Each level of development is attributed to the individual’s ‘Complexity of Meaning Making’ – how they interpret and learn from experience and which is developed in stages. At each new ‘level’ or stage individuals overcome the limitations associated with the previous levels, improving their ability to see a new perspective and act more effectively.

As Rooke and Tolbert state “The stage you are ‘in’ has a profound impact on your leadership approach and capability because it affects where you place attention, your underlying assumptions, the inferences you draw and crucially what actions you will take”.

Initially brought more to the public eye through their 2005 Harvard Business Review ‘Seven Transformations of Leadership’ (HBR April 2005) the LDF and the Vertical Leadership Development it supports is arguably an idea whose time has come. This ability and competence in complexity of meaning making is increasingly essential in today’s operating environment, characterised as it is by uncertainty, ever increasing demands and an operating paradigm encompassing all the internal and external sustainability drivers that now pertain for today’s leaders.

These stages of vertical development are broadly categorised as pre and post conventional. Later stages of Vertical Development correlate with ability to take effective decisions in situations of increasing complexity and ambiguity.

The main LDF stages identified are:

Pre-Conventional Stages

Level 1 – Opportunist (5% of profiled population): focuses on personal ‘wins’ and sees others as a resource to exploit or compete with. Holds “the ends justify the means” view. Legitimises his/her approach on the basis of competitive win/lose basis for actions.

Level 2 – Diplomat (12% of profiled population): focuses on socially accepted behaviour and approval. Avoids overt conflict. Wants to belong and conforms to group norms.  Uses acceptance and adherence to protocol to get others to follow. Lower capacity to reappraise how things are done.

Level 3 – Expert (38% of profiled population): focuses on expertise, procedure and efficiency.  Rules by reason, logic and expertise. Seeks the right way before acting.  Prefers proven technical approaches.  Gives personal attention to detail and seeks perfection.  Strong as an individual contributor, but has limited vision and potential difficulty with collaboration.

Level 4 – Achiever (30% of profiled population): meets strategic goals and improves performance. Effectively achieves goals through teams. Juggles time and demands.   Well suited to managerial roles. Pragmatic, action and goal oriented. Has difficulty questioning existing management systems and operates toward established / conventional goals and measures.

Post-Conventional Stages

Level 5 – Individualist (10% of profiled population): interweaves competing personal and corporate systems. Inclined to develop original and creative solutions and develops a participative approach. Holds a more systemic view of issues and broader vision. Effective in venture and consulting roles.  Can engage in discussions that are unproductive and hold ideas that may lack pragmatism.

Level 6 – Strategist (4% of profiled population): generates organisational and personal transformations. Develops a more proactive approach that anticipates long term trends. Significant interest in global sustainability issues. Works to integrate economic, social and environmental aspects – reframes.  Effective transformational leader and cultivates changes in values.

Level 7 – Strategist (1% of profiled population): capable of generating wide transformation.  Re-centres the organisation’s mission with regard to social and environmental responsibilities. Has concern for authenticity and holds a complex and integrated vision.  Risks scattering efforts and may lose touch with the primary focus of the organisation.

Rooke and Tolbert write that whilst few leaders have explored their individual Action Logic and how to develop it, they should, because ‘leaders who do undertake a voyage of personal understanding and development can transform not only their own capabilities but also those of their companies.’

We are currently in the process of setting up selected pilot groups based on the LDF framework that incorporate 1:1 coaching, group review and Action Inquiry / Learning. These pilot programmes will be run on a reduced fee basis and if you think these may be of interest please contact us at info@prescience.eu.com

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Culture Still Counts …But the Context is Critical

Whilst people undoubtedly recognise the importance of Organisational Culture, it’s all too easy for it to slip down the agenda until something starts going ‘wrong’ or not working as it should in some respect or other.

For us, probably the best exponent of why culture is a critical contribution to organisational success is Dr Norman Chorn.

Whilst there is a great deal more to his  work, in a nutshell what Chorn argues is that culture counts because ‘the way we do things around here’ creates, drives and determines strategic capability’.  The key though is alignment – is that way of doing things supporting our strategy and enabling delivery of key goals and drivers or is it inhibiting success and getting in the way?

 

Culture therefore can’t just be ‘fixed’ in some generalised sense of ‘good’ or ‘desirable’ competencies, what really counts is Context – how is it the organisation needs to be in the way it does things to be successful? Bill Taylor, in his Harvard Business Review article of June 1st 2017 writes that ‘so much thinking about organisational culture has become so bland…that it is on the verge of becoming meaningless’  Taylor cites a number of questions he contends we should ask about our organisational culture one of which resonated powerfully for us – ‘is your culture built for learning as well as performance?’

On countless fronts managers are contending with new and differing demands from multiple perspectives and have to be equipped to deal with them. This necessitates therefore both Horizontal and Vertical development. Horizontal Development to provide the requisite skills to lead successfully, but also Vertical Development to provide the insight, systems outlook and complexity of ‘Sense Making’ to function effectively in today’s increasingly demanding and VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) context.

Such development is critical because fundamentally what determines the ‘way we do things around here’, as the Chorn model illustrates, is what leaders throughout our organisations are actually doing in the way that they lead and manage others. The question therefore remains; to what extent are the leaders throughout the organisation Conscious, Skilful and Purposeful in modelling and deploying those behaviours and competencies supporting organisational success that you want them to.

(If you would like to know more about how Prescience has supported various organisations in developing leadership capability aligned to the organisation’s key goals and deliverables please contact us at info@prescience.eu.com).

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Recent Prescience Programmes

Two programmes we have recently run for differing clients have a common theme – equipping line managers with the skills and confidence to have those potentially more challenging conversations with team members and which can have significant consequences depending on how they are managed.

Enabling People Managers

Developed in close conjunction with the client’s HR Team, ‘Enabling People Managers’ is a blended programme equipping line managers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to address two key aspects of the line manager’s responsibility:

  • Managing the potentially more involved people management situations – conducting return to works, investigating grievances, or even dealing with allegations of misconduct.
  • Reviewing/appraising performance, interviewing and selection.

Tailored specifically to the organisation’s people processes and utilising developed case-studies, main elements to the ‘Enabling People Managers’ programme are:

  • Pre-attendance briefing undertaken by the participant’s HR Business Partner to provide a full overview of the processes / procedures underpinning people management activities and where to access necessary information.
  • A self-assessment quiz to help participants identify any remaining gaps in their respective procedural/process knowledge.
  • A three day workshop providing participants with the opportunity to:
    • Develop and practice key 1:1 communication skills using tailored practice scenarios and receive feedback covering selection interviewing, grievance investigation, return to work meetings, performance review and Health and Safety incidents.
    • Discuss and determine next step actions they would take in each case based on discussion outcomes and to review recommendations with an in-house HR co-facilitator.

Post the workshop, participants undertake real-time staff management discussions or practice scenarios observed by their respective HR Business Partner and agree on-going development actions to reinforce skills and learning.

 

Making Conversations Count

The under-pinning drivers of staff engagement aren’t complex – arguably it is about how well we really involve others, listen to people, discuss things with them and afford them the opportunity to contribute and develop. For various reasons, however, deploying such activities can be easier said than done as we grapple with day-to-day pressures in fast paced operational environments and the focus to deliver actions and outputs. Also, as with most of these things, it is a two-way street – some people can make it difficult to engage with them if what they do is seen as presenting problems, complaints or even degrees of passive-aggressiveness.

The Making Conversations Count programme was developed specifically to support operational line managers develop the skills and overcome any reluctance to engage amongst staff members to enable them to have more meaningful and productive discussions.

Conducted over a phased series of half-day workshops involving managers and operating staff, key elements to the Making Conversations Count programme were:

Phase 1: Skills development workshops to enable line managers to:

  • Utilise and deploy more considered communication approaches to enable more productive Adult-Adult conversations between line managers and team members
  • Respond appropriately to perceived ‘negative’ responses from team members and resolve issues of disagreement and conflict
  • Utilise reframing and appreciative enquiry techniques to help move discussions to outcomes and actions supporting more transformational discussions

Phase 2: Real-time ‘issues and constraints’ workshops undertaken with operating staff to:

  • Surface and address matters they perceived as inhibiting better communication and interaction with managers and others
  • Provide understanding of TA and the impact of non-Adult communication on others
  • Help challenge established perceptions of how people viewed their and others’ positions’ within the workplace

Phase 3: Combined management and operating staff workshops to share respective views and perceptions and agree shared actions to help engender improved communication, collaboration and contribution.

 

Team Coaching

Almost all organisational teams operate in a complex set of dynamics, not only needing to work effectively within the team but, equally importantly, in managing the systems and engaging others outside the team.

In such a context teams need to exercise high levels of collective consciousness, yet all too often even senior teams can somewhat ‘muddle through’ and rationalise or almost turn a blind eye to areas of under-performance and/or dysfunction.

A Team Coaching approach surfaces views/issues held both within the team and by key stakeholders and others outside the team and then provides the team itself with the opportunity to address these in a structured, considered manner.

Supporting a key work team, operating in a business critical area that was under-going significant change, the Team Coaching activity included:

  • Discussion and agreement of success factors / measures with senior management
  • Structured interviews with representative team members and key stakeholders with a summary report of perceived team performance versus agreed success criteria (Purpose, Process, Contribution, Collaboration, Connection)
  • Real-time workshops to share identified areas for team performance improvement and determine/agree actions and outputs

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Doing Too Much – the Paradox of Sub-Optimised Performance

We are in the privileged position of working with a many people, across differing managerial levels, from various client organisations across a wide variety of sectors and we’re finding they tend to face a common challenge. By and large people say they are too busy to be as effective as they would like to be!

It’s not that the individuals are bad at planning or prioritising it’s that, in today’s matrix structures, key people are involved in numerous cross-functional activities and their views and inputs are being sought almost continuously to help shape and inform decision making. (see Harvard Business Review January – February 2016 ‘Collaborative Overload’ for further insight on this topic)

We don’t know the extent to which this accords with your own experience, but trying to get 4 -5 ‘necessary’ decision makers  together in anything less than a four-five week window, be that real-time or virtually, is nigh on impossible. I recently bumped into three Prescience alumni who were having an off-site evening meeting because it was ‘the only time they could get together’

So when we discuss what a typical working day is like for most people it is invariably referred to as ‘full-on’, with lots of activities because what organisations target and value is ‘outputs’. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with that per se, we are all required to achieve outputs – the problem lies in how well those activities are being performed.

We are great advocates of Kolb’s Learning Cycle as illustrated below, and with which you are probably familiar. The key is that this doesn’t just apply in the context of L&D – it is the fundamental  source of sustainable performance.

In uncertain times, when organisations are called upon to be highly responsive in dealing with new and diverse challenges improving performance requires highly effective organisational learning. Bill Taylor’s January 2017 Harvard Business Review article was very aptly titled in asking ‘Are You Learning as fast as the World Is Changing?’

To effectively learn – and improve whatever it is we are doing – individuals and organisations need to complete the Learning Cycle. Yet how much time are individual’s affording to reviewing the outcomes of their  actions, what’s working well, what’s working less well and how that might be improved? How much time is spent sharing such learning, insights and best practice – how often can people get together to discuss areas for improvement and share feedback? And critically, in today’s uncertain world, to what extent can people practice and ‘try-out’ differing ways of doing things in the aim of improving on current performance?

And this is the crux of the issue – in challenging times there can often be a tendency to ‘do more of the same – quicker’ – it seldom works as people get tied up in more and more ‘activity’. Far more important arguably is the need to review what it is we’re actually doing and how we’re doing it – are people affording their time to the things that matter and are they, and the organisation as whole, learning? Perhaps more than ever what’s actually called for is time for a little considered review, reflection and feedback and to be able to discuss challenges and issues with colleagues in a timely manner which in itself, arguably, is an act of Leadership.

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