To succeed in today’s business climate it’s not enough to have general intelligence coupled emotional intelligence to be a success! Social Intelligence is also an essential requirement.

Over the past year I’ve been spending increasing amounts of time working with aspiring executives and explaining that their colleagues want the top job as much as they do and that often the only difference between candidates is their social intelligence.

it’s more than a smile, walking around the office thanking people for their work, being at the top of people’s party list or even having a sense of humour. Social intelligence is the ability to set oneself apart and to be identifies as the candidate for leadership because people are attracted to you and will follow.

I so enjoy working with people to develop their social radar and create an understanding of what will create and harm reputation. So the manager who accepted that having the 007 theme tune on his mobile phone was’t  the “coolest corporate image” was in fact demonstrating a distinct lack of social intelligence.

Creating a personal presence so that we can empathise with people’s feelings and, here’s the difference with emotional intelligence, being able to manage how we work with others despite our internal emotional feelings is now an essential tool.

Loads of shops say they deliver an “excellent shopping experience” who, in reality, don’t. So I’ve decided to award these businesses my own “Poor Shopping Experience Medal” and the first is awarded to Homebase in Bridgend.

Yesterday I needed some bubble wrap, the stuff that protects fragile objects. Homebase in Bridgend allowed me to buy it by the metre at £1.49 (meter in USA) and some kind assistant walked me to the back of the store and cut a length after measuring it against a ruler.

I took my neatly rolled bubble wrap to the counter to pay. “Three metres of bubblewrap” I helpfully told the young lady behind the till. “I’ll have to measure it” she said as it was unravelled. Then looked at me as if I was trying to steal the crown jewells “It’s five metres”.

Now I’m sure that Homebase suffers from people trying to walk out of their store without paying for some items but I can think of more valuable things that two metres of Bubble Wrap!

“But I only want three” I protested. She turned to the manager and shouted “He says he only wants three, can we call Fred to recut it”. Having originally waited five minutes for Fred to arrive to cut the original amount I could see this taking more valuable minutes and hold up an ever increasing number of annoyed people in the line behind me. “I’ll take it” I said in frustration. The bubble wrap was passed over to me to refold with a look of “I knew you were trying it on” from the lady and probably by others in the line behind me.

Can I suggest that Homebase could save time, misunderstanding and embarrasment when their shop assistants cut lengths of bubble wrap, or anything else for that matter, that the customer is given a note to show at the pay counter as proof of the amount requested. Self cut lengths could then be measured in the usual manner. Then I would suggest Homebase train the cutters in measuring a metre length. Until then my award medal for poor shopping experience goes to Homebase in Bridgend, South Wales.

Much of my time is spent working with executives on increasing their personal impact and team productivity. An important area is social intelligence.

Social intelligence includes the ability to read people and predict behaviour. I’m not talking about body language.  am talking about how one can influence other people’s behaviour through observation and creating appropriate actions as a result.

Let’s take an example: During our career we have used our understanding to predict our boss’s, colleagues and even life partner’s reaction to certain situations or news. The result is that we know, or think we can assess, the right time to deliver bad news.

Another example of when we heighten our use of social intelligence is at the job interview. The candidate tries to identify where the interviewer stands on certain topics by reading the reaction to answers. Generally this involves detecting negative responses to what’s being said and then to modify or alter the answer accordingly. It’s called self-preservation.

However, many executives don’t use their social intelligence most  effectively despite there being many occasions when they want to influence their team to undertake a new project, accept company targets and then looking for buy-in versus compliance.

When this happens the executive will rely on compliance. The problem with compliance, however, is that it’s often destined to fail or achieve only fleeting short-term gains. Using Social Intelligence increases the chance of long term buy-in and project success. TOne of the main keys is understanding normal human traits. 

• People are natural pleasers: They will try to look good to those that lead them 
• People like simple solutions: So managers should reduce the number of alternatives when outlining a new project. 
• People want results “Now”: The Latin term is Myopia Temporal and it’s where poeple will discount future consequences in place of a  result that looks good for them right now. (Supermarkets use this to get people to buy sweets at the checkout, even when they are on a diet)
• People will follow a crowd: This is useful to a manager to persuade others to buy into a system 

Command and control cultures have a tendency of delivering only short-term results. Alternatively Social intelligence is a process that most managers should find easy to develop with practice. Two keys include: 

1) Identifying with the team the actions and values that generate success. Then support those that are considered valuable and move away from those considered less supportive.

2) Sharing decision making with the team. That is not to say that they share in the decision making just that they understand the route to the decision process. This allows for dissent but in the face of a majority a dissenter will generally align with the majority. This style of consensus management creates creativity and innovation and is used with considerable effect at Google and Apple. 

Creating buy-in with a team used to command  and control systems isn’t always easy. However, using the techniques above eventually creates teams that will begin to operate in a more incluse manner.

As Mahatma Ghandi suggested to one observer “I must hurry, for I’m their leader…and there they go”

This information is taken from the new event: “You’re Here…But How To Get There” that shows Executives how to utilse their personal presence to deliver outstanding team results.

If you would like more information on the event “You’re Here…But How To Get There” or on this article please contact me at Stephen@assimilating-talent.com or phone 01727 838321. 

Recently I’ve been asked “How do I cope with office politics” from a number of executives who are finding that arguments over strategy are becoming more common during the financial difficulties. They have been asking me for some tactics for managing conflict.

In this video I talk about some of the reasons that conflict occurs between colleagues and sobordinates and look at some of the tactics that cen be used to manage it. It’s a small, but essential, part of my executive mentoring programme and also a topic visited in my new conference keynote “You’re Here…But How To Get There?”

Surviving Office Politics + Conflict

Last week I attended a number networking events and was surprised at how badly some people use them to make contact with people. At one I was monopolised by someone desperate for an appointment to sell their product to me and was sticking to me like glue. After a boring fifteen minutes I managed to introduce him to someone that, on relection, I’m sure was a waiter and then I managed to move away.

At another meeting I met a very nice couple who subsequently told me that they wanted to meet me  again because I was “the only person that looked as if they were having fun”

A lot of my Senior Executive mentoring time is spent on creating “personal presence” and a personal brand image and this includes how to network.

The most common mistakes we talk about are:

• Monopolising a single person (Between 5 and 10 minutes is generally enough before inviting someone else to join the conversation in order to to create a larger group)
• Describing what you do and your benefits to a potential prospect in more than 21 words (rambling and ill constructed descriptions are boring and confusing. If it takes more than 15 seconds to say it’s time wasted)
• Not acting as a host to the group (leading the group by initiating introductions, leading topics and making sure that everyone gets to say something)
• Being too serious (only wanting to talk about business. Have fun and make sure others are having fun too)
• Handing out business cards instead of collecting them

Is it any wonder that the decision on the future of London’s 2012 Olympic stadium has had to be delayed. The Olympic Park Legacy Company says it needs more time to study rival bids from Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham.

The problem is always the same when there are too many people with differing outcomes that need to give their approval. According to the BBC Any OPLC recommendation will have to be ratified by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department of Communities and Local Government, and the London Mayor’s office.

Each of these groups have a different perspective but they also want to be able to claim any success for whatever decision that’s made. Then again they will also wish to deflect any criticism if it all goes wrong!

In my experience any business team with such diverse outcomes is destined to fail and the result can only result in more expense to Londoners who will be expected to pick up any bill.

I’m fed up and tired with the number of emails that I get offering to share the secrets of on-line riches and how to earn $2000, $4,000 a month or more by using Twitter, facebook and other social network sites. Proof of their success is always provided by testimonials and their Paypal or Clickbank account statements and it all looks very impressive and plausable.

Indeed some people are running weekend long sales seminars where a troop of people all explain how they have made a fortune on-line and promise to share the same information with a small group…for a fee and it’s all guaranteed!

However, I work to the rule that one of my friends, who runs a hugely successful social media site, who said “When considering products on-line, the one thing to remember is that no one has a goal to make you rich”

Last week I was flattered to have been contacted by a company to compliment me on the content of my YouTube Channel  and particularly the films on interviewing questions and answers. It’s always nice to be appreciated until they asked if I had considered using a female presenter as it would be “softer on the eye”.

Last night I was at a business networking event and thoroughly enjoying myself when an old contact approached me and started to moan about “how slow business is”. His main misfortune was that companies weren’t buying his product and his pitches seemed to fall on stony ground.

He was downbeat, defeatist and depressed and after spending five minutes trying to motivate him to think more positively suggested that he was not going to improve his situation by spending time me. I was, after all, a friend who was never going to buy from him because I’m not his market and that he needed to be making new contacts, working the room, and not sticking with the familiar.

“Well thank you for being sympathetic!” He said with a growl
I ignored the veiled criticism, smiled and introduced him to the people I had been talking to earlier and who I thought might be in a position to need his expertise. Within a few minutes I saw that he was on his own again.

This morning I hear that retail sales had their worst ever December and thought of my friend. Could we in the UK be, unnecessarily, talking ourselves into another downturn, worried about inflation, afraid of the future, terrified of Government spending cuts and generally making ourselves depressed?

Probably!

After only five months of regularly using video on my blog over 2000 views. The most popular have been those on asking and answering interview questions for sales jobs. Perhaps in the current financial climate that’s not surprising but it has encouraged me to upload more videos on recruiting and managing sales teams.

Most viewers come from The UK, USA, Canada, Kuwait, Australia and I hope that everyone will continue to find them useful.