Dr. Reldan, “Relly,” Nadler is a leading psychologist and Executive Coach focusing on developing and providing cutting edge Emotional Intelligence tools and strategies for CEO’s, Executives, leaders, managers and their organizations and teams. His newest book, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, gives hands-on solutions to become these problems and more. After working with over 15,000 leaders over 30 years, Dr. Nadler has distilled some of his best advice and tips. After Daniel Goleman sold 5 million copies of Emotional Intelligence, readers and leaders have been looking for hard-hitting ways to raise their Emotional Intelligence and the people they lead. Dr. Nadler’s Website: True North Leadership
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Transcription of Podcast
Joe Dager: Welcome everyone. This is Joe Dager the host of Business901.com. With me today is Dr. Relly Nadler, who is a leading psychologist and executive coach focusing around developing and providing cutting edge emotional intelligent tools and strategies. His company, True North Leadership, recognizes and addresses the challenges leaders face today. He has just published a book ‘Leading with Emotional Intelligence.’ Dr. Nadler it has been 15 years since Daniel Goleman wrote Emotional Intelligence. Does your book pick up where he left off?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Exactly Joe. The big question that Daniel Goleman gets asked when he does his presentations is get it, emotional intelligence, but what do we do to raise it? That’s one of the key factors. What do you do to raise it? So that’s really is the question that I answer in my book, what do you do to raise emotional intelligence. The book has 108 different strategies divided up into six key areas in the EI world, emotional intelligence world or competency.
There is material around confidence, around teamwork and collaboration, tools for developing others, emotional self-control, communication, and empathy. Those six areas, I interviewed at some length people who are stars in that area and tried to glean from them, like best practices, what they do, that’s called the star secret.
Then I also apply some of my best practices, from my practice in doing consulting with about 15,000 executives; that’s called the coaches corner. It is chock?full of how-to using our emotional intelligence.
Joe: You’ve been practicing and implementing Goleman’s strategies since his book came out?
Relly: Yes. As a matter of fact, I have a master’s program before my doctor; I have a doctor in psychology. But my master’s program was kind of pre?emotional intelligence, and it was called confluent education. Confluence is where two things come together. Our program was about where thinking and feeling come together. A Lot of the focus was how you educate around the effective domain. Then when Goleman’s book came around, I said well, this is just like it was my master’s program. Really for over three years I had been trying to help people and teams, individuals, perform better.
So now I have a different organizing principle to our emotional intelligence that has a whole research base about what does it take for someone to be in the top 10%. A lot of the data is showing that when you look at how smart someone is, and then you look at the technical expertise, and then you look at this idea of emotional intelligence.
So those three things, you think about, how smart are they, what kind of technical expertise and enigma about emotional intelligence. Most of the research is showing that someone in the top 10%, more of the factors that lead them to be in the top 10% are these factors of emotional intelligence.
Joe: The emotional quotient, EQ, is that something that has been pretty accepted HR now?
Relly: I think so. That’s kind of my feel; I was just on a call today with a big health care firm that was looking to implement some of this emotional intelligence into their leadership, you are right, about EQ and EI similar. The term EQ was coined by another researcher psychologist Ruben Blon in 1985. So 10 years before Goleman wrote the book on emotional intelligence the EQ term has been around.
Joe: I didn’t realize that it has been around that long. What are the benefits of using EQ? Why would I be attracted to, let’s say like a health care facility to start implementing that?
Relly: I’ll give you the definition and then how that fits. The working definition that I’d like to use for emotional intelligence is understanding yourself and managing yourself. This is the personal side. Understanding others and managing others. Then in those four areas, there is a series of these competencies which really are behaviors that has been researched for over 35 years. The question, what’s the difference between someone in the top 10% and someone below. Through data analysis and cross evaluation interviews, all this data has become available of what the people on top 10% do that people below that don’t do. That’s where these factors of emotional intelligence have really come up. There are competencies say like confidence or self-control.
You could see in a hospital setting, for example, self-control is critical. Everybody is pulling at you. Everybody wants something now. If you are not able to manage yourself, respond calmly, everybody around you picks up what you do. We are using this hospital idea that emotions are contagious. Just like any kind of physical illness. You come in, and you are the doctor or you are the nurse, you are stressed, you are tensed, you haven’t gotten asleep, you had an argument at home, and that spills over to everybody on your team.
Now from neuroscience, we now know what we all have experienced. We know there is a dance that goes on in people’s brains between one person and another. Goleman in his new book Social Intelligence talks about that we are wired to connect. So if you are the stressed out nurse or director or the manager, people on your team will pick that up, and they will be more stressed out. We all know that. But now we know some of the science behind it.
Joe: So is this something that is internal or do you have to understand yourself first before you try and understand anybody else? Do you use this in a team setting to help facilitate know everybody in your team?
Relly: I think that understanding yourself is kind of the first piece. Some people are great at it. Some aren’t. The good news shows that emotional intelligence is different than IQ. I am a psychologist; I have given IQ test. You can’t change your IQ. You can change your EQ. So they are skills and that’s what I do, whether it is an individual coaching or training about how can you raise your EQ. And so on a team, there is a lot of different team skills that, I would think, and I know a lot of your listeners are into process improvement. They are into Lean and a lot of the organizations that I am involved in, they are also into that. But it is amazing to me the one process that’s least examined, may be least studied and least disciplined is leadership.
Going back to what I said earlier, it has this incredible influence. One leader has an incredible influence on their team. So it’s somewhat haphazard on how they are going to lead the team or how they are going to start a meeting or how they are going to develop others or how they are going to give feedback.
These are all processes that basically go back to maybe the person’s individual preference. So now we know what some of the best practices are. Just like if you were in a manufacturing and a Lean process trying to bring some of these best leadership processes to organizations.
Joe: You are saying that leadership can be a process that is, can be a methodology in itself, and it can be something that’s learned?
Relly: Definitely. And that’s what is really good about that. One of the things in this, I think from a research base to integrate not just interesting information but research base. There is a study of 1400 leaders and managers. They talked about what were the critical skills and common mistakes connected to leadership. So think about this as a process. What they found was what leaders failed to do, what any 2% of them failed to provide appropriate feedback, whether that was praise or redirection. 81% failed to listen or involve others. 76% failed to use an appropriate leadership style that would be fitting for the persons that they are leading.
So those are really specific, if you talk about processes, that leadership has those tools. How do I give feedback, how do I individualize that? And again going back to what I said before, it’s a little haphazard, depending if the persons had training or not, or their own experience. Some are good just from doing it over the years they have come up with their own methods.
Joe: So how many different traits are there that you measure to get your EQ?
Relly: Well it depends Joe, on which assessments. What I use is that Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and then the Hay Group, which is a consulting group because a couple of different schools. That one has 18 competencies. In my book, I list 20 competencies. The competencies are shifting, depending on research. So that’s that model, the person I mentioned before, Ruben Boron; his model has 15 competencies. But they’re pretty similar. If you want, I can tell you what some of those are, just so you have an idea.
Joe: Well, give me a couple of them, to give everybody a feel.
Relly: On the personal side, there are things like self-control, accurate self-assessment, initiative, achievement orientation, adaptability. So you feel, “OK, those are all important.” Then on the social side, there are things like empathy, understanding the organizational politics and then your basic leadership skills: Influence, teamwork and collaboration, leading change, conflict resolution. So each one of those, these are key things that happen every day in organizations. Then the whole thing that, I think, the EI that I bring are some of the best practices? Just like someone would do with LEAN manufacturing. They’d say, “Here’s a process, let’s apply this to your organization.” It’s really the same thing around leadership.
Joe: If I get my EQ, and I want to put this in LEAN terminology, just for me right now. I’m going to build a current state map of myself in these areas of what I am, and then I have to accept who I am. Then build a future state map, where I want to go and put the training, or look at what I need to do to get there.
Relly: I think that’s a great way to say it, Joe because that’s really what we do. In your situation, let’s say someone’s leading a team. One of the critical skills you should have… Now, they don’t have to have all of the EI competencies. Depending on their position, they will get a subset of ones that they said, “Oh, for me, leading teams would be important.” Or leading a LEAN process well, managing change. So a lot of things that I end up do, I partner up with folks who may be more, bringing in technology.
Any of the technology improvements all involve people. When you involve people, people particularly don’t like change. And so a lot of the success around whether it’s a LEAN process or new IT functions, really goes down to change leadership. This is one of the key competencies.
How do you lead a group? Especially if these people don’t report to you, they’re on another team, they have other competing things that, they’re not showing up for your meeting. You try to drive change or drive a process improvement, and you can’t get someone to show up at your meeting. Or you can’t get them to deliver on a critical deliverable that’s integral to your process.
Joe: Well that’s what happens a lot of times when they have per se, a Kaizen event, where they’ll bring people in from all different areas. Then afterward, they all disperse. And it’s like, “Who’s responsible for them people now? And can I really do what we talked about doing during this meeting?”
Relly: Well that’s where I think, and you can certainly appreciate this and so will your listeners. That’s what you’ve seen the research, 70 to 80% of change is this does fail. It’s not because of the technical solution; it’s because of the lack of the human change leadership solution. You ask someone to change into the new process, it affects; there are a couple factors that go on for all of us. It affects them; it may affect their status. And each of these things I’m going to describe gives you a brain freeze. When you have an ice cream or a Slurpee that’s too cold, your brain freezes.
New process, “What if I’m not so good at it? What if the person across the hall is better?” It may affect your autonomy. “I used to be able to do this by myself; now I have to rely on someone else.” It may affect your certainty. All these would lead to what I’m calling the brain freeze.
“I really knew that last process well, this new process, I don’t know.” It may affect the relatedness. “Before I had this group of people that I felt comfortable with, now I’m with these brand new people, I’m not really connected.” And it may affect your fairness.
So, those five factors, would all get, they’re like levers in the change process. And so, status, it’s certainty, it’s autonomy, it’s relatedness, it’s fairness, and until someone in the change process deals with those, those are going to get affected either positively or negatively, and it’s the leader who can enhance it positively by, in a sense, affecting the right lever.
Joe: Makes all kinds of sense to me, but I’m sitting here listening to you, and I’m thinking of that current state and that future state. So, you said you had a how to book, that you wrote. Is the book the bridge between current and future?
Relly: Yes, and especially in these areas. So, it’s not, we talk about current and future, there’s a lot of areas, but in these six areas, which, I mentioned confidence and self-control, teamwork and collaboration, developing others, communication and empathy. There’s a self-assessment, so you get the current state, and then you would examine it and say, “Ah, which one should I do better in my future state?” And then, the book would give you steps, tools, strategies, checklists to get, move on that journey to the future state.
Joe: Is there any other tools that you have that you facilitate this with, or?
Relly: Well, so, yes, if people go to my website, free tools for them, and the website is www.truenorthleadership.com, T?R?U?E for true, truenorthleadership.com. There are a couple of free assessments. One, you assess where you are in some of the EI competencies. And then the other, Joe, is called the derailer detector. So, I try to focus first on strength, but someone may have some derailers. And you can take the derailer detector and see where you are.
Some of the key derailers are, “Smartest Person in the Room.” I mean, we’ve all been in meetings where someone’s trying to be the smartest person in the room, and, you know, it gets kind of irritating. Or, “Lack of Impulse Control.” Or, “Drives Others Too Hard.” Or, “Doesn’t Take Feedback.” These would be derailers that could trump the EI competency.
So, you would take these assessments, get your future state, I mean, your current state, and then there’s an action plan, that people can download. It kind of walks you through some of the excerpts of the book, and how do I use my strength, and how do I develop an action plan for that future state.
Joe: When we talk about the EQ and the book process, we talk about it as an individual in the leadership. But, as I mentioned before the podcast, is that we get so much involved in team and teamwork now, and so flat of an organization, that some people don’t have, let’s say, the power of what a leader does. It’s a team; it’s a pretty flat organization. You have to get people to work together. Does EQ, does that effect, and does your book talk about teamwork and the collaboration that takes place on, let’s say, equal footing?
Relly: So, there is a section on teamwork and collaboration, so that’s one of the six areas, and this actually has the most strategies. There are about 23 strategies that someone could use. I kind of play off this idea of what’s natural and unnatural, I think teamwork is an unnatural act. You know, what’s natural, is to do it on your own. And so, there’s a series of key things that allude to what you’re saying.
So, for example, one may be a shared vision. Just like you’re saying, here you get all these people together, and what the average performer may hold a blurry vision, “Not sure why I’m on this team, what’s going on?” The star performer helps create a real clear and inspiring vision for this project. They communicate regularly, and they took actions, that go on.
Let’s say another one would be communication skills and conflict resolution. Well, the average performer, “Who wants conflict?” We avoid it, we jump to conclusions, we made out really, communicate effectively about this team project and why, and the roles, and responsibilities.
But the star performer and I usually define the star performer as someone in the top 10%. That’s where a lot of this research is saying, just like you would, with best practices. You know, so whether it’s manufacturing or some other process improvement, what are the best practices? Well, that’s exactly where this is going, what these leadership competencies, what are the things that individuals in the top 10% do?
So, someone who’s a star, top 10% performer in communication, what they do, is they really, identify assumptions, they really acknowledge that, well, we have a conflict here, let’s get through it, where, typically, people would avoid it. And they are really able to treat their team, seeing their team, chess players versus checker players. And this gets into one of those competencies. Do you really know your people?
So now you have this team. Who is the person on your team that you’re going to go to get the project going and get fired up? Who is the person on your team that’s the closer? You got some deadlines, and who’s the person you know as your closer?
Who is the person on your team, when you have to do some cross-functional things with someone from another team, who is your kind of person that’s good in relationships, and can be the glue, and can maybe bridge the gap of what could be conflict?
Those are three separate players on the team: The closer, the starter, the person going across departments. Does the leader know who those are, and then deploy them appropriately?
Joe: So when I’m developing a team, if I really look at everybody’s EQ, I’m looking for a blend. I go back, and I use a sports analogy because they’re so easy to do. You can’t have all stars. You’ve got to have some role players on that team, right?
Relly: Exactly. And I’ve played sports and used that same thing, Joe. So you need to know the strengths of your utility players. But here’s what’s crazy, and this is where, I’m sure you see this in your work. What do we know about teams? What do they do 99% of the time? They practice. Practice, practice, practice. What do they do 1% of the time? They perform. Some of the research shows the average football game if you were to say, “How many minutes is the ball in play?” We know the game if you watch it is about three hours. But the ball being in play, do you have a sense of how many minutes the ball is actually in play if you had a stopwatch?
Joe: Not very long.
Relly: Yeah. It’s about 14 minutes, is the ball in play. They’re there at the huddle, the clock’s going, but the ball’s not in play. So the practice, practice, practice for 14 minutes. So what do we know about organizations? And this is what’s crazy, and this is why teamwork is unnatural. In organizations, we perform 99% of the time. Maybe, you may 1% of the time have some kind of training around teamwork, or about communication, or about let’s really define our roles here. And the demand is perform, perform, and perform without any practice.
That’s why we think about the team performance; it’s almost insane. What pressure we put on teams that somehow, magically we throw them together, and they’re going to know how to work as a team.
And then the emotional intelligence, whoever is the leader of that, that’s where they really have to use their skills. How do you navigate the division? How to hold people accountable? How to coach one person in one way and coach another person in another way? It’s very complex skills.
Joe: You don’t have that short break, really, per se, to teach someone. It’s on the job training; it’s continuous improvement. Even your leadership is continuous improvement.
Relly: Exactly. So here’s, it will be one tip. In any kind of meeting, and this is just one of the many things we have. For example, in a meeting, and because I know a lot of the process improvement goes in the meeting, how often do people sit in the meeting and after about ten minutes go by, someone’s talking, and people go, “I’m not sure. What am I supposed to be getting out of this meeting? What’s going on?”
Then someone raises their hand, and they say, “What’s the purpose of this meeting? What are we trying to accomplish?” And all the heads nod and go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are we trying to accomplish?” If that’s the person…
If you’re running that meeting, that should be the first thing out of your mouth is, “The purpose of the meeting is, two pieces of information I want to share with you, and then a third piece of information. I’d like us to make a decision.” If you don’t get the brains aligned, they will all go in different ways.
So that’s one of the things, for anybody listening. If you don’t start the meeting with, “The purpose of the meeting is…” and especially if it’s your meeting, so that you sound like the smartest person in the room, versus the person who raises their hand and says, “What are we supposed to be doing here?” So that’s one thing on the front end.
On the back end, to be able to say, “Let’s just do a quick little rating on the meeting. How effective was this meeting on a one to 10, 10 being high.” We are going to go around, and everybody just give us your number. And so it is really quick. And people go 9, 8, 5, 8, 7, and then you’d say “OK, the 9, what was good about that?”
Well you know I liked the way I really got a chance to talk. I think we’ve got some resolutions. And then you’d go to the 5. And this is meeting process improvement. Well, to the 5, what would be one thing we could do better next time?
You don’t want to have the person complain on and on, but if you say tell me one thing that would have made this better for you. Well, I don’t think we gave enough time to this item on the agenda. You say OK, good thanks, any suggestions. Well, next time we’ll give it a lot more time. OK. Thank you. If you did that at the end of every meeting, people wouldn’t hate meetings. They will be a lot better run and efficient.
Joe: Someone always told me years ago that you should sit down and break the project down. Talk about the process and what you could have done better. If it is an hour meeting, spend six minutes in the end to improve the next meeting is that what you are saying?
Relly: Exactly, you said it perfectly. Think about some of these EI things. That’s what I, of course, tell people. It’s not like you are practicing your EI all day long. It happens in a relationship. It happens in moments. So the difference of someone who meets expectations, an average performer and someone who is a star, the star is going to say, before we end let’s take three minutes that summarizes the actions and let’s do our meeting rating. So that person exceeds expectations. They took an extra three or four minutes to do something that the average performer says OK thanks then I’ll meet you next week. And they’ll walk out. So not everything is that easy but this is what I would say. There are these micro initiatives which are small activities, sometimes a couple of minutes, maybe a half hour, that are significant. That is a best practice, your top leaders do. Your average leaders either don’t do, or it’s random they don’t do it enough.
Joe: What are the things you talk about star performers and top performers a lot? Let’s face it, most of us are average. Does this really apply to average guys?
Relly: Well, this is where I think hopefully this is the motivation for the average guy or a woman that we know now, what are some of the things that will get you in the top 10%. When I go into an organization, and I could say to someone, I have the code to how to help you and help your employees get into the top 10%. Well, who doesn’t want to do that? Everybody would like to. They don’t have the code. And the code goes back to the resource, that’s not just me. It goes back to the research around EI that 35 years database. We have the data.
Then the harder part though is knowing what to do. The book gives you a lot of what to do. It’s like anything. How do you do it more regularly? So maybe Tuesday’s now as you are going back to let’s say sports or exercise, if we said and I ask groups it’s about these behaviors, so we know how to behave, it is how often do you do it.
Someone who exceeds expectations in exercising, when I ask a group they say well, how often does someone exercise, someone who exceeds expectations? They say I don’t know, five, six times a week. Everybody knows that. If they say someone, who meets expectations exercise three times a week. Someone who needs improvement it’s zero or one time.
If you look at some of these behaviors, let’s say the meeting rating or starting the meeting with the purposes. These are highlighting two things, do you do that regularly and do you do that almost all the time in your meetings. Or do you say, oh yeah, well two weeks I had a meeting, and I asked that question. Well, that wouldn’t be someone who is a star performer. They have these as habits, and they regularly do it.
Joe: Is that someone looking at that in intention interpretation gap that you are talking about?
Relly: So the intention interpretation gap, and maybe this is a good example of micro initiative. Before the meeting, the person says, “what’s my intention.” What is it that I am trying to accomplish? Then maybe they said five minutes. Let me highlight the five items on this agenda. Because what can happen is, you have five items on the agenda. If you have an active group, the group is going to assume that you want their input on every five items. If you don’t take that if you don’t say, “What’s my intention?”
Item number one and two, the decision’s already been made. I don’t want people’s input on that we’ve already made a decision. So I’m going to say, “Item number one and two is for your information only.” There’s a tool in there where we talk about, kind of tell, help test, consult, co-create. This is a tell, item number one and two, I made a decision, the board made a decision, my boss made a decision. Item number three, though, I want to consult with you. We have some subject matter experts.
So that’s the intention. The interpretation part is, did people get it, of what you’re trying to do? What I talk about, with this intention / interpretation, and you think about as a process.
I haven’t thought about this and Joe, so I’m saying it now. But you think about the diet industry, it’s based on a 95% failure rate. I would say communication has, maybe not that high, communication has probably maybe about an 80% failure rate. Meaning that bottom line of people’s communication is failure, being misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Unless they really on the intention side say, “OK, what am I really trying to say? What do I really want to accomplish?” That’s the front side. And then did it get delivered? “So what did you hear me say? What are you going to go do? I delegated this, but let me make sure…”
So you want to include, you want to close that intention / interpretation gap. And without hard work, things fall in the gap. You think you said it, but they misunderstood you, or you didn’t say it enough.
Joe: About you spending your time to figure out what you really want out of something when you go into a team. I don’t want to make it sound so singular, either. Because you may be, you could have a group that you’re talking to, or two or three people saying, “What do we really want out of this process? What are we trying to accomplish?” So many times you may have made a decision before you ever get to the group. You’ve got to still be opened minded and open questions enough to leave that happen, don’t you?
Relly: Well, that’s where I think the clarity is. Sometimes, the decision’s already made. Your boss told you, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” If you don’t communicate that well, if you don’t say, “Well, folks. On this decision, here’s what we’re going to do, and here is how this came about, and we’ve got to go along with it.” Because if you don’t do that, you say, “Well, here’s what we’re going to do,” someone’s going to say, “Well, I don’t agree with that. You didn’t ask me about that.” And then all of a sudden someone, “Yeah, well you didn’t ask me either.”
We’ve been in those meetings; the meeting goes south. Where if the person up front thought about it and had said: “This decision is already done, folks. We’ve just got to implement it this is what we’ve got to deal with.” It changes the conversation.
So that’s where this intention and then the interpretation really comes in. Some decisions, you want input. And so you’re trying to, this is why I like the brain neuroscience trail; you’re trying to be brain friendly. How do I get the brain in alignment?
I don’t want any input on item one and two; I want you just know this is information. I do want your input get your brain around item number three; because, wow, you’ve got the expertise. You see how the good leader, in a sense of aligning the brains for the ultimate capacity. If they’re not clear about that, that’s why these meetings spill out, and people are frustrated. Because the leader wasn’t really clear about what they wanted in that meeting.
Joe: I think that’s some great points. You also talk about micro?initiatives and then macro?initiatives. Can you explain that a little bit to me?
Relly: This is the way I think of people listening. You don’t have to be a star at everything. But in your particular situation, if you were to do three or four things really well, people will perceive you as being a top performer. I give some examples in the book, the example of people are stressed out. You got a lot of work going on, and you end up saying, “Wow, I got so much going on, I’m very stressed. I’m just going to go downstairs, I’m going to grab something from the vending machine, and I’m going to come right back up and continue working.”
- Self-awareness. But the decision… let me just go and grab something and come right back to work. Someone who has a little bit more self-awareness has the same upfront. “Wow, I’m really stressed, I got a lot going on. I’m going to make sure I get at least a half hour break.” And that would be this micro?initiative. “I’m going to walk outside. I’m going to go talk to someone because I get some energy from that person. So, I’m going to come back after a half hour with a clearer head.
The person and we all do this, who doesn’t take breaks and doesn’t take some of these micro?initiatives, at the end of the day, the Department of Labor has done research on this, how much work has the person got who didn’t take a break, worked through lunch, versus the person who took some breaks during the day, maybe did something different?
At the end of the day their out basket, the person who’s taking a few of these breaks, which is just one example of a micro?initiative, a few of these breaks gets more work done. The person who’s working more hours or more time may make mistakes, there are errors, and they lose something. In those 10, 15, 20 minutes where the other person is getting recharged this person is looking for this file or correcting a mistake.
So, there are a lot of these things like that. I’m going to take the extra 10 minutes and check in with my employees or someone on my process team about how did they feel about the meeting. And how did that go? And you got some good ideas can you speak up a little bit more? I noticed we didn’t hear from you in this last meeting. Maybe that’s a three?minute conversation. Now, you’ve got someone contributing more.
Joe: That sounds very much like… have you ever heard… what is it? Pomodoro? It’s Italian for tomato. What it is, you get a tomato timer. You set it in your increments, like a 25?minute increment, and then you work very intensely for 25 minutes, and when it goes off, you take a five?minute break.
You just de-energize and refocus, what they tell you to do, is they say, 25 minutes isn’t perfect but set it at 20, set it at 30. It’s going to be different for every person and different tasks. But they say; what you do need to do is to not identify the times you need to work, but identify the times you need to disconnect.
Relly: That’s great. Well, I would agree. I think from learning theory, it’s the same thing that your brain can only handle, and then they say about 50 minutes. But it’s the idea of taking those breaks. Here’s one thing, Joe that I think is fascinating. This goes back to self-control. All day long, you have stress, and you’re managing this part of the brain. It’s the prefrontal cortex that has what’s called emotional regulation. OK. Well, I can’t… I’m stressed, and I’m shoving down that feeling. So?and?so irritated but I can’t do any of that, I’m shoving down that feeling. The part of your brain, that’s shoving down those feelings it has a limited capacity. Every time you do it, it’s like your braking system. You put the brakes on, and you can control yourself, but the second time you put the brakes on, you have less brake shoes.
The third time you have even less brake shoes. And so as you can see what happens, by the end of the day, you don’t have anything… you don’t have any emotional regulation capacity to manage yourself anymore. Unless you did, what you’re saying and I’m saying. Taking breaks during the day, you clear the deck. If you haven’t cleared the deck, it’s at the end of the day, you’re in a meeting and something pops out of your mouth because you can’t control it anymore.
We look at a couple of things; I have this in my book, around these outbursts. The guy who said to Obama: “You lie,” Joe Wilson. It wasn’t the first 10 minutes of the speech it was at the end of the speech. He had to manage his emotions. Standing up, standing down, disagreeing and all of a sudden it just plopped out of his mouth, and that’s how we know Joe Wilson.
Or Serena Williams: in the end, in 2009 in her U. S. tennis match, she ended up having an outburst. It wasn’t the first set it was at the end of the set. She started swearing at the line judge and ended up losing the match. So, unless you clear the deck and like you’re saying the Pomodoro, you’re fried, at the end of the day. There’s nothing left to control yourself that’s when you’re going to have a derailer.
Joe: It’s interesting because again using the sports analogies makes them so vivid. I always heard one very similar to that with Michael Jordon, where he would tug the bottom of his pants for a reminder to disconnect for a second here.
That was the reminder that he used as far as for a free throw or something, that’s just… Don’t step up to the line and get ready to shoot, step back. And it’s a great time to disconnect.
Relly: That’s good. And another way they say that in the literature, is these rituals. What’s your recharging ritual? Do you have a ritual that you do? Which will mean do you do it regularly, it’s a habit for you? But it recharges you. If you don’t have a recharging ritual, you are a derailer waiting to happen.
Joe: When we talk about that, and that’s a good reason to understand how long your team can go into a meeting too. Is that they all stand up and stretch and take a break and disconnect for a minute, right?
Relly: Yeah, yeah. Well, the other thing about this that I have in there, this is under the teamwork, it’s another strategy. It’s called the leadership check in. Think about your teams, and I know how I am in meetings, I’m saying this maybe for your listeners. If I haven’t said anything in a while, I start disconnecting. I’m not engaged. But this idea that there’s a hundred of these check-ins where everybody gets a chance to say one quick thing. And my analogy is anybody who’s ever played Blackjack, if you’re busy getting a drink or something else and you haven’t put your chips up, you haven’t anted up. Playing Blackjack, you get the evil eye from the Blackjack dealer. They go, “Are you in? Come on, let’s go. Are you in or out?”
These leadership check-ins are like the ante up for a meeting. If a person hasn’t said something in the meeting, they’re less engaged. You’re going to get less of their brain.
So there are a hundred of these, like what’s the biggest risk you took in the last week? And you have everybody share like that. Who on this team has supported you? What’s your main signal that you’re getting too stressed out? Something like that, because everybody’s just has a quick statement, takes five minutes.
Now, they’re in the meeting. Their statements that aren’t just irrelevant, like what’s your favorite TV show? There are things that are pertinent. They say, “I didn’t know that about that person.” So in a sense, you get the team pulling together, knowing each other more. These are called leadership check-ins.
Joe: When you talk about a checklist, you also say something about a neglected checklist. What’s that?
Relly: Well, the neglected checklist, and this is where you think about a process, and we all know about work/life balance. And a lot of times, I talk to groups about work/leadership balance. They got deliverables; they got things that are due. That’s the work side. And what gets neglected is the leadership checklist. Those are some of these micro?initiatives, or those are things, let’s say, like having one on one meetings, starting the meeting with a purpose and even having meetings. Those things get neglected.
“I got this report. I got this preparation. I know so?and?so’s having a hard time with this issue, but I don’t have time for that. I’ll do that later.” So that’s what happens. Some of the leadership stuff that is part of your job, for anybody that matters to someone, gets neglected in favor of the task.
So that’s maybe a way of saying you have task things, but then you have leadership things on a daily basis. Those shouldn’t be neglected. Even though, it’s easy to put those off, that every day you should be able to do some of those.
One of the analogies I like to think about is in your backyard; you have the watering system, like a drip watering system, where just little drips come out and water your plants. That’s these micro?initiatives, this drip leadership.
There are a couple things that you should be doing every day. You can’t go two weeks and say, “I’m giving that person feedback in two weeks. OK, well, now I’ve got to do it.” Those are things that should happen and not be neglected on a daily basis.
Joe: We talk a lot about teams, and we talk a lot about team leadership but it really all begins with self-development, doesn’t it?
Relly: Yeah. I think that’s where it starts. Back to what you said earlier, somebody would do an assessment, and they’d say, “What’s my current state around these competencies? These are the competencies I need. Where am I now?” And then they work on a they have to have accurate self-assessment. That’s where sometimes feedback from others… Because someone else could think, “I’m great at all this.” and then you get feedback from others that go, “Well, you’re not so good at that.” Then from that current state, then you develop the desired state. “So where do I need to go?”
Often, from a development standpoint, it may be easier to say, “What’s your desired state?” first because that kind of gets the energy going. You know where do you want to go? What’s your career? What’s the next move for you? And they kind of get excited about that so that when they hear about the current state it’s already linked to something that’s exciting for them.
Joe: Are they all in line with organizational effectiveness? I mean can I do that? They seem to be one in the same but are they? Do I have to sit there and just get my personal house in order first before I can really help with the organization?
Relly: Yeah, I think of it as a both/and. I mean if you had to sequence it, you’d want someone to at least know where they are first. Although when I do executive coaching I can kind of read people, I may say to someone, “Well let’s start with how you’re leading your team. Let’s start with how you’re developing others.” And that, because there’s more need for that, that may get them focused and then we may so, “Oh, OK. So I noticed when you’re leading the team you get impatient a lot.” They may back into the soft part. So I would start with, you know the team because that’s got their attention more.
Joe: Is your book something that someone could just sit down and read or are they going to sit down and implement part of it, are they going to use it as a textbook?
Relly: You know it’s kind of, it’s a good way, may I say, maybe like an encyclopedia of key success actions. They don’t have to read it cover to cover. You know some of them may say, “Oh I like that stuff about the team.” You could go into the Team section and start reading some of the activities or strategies and say, “OK, that’s what I’m interested in.” Somebody else may be saying, “You know, I think I really do want to read it cover to cover, ” or “I’m interested in confidence, ” and they could go to the Confidence chapter. So it’s designed, and it’s got the chapters at the back, it’s got kind of a series of, kind of an index that you could just go and say, “OK, I need a team activity.” There are a couple of really good team activities to do. You know one is, there are a couple of team building activities, and then there are a couple of team meetings that almost anybody leading a team should do. Same thing for developing others, there are things about how to hold a one on one meeting and what should be the topic and what should be the agenda. There’re things in there about communication, you know and tools to use in communication, so. You could kind of go in anywhere and pick out something.
Joe: Do I have to understand E.Q. before I read your book?
Relly: If you just read the intro, it kind of walks you through what it is. The other thing that’s kind of interesting for people who aren’t used to it, there’s some key leaders whom we know about that I’ve profiled in there. Like Warren Buffett, you know, the number three richest man in the world. Where is he on some of these E.I. competencies? If you like sports, we have Magic Johnson, you know as a businessman. What are some of these E.I. competencies, and once you kind of see it portrayed in someone else you go, “Oh yeah, I know that.” I mean some of it is common sense. But the hard part is identifying which are the most important for you and then making yourself, like exercise, to go do those behaviors.
Joe: What’s upcoming for you Dr. Nadler? And where can someone learn more from you?
Relly: The best thing is the website like I mentioned: www.Truenorthleadership.com. You can get the assessments we’re talking about for free, the E.I. star profile it’s called and a derailer detector. Also on there is a link, and I have an Internet radio show, a podcast like you have here, it’s called Leadership Development News. And there’s a link that you can click on that and you could listen to where I’ve interviewed Ken Brancher, Jim Cruz, Marshall Goldsmith, Marcus Buckingham and just like your show you can also go to iTunes and type in Leadership Development News and there’s about a hundred and fifty of them.
Joe: Do you know what I’d like to add to this conversation before we end it?
Relly: I think going back to the one thing, because we were both talking about sports, if the leader can be really clear, and I like to hold up my hand and say, “What’s the target? What do you want from your people?” And I’ve done that once, and I remember someone saying, “You know, we just finished the World Series, it’s like the catcher. The catcher’s not only catching the ball, the catcher’s saying to the pitcher, ‘Throw it here.'” Throw it right here, inside, outside and as a leader are you clear about the target of your communication? You know where you want your communication to land just like the catcher’s saying, “I want it right here.”