Emotional Intelligence: HR's New Jedi Mind Trick

So first , I think everybody wants to get an update and hear how everybody's doing and what's going on in y'all's new world .

You can support us like they do , either continually through Patreon , you can do a one-time donation through buy us a beer and that goes to pay the bills to keep the podcast running . Let's see here . So yeah , it's been a couple of weeks I we didn't record .

I , starting at 2024 , if the Monday recording was going to be a holiday , I I said we weren't going to record and didn't do that . But a couple of weeks ago I completely I didn't even write what four weeks ago on my calendar . So I get to it's time to record . I don't even have anybody on the schedule , it's just a blank in here as I'm about to record .

So I just did a solo and actually it's probably the best performing solo by downloads that I've ever done . But yeah , solos my usual solos suck . But we've got a topic today I am personally and professionally interested in because in my mind it's a valuable tool and it can definitely help HR departments of all sizes .

However , it is also rife with consultants and keynote speakers who oversell and over-promise and under-deliver on the topic . So the topic is emotional intelligence in the workplace and I think I'm going to be coming to it as a total naive newbie on this , because I've done some homework on it .

I like the concept , but I don't know enough to really speak authoritatively on it . So , kevin , why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about what emotional intelligence is in , or EQ , and what is in the workplace and what it isn't ? I know there's a lot of people who think you can define it . Well .

I guess I should say you can actually define it pretty well by what it isn't as well .

And if you don't have the ability to identify and understand someone's emotion , manage and regulate your responses , empathize with others this is really what emotional intelligence is about , and you know it can get gray and it's how do you like anything we do in HR , it's how do you operate in the gray and how do you teach ? That is the big difficulty , right ?

I mean , that's a piece of the puzzle but that's not the whole picture . But you mentioned empathy and reactions and managing those emotions . What would be some of the key components of the overall emotional intelligence ?

Sometimes , when we have these conversations , that's like well , why did you go ahead and why did you smack that employee or whatever the situation may be , and they say because I'm passionate . And it's like no , because you really got your emotions in the way of you and you forgot about what the expectations were of your job .

And so when you're able to separate these passions and negative emotions and you can really focus on what the expectation is , I think your job can become a lot easier .

And the yada , yada , yada was like half an hour and in my mind I'm trying to be nice , I'm trying to listen , but I really don't want to about grandmother baking cookies and all the things that I . I wanted this to be a transaction of . Okay , here's our bereavement policy . You get X many days and da , da , da , da da . Here's , here's how it worked .

But I , I , I succeeded , but I was struggling in my own head with the empathizing with them to a certain degree . I really wanted this to be a transactional situation versus an employee engagement situation . I guess that would be the best way to put it .

And that's just one example I've thought of of where I've come up short and I don't know I get it , because when you mentioned empathy , that's sort of where my mind went straight to that situation I had . And how do you teach things like empathy ? That's really . Some of these things are not innate to people .

You know , like in sports , they say you can't teach speed . I think some things in the EQ world are they can't be taught . Maybe you can sympathize , synthesize them to a certain degree . You know , act it out . I know the part I have to play right now , but there's I . You can only fake it . So so much , so long .

But going back to your question is , how do you teach it ? I think there's a couple of pieces that I've seen work successfully and one you start with communication as your base , right , it's when people , when stuff hits the fan , it's where did it break in the communication ? That we weren't clear on the expectations or whatever happens , you know .

But taking a step back , I think it's one the good stuff . So how do you recognize the difference between recognition and appreciation and gratitude ? And I think that's something we teach with the emotional piece . Everyone wants to be appreciated as a human , but everyone wants to be recognized in a different way .

You can say I want to be recognized in a group of people , some people don't want their birthday song , you know saying to them at a restaurant leave me alone , just give me one-on-one , you know . So I think one is really separating the difference between recognition and that appreciation and gratitude .

The other piece is which is a big quote that I go by is don't manage your team , manage the expectation . So when I think about that , so when I think about about that is does your team know what's expected of them ? Do you know , as a leader , what's expected of you and and how well do you communicate it ?

Because it might you know , and really what is the bottom line is ? It is a customer service , a patient experience or whatever it is that you're trying to sell .

And I think , within that communication , if you can , if you can put accountability in one hand and appreciation on gratitude , your expectations get a little easier for you to have those conversations and then , especially , you can separate the passion and the negative emotion that way as well .

So passion and negative emotion is easier to separate when you're clear on , I think , the expectation .

It's probably one of the most unjaded things I'm going to say . I don't think people come into work thinking that , hey , I'm going to go in and screw up today , I'm going to do such a terrible job at my job today , everybody's going to hate me . Nobody does that .

I think people want to come in , and even the quiet quitters and all the bare minimalists , they come in wanting to do their job at least well . And if they're not performing well , you got to look at the communication , what was communicated to them and then how did they receive it , and then figure out where the wires got crossed .

I haven't been proven wrong yet , but I haven't seen anybody get to the point where , yeah , let me just completely fuck this one up and let's see what happens . This will be fun .

But I think that in my management training that's what I do . I talk about let's examine the communication , because people don't want to do wrong . And another point I bring up in my communication training is when there is an issue , address it immediately .

Because if you address it immediately , point A and point B are probably not that far apart , where , if you wait six months or a year or something like that , it's just that time is gone and it's wasted time and effort on everybody's part and it may not be recoverable at that point .

And as a manager , they have to , you know , grow a pair sometimes and say , hey , warren , you did A , we need you to do B , let's talk about this and get you on the right track , and too many managers don't like those type of conversations .

Because , I mentioned earlier , my first impression I thought of when I first heard about it was it's just telling people to use common sense . But there is more to it , because if it was just as simple as using your common sense , well I wouldn't say it'd be easy because we know how that goes .

But I think real life would be easier if we just started there . But unfortunately we have to train some of these and I like what you said about starting it off in the schools , even elementary schools , because these are basic relationship issues that you're going to have to deal with in the workplace , on the playground , on sports teams .

It's not going to escape you . Even if you're in retirement , you're going to have to deal with this , know how to deal with difficult people or what have you .

That's why I think it's an important topic , because it is something , and in colleges , let's get rid of some of the British lit and stuff that nobody wants to take anyway and start using more practical skills .

And I think that's where the traditional brick and mortar universities are still going wrong , whereas some of the non-traditional and my whole last episode was ranting on places of education . But some of these non-traditional schools have a much better program when it comes to teaching people the real skills they need to succeed as a professional .

I think there's little room for comprehensive emotional intelligence education and so I think many teachers maybe don't have the resources , they don't have the training , the awareness or the methodologies on how to teach an emotional intelligence instruction , and maybe they leave it to that , when you're out of here , for you to to figure it out that way .

But maybe it's gosh , you know , been ages for probably both of us in college , and maybe they are teaching something now that's a little more modernized as far as what's coming out the door when you get your diploma .

I like things that can be quantified and sorted and put into nice little categories where it feels at least as someone who doesn't know a lot about the subject it feels like it's something that's more subjective and it can be prone to human error . What are your thoughts ?

So I think it's more of the how , and can you link it back to maybe the competencies of the role or the level in that you operate in , whether you're a senior manager or a director ? Can you ? What are the ? If you were to break down and say , hey , there's , these are the top five , six competencies of this role , how do you navigate them through it ?

How do you do it consistently but otherwise , how do you measure emotional intelligence ? I think can be a little difficult for a company to to look through . I hope I'm wrong .

and get to know . Okay , this is what motivates kevin , this is what motivates warren , this is what motivates cc . This , this and you can , someone who has the ability to . Why am I trying to spit out here to tailor , not use a one-size-fits-all approach to their , to their management style .

Hey , maybe I'm going way off and being judgmental or whatever the word is , but also individual cultures play a role in this , because you mentioned earlier people being recognized . In my understanding is that the Far Eastern cultures do not like as much as individual recognition as , say , your good old American person .

Shameful thing for someone to get pulled out and say , hey , in that culture . Hey , kevin , you did a fantastic job doing X , y , z , congratulations , attaboy .

All the things that a lot of Westerners would probably love to be on center stage and look at me , but in in , in a lot of cultures that , look at me , is not good and and I think that's up to you know , and of course , that's paying with a hugely broad brush .

But if you know that , going in and learn about your employees and maybe hey , maybe you have that person that's not fit to mold , or maybe you have that American who just wants to come in make the donuts and get out and they don't care anything else , and that's , that can be okay , it really can .

They can be great individual contributors , but as a manager , you just need to know okay , well , hey , you know , warren , warren , you did a good job . Send them an email , say , hey , I really like what you did on this , and just send it to them and that'll give them their appreciation that they they need .

I think everybody needs to be recognized or appreciated at some level , regardless of how it works best for them and I agree and really good points and I like what you said about the Eastern culture .

All have different cultures , right , and so even with that you can take one that is really about appreciation and gratitude , has that more human approach to it , and then you have more that are more of a different view and straight with a vertical corporate ladder and such , you know , and has a different view on what emotional intelligence means to them and such ,

you know , and has a different view on what emotional intelligence means to them .

You know , the accounting department , the East Coast accounting department , has a completely different culture and vibe than the West Coast team and I think that's perfectly fine as long as it's a functional culture .

If everybody in the LA office is doing their thing and getting along and the work's getting done and everybody's happy and they're the most extroverted , let's party all the time , but they get their stuff done , that can be great for them , While the New York office they're a bunch of introverts .

I'm getting in here at nine o'clock , not getting here a minute earlier , and I'm leaving at five , not a minute later , and I'm just going to sit in my corner , get my crap done , and those can , with the right people , both be effective teams .

And I think that's where I sort of fall out of love with some of the keynote speakers and things I hear talking about EQ in the workplace because they want to paint with the broad brush and hey , or even closer than that . You know HR .

Everywhere I've worked , HR has sit somewhere close to accounting and everywhere I've worked , the culture and environment in the HR team and say the accounting team have been very , very different . And there's nothing wrong with either of them , generally speaking . No-transcript who want to sell me some program .

That's where they lose me , because I don't know , painting with broad brushes , as I've done multiple times tonight , is a dangerous thing , but you have to know that . I think if that's a starting point at least and then you dig down from there , it can be a little bit better .

Like we said in the beginning , there are different ways around communication and expectations and culture and accountability , and gratitude and appreciation and putting that all together , you know , and matching social cues , and how do you make sure that you can lead that effectively ?

And maybe you just don't say , hey , it's not emotional intelligence , it's just everything else .

But if you start talking about a more optimal communication in the higher engagement levels , hey , now they're starting to get a little bit more buy-in

. And that actually that's using your emotional intelligence to say , okay , who's my target audience here , what am I trying to , what are my goals , what am I trying to get ? And you can actually weaponize , if you will , emotional intelligence . Once you start thinking that way , how do I get what I need out of this person ?

And , dare I just say , manipulate what you do to serve your purpose . And I think that's sort of an art form that people in HR really need to do , because forever and a day we're seen as just overhead . And they wanted everything I mentioned about being transactional . They wanted everything to be transactional about HR .

And nowadays HR has such a much more prominent role , broader role , than it ever has before . But how do you get there ? Sometimes you've got to take baby steps , to do the little things , to win the win , the war with some of the , the people you need to win over and it's knowing who you're dealing with and dealing with them at their level .

And if you know that saying something like emotional intelligence is going to be a trigger for someone , hey , rephrase it , work better and work harder and figure out what's going to win them over . Is it manipulative ? Yeah , but I guess that's another thing .

If you become a EQ Jedi , if you will , you can use it to manipulate people , including employees who have maybe strongly held opinions about something . If you know what it is , tailored it more to them so they still get the message without hearing what is going to trigger them , for whatever their trigger mark is .

And that's where all you're you're absolutely right . It's effective communication and it's the listening , the coping skills and how do you regulate , and the C and those components , and that's all emotional intelligence at the end of the day .

But once again , even though I'm Mr Jaded HR , I also think that it can be appreciated even without using the term emotional intelligence .

And maybe because using the term emotional intelligence , and maybe because you know it does have a little bit of a woo factor to it that I think some people , when they hear that word , will back off from it and , like I said , I was one of them until I dove a little bit deeper in it .

But what would you say to manipulate that person who is and maybe not the right word , but to persuade that person who is anti-emotional intelligence to realize the benefits they're going to gain out of it , without using the buzzwords that people are going to feel triggered by ?

Have they gotten people promoted , kind of had them up a little bit , but understand what's their ultimate end goal and what is communication like with their team and are they really able to ? If I said to your team , do they know what's expected of them ? How would they react to that ?

How do they and how do you appreciate your team and show gratitude and how do you hold accountable and how do you do all that balancing at once ? I would kind of want to break it down and kind of understand where their mind is on how well they manage their team .

About managers who maybe they're great , they were the great individual contributor , but they're not a great manager or they don't have the people skills to manage effectively either help them become better managers or help them move on to realize that hey , maybe the individual contributor role was better for you or maybe this isn't the best fit for you .

Getting them to buy in once again the Jedi mind trick of getting them to buy into what you're trying to do that's got to be a completely different game , yeah , and are they aligned with the company values that they offer ?

And if they're not , and if they're like that , I don't know if that's something that's going to be a little more difficult to teach .

But is it because I was associating it with drama ? I don't want to know your baby daddy issues . I don't want to know that your mother-in-law is a real work of art . I don't want to know these things . But in terms of bringing your whole self to work , I want you to be happy and communicative and engaging with your coworkers at multiple levels at work .

But I don't want the drama , the 24-7 issues that people hear . How could we use EQ in this realm to help get that person who is probably a pretty good worker already but just has so much external baggage that it's weighing them down at work versus from achieving everything they can achieve ?

Though , again , you show that empathy that if they certainly have things going on in their life . I'm sorry to hear about that , but it's where you separate empathy and sympathy , and so you know . So I think really showing the difference between empathy and sympathy can go a long way . Someone messes something up very big or they're having .

We'll keep it as simple as attendance issues , you know , and they have personal things going on in their life and it's listen , I'm going to empathize to you because you have a sick child , because your car broke down , because you have things going on , but at the same time too , we've been clear on what maybe the attendance policy is , we've been clear on what

the expectation is , and you know that , and so I don't have any sympathy for you , and so because of that , I feel bad for this , but the fact that you lost your job or you're getting written up for this , I can't sympathize . You got to separate the two .

I'm not even great with empathy with my own wife and children or things like that , because the way I was raised is okay , that sucked , get over it , move on . But people don't , especially Gen Z , and if you haven't heard , we have the segment , the reoccurring segment on the show shooting on Gen Z .

But they want that higher level of empathy and , like I said , I can fake it so much , but I'm not going to be that touchy-feely , hold your hand , singing kumbaya with you and crying with you over whatever's going on in your life . I can't get there . I can't get there , like I said with my own children .

A lot of times it's like , okay , grow the fuck up and get over it . I can't say or do that at work and I've had 25 plus years of restraining myself from saying that at work . But how do ? Because obviously , especially in HR , empathy and sympathy and that's going to be my big takeaway from this whole podcast is the empathy versus sympathy .

But how do you go about teaching empathy and , like I said , I used it earlier , synthesizing it when it's not , because that's not something I well , I don't think . Well , I'll say that I don't think empathy can be taught . I think you can be taught , okay , how to react , how to do things .

But at a certain point , like I was mentioning with the person's grandmother , I felt bad for them , I sympathized with them , I empathized with them , I sympathize with them , I empathize with them .

But I didn't need the half hour discussion , but I didn't cut it off because they were in an emotional spot right now and I can get to that emotional spot period with them and I was just doing a lot of head nodding and oh , that's sweet and things like that , the cues , if you will , but I'm hoping I'm not a sociopath or anything like that by not being

able to . I mean , I do feel bad for them , but we're also not friends at that level where I can be all touchy-feely , huggy with that particular person or anything like that .

You know , and putting that to now , if it was a situation where you , kind of you , had a timeline and you had to go out . You know , and you can listen the example you were using earlier .

It's just like an interview , when you're talking to someone and maybe they , maybe they're going in a different direction and they keep talking and you're trying and you're trying to get them to land the plane . You know it's wait until they take a deep wait until they breathe .

They're human and they got gotta breathe at some point , right , so as soon as they breathe in , you gotta jump in there and whether it's a time constraint , or to say , hey , listen , you know here's , here's what you need . Here are some resources to help you out in this time . But thanks for letting me know . I wish you the best I gotta .

I gotta get going , whatever the situation may be . It's it's a song and dance and , like you said , it's a little it's a song and dance and , like you said , it's a little it's harder to , harder to do when you're in the moment . Yeah , it is .

Well , like I said , this is is probably the least jaded episode I think we've done , but I I really am intrigued by the topic and when Cece mentioned you'd done some presentations on this and this was an interest area for yours I was like this is really cool because I think there's more HR people than we don't have to be the touchy-feely HR department it's all

sunshine and roses and party committees and things like that to really do a deeper dive in EQ in the workplace . If you want to call it something else , call it something else , because I think that the name especially with , like I said , boomers or even some experts like myself it can sound a little woo-ish to them .

A little woo-ish to them , but if you take a look at it , I think having those type of resources and management training and even your employee training if you get to employees about conflict resolution , sometimes you don't even need to resolve a conflict . You can just say , okay , let's just stop and move on . It doesn't have to be , you win , I win .

It's like okay , especially here we are . We're about to enter a political season and just the other day I went through my Facebook feed and I was what do you call it putting snoozes or whatever on friends' notifications because I don't want to see their political crap and we're talking to some of my closest friends ever .

I just I don't want to see your political crap . I don't want to do that . And it's in every big election cycle .

It enters the workplace and somebody gets butthurt over it and it's at a point where you can say , okay , we can , we don't have to vote the same way and it's okay , that's fine , let's choose other topics to discuss versus holding a grudge You're a MAGA person , oh , you're a Libby or whatever it is .

Just let things go and see them for the whole person and not who they are , even if they are annoying the hell out of you . That's right . So , yeah , let's go ahead and start landing this plane . And do you have any final words about EQ in the workplace that you'd like to share ?

it all comes down to really the mix of what you learn when you grow up from your parents , what you learn within schools , and combining all that and then within the workplace and finding that effective way that really works and have people following you as a good human .

If you're a curmudgeon , you may be a subject matter expert in whatever field or whatever you're doing , but if you are a good human , you can inspire others and get more out of them just by your general personality , or even , once again , fake it , synthesize it , whatever you want to call it , to get your team on with you , and sometimes you have to wear that

mask of who you are just to get through and then while you're dealing with them , and then they're gone or what have you . You move on .

But that's important for all members in a group , whether it's a work group , a society , a neighborhood , a community , and , like you mentioned earlier , it has so much further implications and should be taught at the school level early on and going forward from there , because I think we lost a lot of civility , absolutely

. So I do want to thank you for coming in and pinch hitting with us . We will definitely want to have you back . Maybe we can have a more jaded , raucous type of episode in the future . Just make some fun of people . I don't think we properly mentioned earlier , but you two are an HR professional , so you've got a whole HR family there .

Empathy versus sympathy . Go back and listen to Kevin's thoughts on that . That was sort of like the the eye-opening wow moment for me . So , uh , want to thank the underscore orchestra for use of the theme song devil at the devil , and then our voice artist , who does the intro , is andrew colpa . I want to thank him very much as well .

And , kevin , thanks for joining us . I'm I'm absolutely sure we'll have you back at a later date as well , and , as always , I'm Warren , I'm Kevin , and we're here helping you survive . Hr one what the fuck . Moment at a time , thank you .