The following is a sample of 4 skills and associated behaviors that can enhance any selling process.

1. Self Awareness

How you show up and present yourself (look, demeanor, attitude, communication style, etc) to a client forms a huge part of how they perceive (and feel about) you. Make it good because their perception of you is their reality. Be very mindful of how you come across.

2. Awareness of Others

Strive more to help the client get what they want to buy, rather than just what you want to sell. Consequently, you will listen better, be more informed, and establish much better rapport and more likely close the deal; be genuinely empathetic.

3. Emotional Decision Making

Many argue that we justify based on facts but make decisions on emotions. The important piece to consider is that both are in play and often we over emphasize the former and forget about the latter. Simply take time to consider how those impacted by what you have to offer really feel about it. Ask, what’s your feeling at this time – you might be surprised with the answer you get.

4. Self Management

Inevitably in sales you are going to meet with disappointment. Don’t let this show in front of potential clients. You can manage these emotions and maintain a positive disposition at all times; remain resilient.

Emotionally intelligent behavior can be summed up as doing the appropriate thing with the appropriate person at the appropriate time.

In fact some would suggest that EI might be a better predictor of sales success than experience, intelligence or personality. This is not to say that these are not important but more that Emotional Intelligence should not be overlooked.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

“Leaders who demonstrate high levels of EI in the workplace drive higher levels of employee engagement as evidenced by the individual engagement levels of their direct reports.”

To those familiar with EI this comes as no surprise. But for those who may have perceived EI to this point as a “nice to have” or “soft skills” this should represent a real developmental opportunity for all levels of leadership. In this study individuals were measured in terms of their own levels of engagement in three specific facets:

• Praise the organization to others
• Perform above and beyond what is expected of them
• Persist in the face of adversity

These three dimensions have been shown to correlate directly with performance metrics such as productivity, retention, profitability and employee satisfaction to name a few. For a view of the preliminary results from this study, e-mail us.

At a time when organizations are striving to be innovative and competitive, the human asset is becoming even more critical. Couple this with the fact that people who have entered the workforce in the last 20 years are drawn to leaders who are aware, authentic, empathetic, expansive, resilient, empowering and centered/responsive. These are all the essential qualities of the emotionally intelligent leader.

If you are still in doubt, how engaged do you think you would be if your boss was disconnected, guarded, insensitive, limited, temperamental, indifferent and reactive?

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

1. Outstanding Employee Performance

Even though having a broad perspective on the various disciplines of business is critically important, demonstrating appropriate behaviors rate higher. For 99.9% of the workforce, interacting positively with other human beings can have an exponential impact on the organization. Positive working relationships, which can be achieved through the appropriate understanding of EI, support innovation, teamwork and reduced turnover among others and, generally leads to much higher levels of productivity.

2. Star Performance in Top Leaders

In order to be promoted within an organization people typically demonstrate considerable capacity in a particular discipline. However when one considers that top leaders surround themselves with people who understand and can execute tactically, the discipline’s importance can diminish considerably. The leadership role is one of getting the work done through an ability to communicate, motivate and inspire others into action. EI skills are the enablers of the behaviors and thinking necessary for top leaders to guide others on this collective path forward.

In summary, the presence of Emotional Intelligence (or not) can have the following impact leading to the following behavior and thinking:

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

Research conducted by Genos International, the global leaders in Emotional Intelligence (EI), has shown a direct correlation between a leader’s ability to engage employees effectively and their own level of EI. Often viewed as the “soft” side of leadership, this misnomer does little justice to its importance and ultimately the opportunity that exits for organizations to allow their future leaders reach their full potential.

Emotional Intelligence has allowed us to put a name and simplicity to that skill set that is not yet taught in schools, colleges or business programs. By understanding the role of emotions in how leaders conduct themselves, you can avoid the pretense that they are not relevant in the workplace and use this knowledge to your advantage. Consequently by fully leveraging the understanding of this key leadership trait, productive employee engagement expands and business success becomes more inevitable.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

In an article by Dr Helen Reiss, she spoke about Empathy in Medicine from a Neurological perspective. Dr Reiss went on to say that “A physician’s attitude and approach affect every aspect of medical care for patients and their families. An empathic bedside manner is no quaint relic of the past. To restore and ensure public trust in the medical profession, new generations of physicians must understand the emotional, physiological, and practical consequences of discarding empathy. One legacy of medical education is overvaluing scientific measurement and undervaluing subjective experiences. The neurobiology of empathy offers hope for those who value the subjective experience of empathy and for those who find comfort in what can be measured.”

Within EI empathy, which is really the ability to walk in the other person’s shoes and see it from their perspective, is demonstrated through a high degree of emotional awareness of others. Of course empathy is just one part of this equation. The full range of EI skills also speaks to the ongoing well being of the doctors and nurses themselves who very often are working in very stressful and emotionally challenging situations. Having high self awareness means you are very present; having the ability to self mange builds resiliency and a high degree of self control allows you to be responsive rather than reactive. These are all very enabling traits and allow doctors and nurses to be also at their very best from a self preservation point of view.

In conclusion, within the medical profession the quantitative data is absolutely critical, but more and more research is clearly demonstrating that this can be very effectively complimented by more subjective experiences. Empathy and other emotional intelligence skills can make doctors and nurses much more effective in their various interactions and also, more importantly in certain instances accelerate recovery.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

• Audit organizational culture and impact strategic culture change
• Identify and develop high potential future leaders
• Enhance leadership effectiveness

• Improve sales and selling skills in the consultative model
• Teach customer service skills
• Prepare work teams for organizational change
• Boost workplace creativity and innovation
• Foster high performing collaboration

Emotional Intelligence involves a set of skills that define how effectively we perceive, understand, reason with and manage our own and others’ feelings. When applied to the workplace, EI involves the capability to ‘intelligently’ use one’s own and others’ emotions to intentionally and efficiently deliver individual and organizational outcomes.

The Genos model revolves around 7 skills that provide for improvements in behavior, decision making and ultimately performance. These skills are important at work, as emotions are an inherent part of workplace activities at all levels. One way to better understand is by evaluating what low and high represents for each skill.

The real benefits to understanding emotional intelligence are that you can consciously make changes to improve each of these skills. These are not personality traits; rather they are behaviorally based and with some desire, hard work and good coaching can improve organizational effectiveness in monumental ways.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

Coaching can be divided into two sets of skills. The Inner Skills are characterized by connecting with other people through listening, questioning, acknowledging, validating, empathizing, etc. It is truly about the other person and making them the key focus; this is consistent with Personal Humility. The Outer Skills focus very much on goals, actions, solution finding, accountability, etc., all with a drive towards a positive outcome. Possessing a determination towards achieving results at work aligns with Professional Resolve.

Emotional Intelligence in very simple terms focuses who how you behave and are subsequently perceived in the execution of these skills. It’s really about how you walk your talk. Through heightened awareness and management of self and others, through how you appropriately control and express yourself and, finally through thoughtful decision making, leaders develop the ability to create an environment where people want to be led.

The key point is that all great leaders need to be Emotionally Intelligent Coaches. Together with technical capacity and experience (a given), by internalizing what these skills and behaviors entail, and applying them to their daily work, good leaders can become great leaders.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

Firstly, many of the well known assessments such as Disc, Myers Briggs and Lomminger, describe how a person is and what is useful for others to know about that person. These, though great to know and understand, tend to be matter of fact and static. However the Genos model of EI, for example, describes the individual over seven skills and provides an assessment that is fluid and consequently forms a Baseline for Development.

Secondly, EI revolves around behavior, whereas many of the other assessments focus more on technical skills and personality. Your personality is descriptive and in all likelihood it’s not going to change. It has also been widely written that challenges people encounter rarely have anything to do with lacking technical capacity. Consequently in knowing somebody’s skills and personality, what if anything changes? However EI is Behaviorally Based and can be Changed. Once a client understands what aspects of their behavior are not working for them, these can be worked on and very much becomes the basis for a coaching engagement.

Finally, there is a speed with which coaches can help their client effect really positive change in a relatively short period of time using EI. This can be achieved quite simply, for example, through having a clearer Self Awareness (the key skill of EI) around how one’s behavior is affecting others. This can be done by making some of the most subtle of changes, e.g. patient rather than impulsive, listen rather than talk, team player rather than individual contributor or open rather than closed. As a result Changes can be made Quickly to maximum affect.

Emotional Intelligence helps to diagnose real development opportunities for clients; these lead to results that positively impact both the client and their organization.

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

Within the realm of Executive Coaching, Emotional Intelligence has emerged as a key tool when working with the C-Suite. It is widely held that senior leaders are not lacking in technical capacity; this usually is what got them to that level in the first place. However what separates the real leaders is their ability to also work effectively with all the various stakeholders whether customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders and indeed the community. They have the ability to connect; they are emotionally intelligent.

What are the specific characteristics of people who can do this?

• Self Awareness – can see in themselves what others see
• Confident Communicators – say the right thing at the right time to the right people
• Awareness of Others – foster believability rather than like-ability
• Decision Making – work with the feelings as well as the facts
• Self Managed – rebound quickly from setbacks
• Management of Others – can hold the space in a positive way
• Self Control – possess the ability to respond rather than react

Think about the current CEO of BP Petroleum, Tony Hayward. He is obviously a very smart individual and nobody can question the magnitude of challenge he faces. He is probably among the world’s least popular people if there was such a list. This is despite the fact that BP has admitted full responsibility and will to pay for the damage caused. Of course the responsibility and liability are technically sound business decisions and you would think that citizens and lawmakers would be happy with that. That is clearly not the case and so one wonders to what degree his lack of Emotional Intelligence has become his nemesis.

Let us know what you think!

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.

How emotional intelligence can help you get ahead

By Bill Sex

Special to the Worcester Business Journal

02/01/10

Daniel Goleman, in the Harvard Business Review, proposed that IQ and technical knowledge are mainly “threshold capabilities” and simply exist as entry level requirements for key positions.

The key is a high level of emotional intelligence, which provides the “link” — the ability to connect with and relate to other people.

So what is emotional intelligence and how does it relate to business relationships? Feelings influence the way we think and the decisions we make. For example, you wouldn’t ask your boss for a raise or more resources if he/she was in a bad mood. The response would likely be no. The scientific term for this is “mood congruent thought.” Feelings influence our outward displays and behaviors and therefore play a huge role in our relationships.

Many would argue that there is no room for the managing of emotions in the workplace; that somehow emotions are only personal. Ironically, these are the “hard” elusive skills and are the very thing that fuels or quenches the energy of the workplace.

Gaining Awareness

According to Genos, a leading international educator in emotional intelligence, “EI involves the capability to ‘intelligently’ use one’s own and others’ emotions to intentionally and efficiently deliver individual and organizational outcomes.” Some of these skills include:

Self Awareness — perceiving and understanding one’s emotions when interacting with other people.

Self Expression — expressing one’s emotions effectively and creating a greater understanding amongst colleagues about yourself.

Awareness of Others — perceiving and understanding others’ emotions and how to engage, respond, motivate and connect with them.

Emotional Reasoning — utilizing emotional information (as well as data) in decision-making.

The following short story illustrates how these skills can impact relationships.

Ideas In Action

Tom had been running his business unit for more than four years and was doing a very accomplished job — on the surface. Despite this success, people were talking. The relationship with John, his boss, had become difficult. There were disagreements, defensiveness and conversations were not as easy as they once were. Eventually, during a review, John bluntly explained how Tom was being perceived, and if it didn’t change, there would be consequences. Some of the criticisms were that:

• He had become arrogant, self-centered and less-approachable.

• He was challenging too often and becoming more disagreeable.

• He was less supportive of his team and often confronting John in public.

• He was less concerned for how people felt and made decisions unilaterally.

Through working with an executive coach, Tom came to understand how his behavior had changed. He also discovered that if he truly wanted to change there were some very simple things he could do to rebuild the necessary relationships:

• He spoke candidly to trusted colleagues about areas he could work on.

• He changed his approach when communicating with people; he listened more and asked questions with genuine curiosity.

• He tried to be more patient with people, acknowledged them more and was supportive of ideas.

• He become more reflective in his decision making and came to understand the various parties affected in order to make better decisions.

Tom never shifted in terms of his high expectations of people and the need for accountability. What he did change was his approach.

Question: What about this article resonated most with you?

©2012 New England Coaching. All Rights Reserved.