41: Jen Shirkani on Emotional Intelligence and Nurturing Resilience

But if I have too much empathy without the assertiveness , I may be somebody who's too tenderhearted . I have a hard time giving feedback when someone needs to hear it , or I don't delegate as much because I worry people are already overworked , so I don't want to pile on and my assertiveness isn't there to meet it .

She's an expert on emotional intelligence and a speaker and an author , and she talks about how can we leverage the power of emotional intelligence , and we had a fabulous conversation today where we talked about EQ resilience as an outcome and a little bit about her conversations with some super survivors and what she learned from them .

I think you're really going to enjoy this episode . Hey , if you like the podcast , find us on Apple Podcast . We'd love for you to subscribe and leave a review , and I've also got a Google Form with a few questions Just to get your feedback . Find out what you like about the show , what you think we could do better .

There's a link for that in the show notes . Thanks , and enjoy the show . Hello , jen , I'm so excited that I'm going to be talking to you today .

But even just nowadays , to be able to fly somewhere and just or just blink and be where I need to go and not have to worry about airports and airplanes and schedules being on time and all that I would love to time travel that would be the number one thing .

understand more about .

No , Thank you for sharing that . So why don't you tell our listeners who are you and what do ?

We work with organizations , so I primarily work on the business side versus , you know , life coaching or personal and work with executives and leaders around the country now actually around the world occasionally and we really just help everybody better understand themselves and have a little more self-awareness how well they're managing their social relationships or social

awareness , empathy , and then how do they respond appropriately , you know how do they take action that is best suited for the situation they're in or the audience they have , and be a little bit more mindful about their own behaviors .

It's fairly new , I mean , when you consider all behavioral sciences or even assessments that are on the market , this is much newer than personality , for example , or communication style , and really this is based on a history of study that started with a clinical psychologist and he was the one who coined the term EQ or emotional quotient .

Sometimes that term is interchangeably used with EI or emotional intelligence , and really what it comes down to is someone's ability to better understand themselves and when they face a struggle or a hardship , do they see that as an opportunity to learn about themselves and others , or do they allow that experience to permanently damage their sense of hope for the future

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Reading others , reading the room , reading the audience and then responding appropriately and using some self-management skills to think about how they want to respond , instead of letting emotion take over and sometimes undermine us or just kind of having a one-size-fits-all approach . Those with lower interpersonal adaptability tend not to use as much emotional intelligence .

So EQ ends up being a very solid foundation for having almost like resiliency as the outcome of having more emotional intelligence , because it really helps you better recognize when am I feeling stressed or anxiety about something and what am I doing to help myself manage through some of that stress or anxiety , to prevent it from getting to a point where now it's

leading to a health consequence or something I'm not in control of , and then it also really helps understand perspectives of others .

So if I am faced with something that's a hardship that's going to require me to have some resiliency , I'm able to see it maybe a little more objectively , like this isn't just happening to me , this isn't something that is directed at me uniquely , this isn't just a bad situation that I find myself in and that can really help us maintain , you know , like that

idea of hope for the future , that this is not forever . This is a situation that I'm in and it will get better , and so having the optimism , which is one of the skills , is another component of resiliency . How do I self motivate in a way to stick with the situation but have the optimism to know this isn't going to last forever . I will get through this .

So I have a numeric measure tied to my overall emotional intelligence and then it also measures 15 EQ skills and how I'm doing on those 15 . And then years later another assessment came out which was really built around Dan Goldman's model of emotional intelligence .

So Dan Goldman was really the first author that took on this behavioral science and analyzed how it worked in the business world . You know what does it mean to have a leader with higher emotional intelligence and what are the consequences of that . And so he developed , in partnership with what was then a group it's now corn fairy ,

what they call the ESCI , the emotional and social competence inventory and that measures 12 EQ skills . But they have a very strong philosophy and I'm certified in both these assessments . I've used them both regularly .

But the corn fairy version feels very strongly that you can't rely on a self only because we all have biases or blind spots about us , and so they only offer theirs as a 360 , which means you take it , but then all the people in your circle around you also .

Okay , to get a very clear picture of the way I see myself compared to how everyone else scored me in the 12 areas . The EQI has since added a 360 option , so they have come back and added that , but the hay group or corn fairy version they won't offer a self only because they don't feel it's as valid .

I personally use both and I see validity and benefit to either one , just depending on what it is you're trying to accomplish with the assessment Right , wow , okay , so it is measurable , which , I suppose , does that also mean that resiliency would be a measurable trait that we have ? Yeah , yeah , you can . Actually .

There's an assessment called the hardiness indicator , and it does measure resiliency . It's published by the same company that does the EQI 2.0 . So I've used that resiliency and hardiness Okay Gauge . I think it's called the HRG , and again , it's a self only .

So it's really just a matter of you kind of identifying what situation are you strongest in and do you have what it takes , you know , to overcome setbacks or struggles I think all of them though what's really important is that self reflection and the self awareness piece . Mm , hmm , you know .

But how is that useful to somebody to know that information about themselves ?

One of the values of self-awareness is knowing what brings out the best in me , but also what might bring out the worst in me , and so if I can do a better job , picking roles , companies , cultures , leaders that I know bring out the best in me , I am helping myself right In the one area that I might have control over , which is just me and my behavior .

I can't control the world . I can't control anything happening outside . I can only control me and my reactions to things . And so , understanding what is my go-to reaction and what I find when I'm coaching people especially I coach a lot of mid-career or late career executive leaders .

There are certain things that we get known for , whether it's because it might be a skill that comes naturally to us , so let's just say it's problem solving . I might be a great problem solver , and so I do it a lot at my job , and other people now start to rely on me for that problem solving .

And so a lot of the coaching work is don't add this new skill in or change this behavior , but stop doing this so much , Start pulling back and balancing out . So another pairing I look at on the EQ assessment one skill of EQ is assertiveness and one skill of EQ is empathy .

Well , the goal is that I have these two in balance , because if I have too much assertiveness and not enough empathy to go with it now , I'm maybe very dominant . I might be taking over meetings , I might be just doing what ? I want that meets my needs , without any consideration for my audience or the impact on anyone else .

That's the world that you work in , but this isn't something that people in other kinds of jobs often , or other kinds of situations , necessarily would have access to or even know that they existed .

So I feel like we're creating this one set of people who build this awareness and understand , maybe , their resiliency level and their emotional intelligence and what they may need to work , and then other folks who might not naturally be thinking in those ways , who don't have a sense of what's going on and maybe it doesn't have a sense of what's holding them back

and can't see that . I wish this was the kind of I don't know , I guess I wish this was something that was more easily available to people or somehow we could all just know these numbers or where we fit on the scale , so that we could all figure out how to relate to each other .

We had extra budget , money and training . We'd given them a little workshop on communication , but it wasn't really seen as like critical , vital functional skills and I've been impressed .

I think , as the years have gone on , that people are starting to see how much more important these skills are getting , because my IQ will only get me so far , my technical expertise will only get me so far , but at some point I have to work through other people .

So these functional skills start to become really important , and so organizations that figure this out and start treating these as importantly as getting people through an Excel class or a compliance program , they realize these are gonna be just as important to my workforce to have these skills as their technical expertise .

I'm not quite as scared to face a similar situation in the future and I've actually learned something about myself or somebody else as a result of that . And I'm always so impressed with what I call the super survivors out there .

And I think of people like Michael J Fox who has been through a tremendous health difficulty for many , many years , kind of pulled him out of his crime and yet everything . Every time you hear him talk and he writes books about gratitude and he will say you know , this is one of the best things that ever happened to me .

And you think , my goodness , who could have that perspective on such a debilitating health ailment ? But yet he has figured out how to make the best of the situation and has discovered parts of him and the people around him that he doesn't believe , what he would have ever known or seen if he hadn't gotten sick .

And so I think that's a big part of this concept of resiliency is can you look back at it and say in the end , I'm better for this happening ?

Or that you consciously call in the moment that you need it . So how do you go ?

So a big challenge , I think , with resiliency , or a lot of times when we're called to be resilient , is when change has occurred , typically unexpected change or change that's out of our control , yes , and so I find that the people who have kind of the best foundation of resilience are those that are somewhat challenging their own comfort zone , voluntarily , okay ,

they're willing to make change or push for change on their own , so they're comfortable , or more comfortable , with change .

And one of the elements of emotional intelligence is flexibility , that open-mindedness to do new things or try something different , and , I think , that ability to say , okay , it's looking like we're going to get a new software at work and I know nothing about it .

You know you can either wait until the company rolls it out and then puts everybody through training and try and figure it out then , or you could start to do a little research on your own , maybe look at a tutorial , start to think , okay , I'm going to start familiarizing at least myself with this .

Or somebody invites you to a networking meeting or a party or a social event and they end up last minute canceling and then you have that decision .

Do I go by myself or do I just beg because they're not going , my friend's not going with me , and that person who's willing to go and face maybe a little bit of an uncomfortable social setting where they know nobody is challenging that flexibility and they're building some of that change , openness to try new things , and you know that starts to then open up

their eyes to what else might be out there . They might have an experience with it . It ended up being a really positive experience for them .

So now they'll be more resilient next time to maybe try to do something on the round they've never done before , right , so it's like a muscle in a way , you know , and you push yourself and I always say you know we're much better when it's something like that . We're totally in control . If it really sucks , I'll just leave early .

Right , if it's really bad , I have my car , I'll just get out of there , and so you have control still over what you're doing to push yourself , but you're willing to really , you know , bite the bullet and go do that Right People talk about making presentations at work .

You know a lot of people are afraid to present in front of others and so really pushing themselves to give a presentation , or to give a presentation or give a talk . You know that's a challenge for a lot of people , and the ones that are willing to do it learn from that and then next time they're not quite as intimidated to do it again .

Right , right , okay .

But what do you think is the role of our organizations or our systems in helping people and in really supporting resiliency ?

And I think a lot of it is the whole . You know , what am I learning and what have I learned and what would I do differently next time ? And our organizations tend to be really future-minded .

You know everything is like what are we doing this quarter to meet our goals ? What's happening ? You know what are the goals for next year ?

Everyone's now getting ready to start budget season for 2024 , if they're on calendar , fiscal and so I think there is a tendency to look very forward and when there has been a mistake , there's a quick tendency to want to just say okay , okay , okay , okay , put that away . We're never looking at that again .

I just want that behind me and I never want to think about what happened there , when I think organizations can stop and do a better job of Dissecting okay , this did not work for us , whether it's a market launch failure , a change initiative that didn't work , something that didn't go the way they thought it would , and we have an honest discussion about what went

wrong Mm-hmm so that we can benefit from that learning , so that we can hopefully prevent that same thing from happening again . But there is a lot of , as you know , a lot of Concern about you know . I don't want to point fingers .

I certainly don't want the fingers pointed at me , so I'm not about to go into a meeting and admit I really blew it on something , and so it's just easier to sweep it under the rug and move on and focus on the next goal .

Right but that's one really good way that organizations can build some resiliency is by making it okay to Take a look back and do an autopsy report of here's how this project went . Here's what we learned good and bad here were . Here were some successes , but here were some failures . And then how do we use that information to be better in the future ?

Mm-hmm is also someone who has access to a tremendous amount of resources to right bear on his situation and that isn't able to heal his illness , but it doesn't able him to Perhaps tap into resiliency in a way that's different that somebody with fewer resources could have .

So I guess I'm thinking about Organizational support on that kind of level that if you are working for an organization that isn't supportive of Emotional intelligence and resiliency and recovery from trauma , that's very different from working from an organization that is very supportive and empathetic and compassionate .

And then you've got a bunch of small companies that just can't practically Offer those things right and so I think it's really important to Tap into the network in your community , in your social circle Perhaps , or in your home circle , that can provide some of those missing pieces out there .

And it's funny because one theme I noticed when I was studying these super survivors and I looked at people like Elizabeth smart , who faced a really difficult year when she was kidnapped and then eventually found , and I think Everywhere I looked when I saw people who had survived really challenging life Situations , there was an element inside every one of their stories

around Charity , and what I mean by that is giving back in some way , whether that was a foundation , which is Michael J Fox he has a foundation now to prevent Parkinson's or a Drive a resource gallery . I spoke to one woman whose whose son was actually killed as a teenager in a violent incident , and the Kid who killed her son was also a teenager .

She ended up talking to him when he was in prison , stayed in touch with him , and when he got out of prison , she took him in to her home and raised , finished raising him .

Wow , I know I mean you just can't imagine some of the things that people have done , and but again , it's , it's , there's this giving back .

I want to help others who have gone through similar scenarios , so I can , you know , tell them my story and give them any tools I might have and then perhaps build some kind of resource for this , a omen or plight or whatever the situation is . And so I think it's .

It's a really valuable component that , even when we feel we need all the help and we need all the resources , these people are still saying but I still have something I can give , yeah , yeah , and when you have that mindset and when you take those kinds of actions , I think you naturally find them .

You're a tribe , you know your your support team will show up , and so it becomes very reciprocal then right and it's a wonderful thing . So I think it's easy , though , to feel alone , you know , and feel like maybe I'm the only one going through this , but the reality is that's usually not the case .

I'm curious what is giving you hope right now ?

I think it is in our just core nature to want to thrive and overcome and endure , and so I think the human spirit is very strong and even though we've definitely had our challenges and there's a lot of challenges in the world overall , I still believe in that . You know human spirit and I see people who learn about emotional intelligence .

They internalize it , they make different decisions with their life and , as a result , see very different results and it can be life changing .

It's why I was really drawn to this science , because I thought , you know , we have a lot of professional skills that we can develop and teach people , but without this foundation , this EQ thing , this ability to recognize , read and respond , and the resilience that comes from that , it doesn't really do me any good if I'm not learning and growing along the way .

So I see a lot of benefit . I think it's like it takes that hard coding we all have . You know we all have a hard coded set of traits or temperaments , but this just helps make us better . It's like the magnifier for bringing out the best in us , like I said , and maybe minimizing the worst of us through this self-awareness and decisions I make accordingly .

You know , you only live once and life is short , and what I have learned is that for the vast majority of us , life is long .

Life is actually long and even though I had times in relationships that I was not happy times , that I didn't like my job , that I didn't like my body , that I didn't like my bank account , remembering that it's not gonna let , this isn't forever . We think it's forever . I think when we're young , we think , oh , I'm never gonna love this person again .

Yes , I'm never gonna like this job again .

And so , you know , be a little more patient with things and believe a little bit in the system working itself out , and sometimes we're just feeling something that's temporary and it doesn't mean it's gonna be forever . So that's , I think , what I would . I wish I had thought about back then , many , many , many mistakes ago .

own emotional intelligence . Jen , thank you so much for your time today . I really appreciate it , my pleasure thanks for having me . All right , bye everyone . Thank you for listening .

I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did , so if you'd like to learn more about me , Manya Chylinski , I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences , and I do this through talks and consulting .

I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency , compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership To build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil . If this is something you wanna learn more about , visit my website , www . manyachylinski . com , manya@manyachylinski .

com , or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter . Thanks so much .