Developing Emotional Intelligence with Business Simulations
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[post_content] => The cover story of the January issue of HBR caught my attention. This article was titled "The Authenticity Paradox" by Herminia Ibarra. As an executive coach the subject of authentic leadership is of real interest to me as it is a subject that in recent times, arises with increasing regularity. Following the economic downturn, and perhaps reflecting on the inauthentic decisions that precipitated the fall from grace of many executives, an increasing number of leaders are responding to the call for authenticity and meaning. Likewise, leaders who were in some cases sidelined during the boom times because they didn't follow the herd are now finding their authentic voice.
[caption id="attachment_9383" align="alignnone" width="245"] Copyright hbr.org[/caption]
Reading the article by Ibarra, however, I was reminded of the old joke that scientists like to tell. It goes like this.
Late at night, a police officer sees an intoxicated man crawling around on his hands and knees under a streetlight. The drunk man tells the officer he’s looking for his wallet. When the officer asks if he’s sure this is where he dropped the wallet, the man replies that he thinks he more likely dropped it across the street. Then why are you looking over here? the officer asks. Because the light’s better here, explains the man.
The point is that we sometimes search for answers where the light is better rather than where the truth is more likely to lie. I believe this to be the case when it comes to Authenticity and Authentic Leadership.
Authenticity is about 'Being' rather than 'Doing'. In other words, the search for authenticity is philosophical, rather than psychological.
However, we seem to search for authenticity through the lens of organisational behaviour. Is this because "the light is better here". Perhaps as leaders we need to return to philosophy.
Fundamentally, my disagreement with the article is the emphasis on Doing before Being. This is at the very heart of the issue and is not surprising as modern western society is very focussed on Having and Doing and less on Being. Authenticity is fundamentally a way of being. Ibarra treats authenticity as Doing, something one does.The premise that Ibarra puts forward is that we should carefully choose our leadership actions, and act as chameleons focussing, not on our internal values, but instead constantly reacting to the external environment. However, for me, the chameleon metaphor sums up rather succinctly the very essence of inauthenticity. The chameleon is always reacting to the external world. It epitomises the outer-directed leader, whose identity is so much a reaction to others that his or her own being is emptied.
Having a clear sense of who you are is the best point to start a leadership journey.
I don't believe that any advocate of authentic leadership would suggest that we are fixed entities and remain so. On the contrary, our authenticity ultimately manifests itself in the authentic choices we make as leaders; choices based on understanding ourselves, our values, our strengths and our weaknesses. If we fail to start from a basis of authenticity then how likely is it that the leadership choices we make will be authentic.
I am concerned then when I see an article that seems to be taking a backwards step by placing an emphasis on the rational roots of leadership enquiry; leadership as merely a set of qualities, behaviours, competencies which together go to make up "leadership". Authentic Leadership is a break away from early management theory, the search for certainty and predictability, and constitutes a move towards leadership as a way of being. This is at the heart (pardon the pun) of authentic leadership.
Have we learned nothing from the economic crash? Is back to business as usual? Are we going to settle for, at best, a thin veneer of authenticity or will we encourage the new leaders to stop trying to Act Authentic and start Being Authentic?
Billy Byrne works as an executive coach and HR consultant and has worked with a range of levels, from graduates to senior leaders. His experience includes a mix of both business level and corporate activity, including the the design and implementation of Organisational Development interventions and major change programmes. He has played a key role in the development of HR Strategy at ESB. Billy is a part of the Executive Coaching Panel at IMI. Read more about the IMI Diploma in Executive Coaching
[post_title] => Authenticity - Solid or Veneer?
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[post_content] => In the space of the last 10 years the world of marketing has changed.
Marketing and advertising have always been a highly dynamic space. But we’ve now entered hyper-speed.
I recently graduated from a Masters in Marketing and I am nearing the end of my 6 month Internship Programme at the Irish Management Institute before moving on to a new marketing role next week.
My experience of the Irish marketing jobs market? It’s been challenging to say the least.
When I began my 3rd level education, Facebook had barely launched worldwide and YouTube was a mere 7 months old. To put things into perspective - I am 27. Social media, digital and now mobile channels have turned the marketing world and the expectations organisations have of marketing functions upside down.
On top of that, there are large graduate numbers but a small number of jobs – I recall an internship that I applied for that had over 200 applicants (and that was unpaid!).
All this means that recruiters and companies are increasingly advertising for specialist skills. Where organisations used to look for ‘Marketing Executives’, more and more I’m seeing ads for specifics like ‘Digital Marketing Executive’ or ‘Brand Specialist’.
Branding yourself in order to stand out from the rest is a must for Marketing Graduates. The sheer breadth of today’s marketing sphere implies that you cannot be an expert at everything.
So what does this mean for the budding marketer today? In my experience two things are necessary.
Firstly, anyone looking to take up a role in marketing needs to decide ‘Am I going to be a generalist or a specialist?’ and they must make sure that the organisation that is hiring them understands their own requirements.
Secondly, once the role has been established continuing to develop your skills is key. The latest consumer trends dictate that core marketing competencies can be deemed out-of-date within an extremely short period. At IMI I spent time working on social media and took the time to brush up on some of my digital marketing skills by sitting in on modules of the IMI Diploma in Marketing Strategy with Digital Marketing.
So does the pace of change mean the death of the all rounder ‘Marketing Executive’? Yes and no.
Marketing disciplines are changing. But while your current role may require you to act as a specialist, where you may be having a conversation about LinkedIn one minute and about viral media the next - it is important to remember that it is an understanding of the core marketing practices that should guide your decisions regardless of the channel.
In the long run, you will fail in any marketing campaign unless you are guided bya fundamental understanding of the organisation’s offerings.
In summary, today's marketing graduates need to brand themselves as specialists in the short term but retain the core capabilities of the generalist that will allow them to become the marketing executives of the future.
It's this type of flexibility that's required to future proof your marketing career.
Luke Bellew has been working with the IMI Internship Programme. If you are interested in working with us on this programme get in touch at Internship Programme.
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[post_content] => To coincide with her visit to IMI this week Nancy Kline - the originator and pioneer of The Thinking Environment® process shares her thoughts on attention and interest in a coaching exchange:
Are You Interested?
By Nancy Kline
‘You are so patient.’ I hear this after almost every Thinking Session demonstration. Other people tell me they often hear the same comment about their Attention as Thinking Partners, too. I guess what we do looks like patience. It is still. It is warm. It doesn’t rush. It breathes.
But patience is not what it is. Not remotely. Patience is a kind of waiting, a postponing. It is in reference to the moment when the thing, about which a person is being patient, will stop, and the person can finally act or speak. Patience is a polite dismissing of what is happening or being thought in this moment. It is an invisible drumming of the table. Patience wants the thing to end, but does not fan or act on that wanting. Patience is a cousin of arrogance. It is disengaged.
Attention in a Thinking Environment is not patience.
It is interest.
It is breathless anticipation of what the Thinker will think, and say, next. It wants to know. It wants to hear the Thinker’s creations. It stands ready for birth.
Patience is nowhere to be found. It is interest people are seeing. And interest does do amazing things.
It creates thinking.
About Nancy Kline
Nancy Kline created and pioneered the development of the theory and process called The Thinking Environment®. This model allows people to turn their teams, organisations and relationships into Thinking Environments in which people at every level can think for themselves, with rigour, imagination and courage. The process increases the quality of thinking in, and thus of concrete results from, all human interactions, both in pairs and in groups, and decreases the amount of time it takes to achieve them.
As well as President of Time To Think, an international leadership development and coaching company Nancy is also a published author and public speaker.
Nancy and the other Time To Think Consultants and Coaches do Thinking Environment work in companies, universities, human resource organisations, government agencies and voluntary organisations. Thinking Environment work is active in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, The United States, Australia and South Africa.
Time To Think began in 1984 and grew out of Nancy's consulting and teaching work near Washington, DC, where she had served as a Founding Director of The Thornton Friends School for twelve years and as Director of The Leadership Institute for six years. She is a Fellow of Ashridge College, UK.
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Tanya Sheehan
11th Sep 2017
Tanya Sheehan is an IMI Associate
Related Articles
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Developing Emotional Intelligence with Business Simulations
A vital factor in organisational performance and success, emotional intelligence refers to a set of skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
What are the elements of emotional intelligence necessary for organisational development and transformation? And how can we highlight and develop them?
A vital factor in organisational performance and success, emotional intelligence refers to a set of skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
Dr. Steven Stein, best-selling author of The EQ Edge and The EQ Leader, describes an emotionally intelligent organisation as one which has an ability to accomplish its goals and successfully and efficiently cope with change while being responsible and sensitive to its people, customers, suppliers, networks and society.
But what does this look like each day in the workplace?
It looks like self-actualisation; the willingness to persistently try to improve yourself and your organisation. It looks like optimism; a strategic approach to dealing with difficult situations and remaining resilient in overcoming challenges. It looks like social responsibility; being willing to contribute to your organisation and to your industry. It looks like flexibility; adapting to unfamiliar, unpredictable or dynamic circumstances.
For organisational development and transformation, how can these skills be explored and enhanced?
Emotional intelligence soft skills such as listening abilities, self-actualisation, collaboration, optimism, adaptability and stress management can be hard to measure but can more easily be seen during a business simulation; an experiential learning activity where participants deal with challenges similar to those found in the workplace. These are incredibly valuable in providing insights into an individual’s emotional skills and attitudes. Simulations can help to highlight the gap between our intent and impact; between what we say and what we do – especially under pressure. An effective simulation challenges our knowledge, emotions and skills, just as any work environment would.
Within minutes of starting a simulation, participants are immersed in an experiential learning environment that helps them derive immediate, applicable meaning for their real-world organisations. In simulations, participants experience the common tasks of communicating with customers, managing budgets, developing stakeholder relationships, changing markets, etc. Participants work as individuals and in teams to consider and discuss possible solutions to the challenges they face. Immediate debrief sessions ensure that feedback is provided in a timely manner and is easily linked to behaviours and actions.
Well executed simulations can reduce the time required to engage in behaviour and then see and understand the consequences of our actions. The reality and complexity of many modern workplaces mean that the connection between learning and consequences can often be blurred or missed, without the time to reflect and assimilate. They offer instant opportunities for feedback and reflection in a way that traditional classroom or online training cannot. This allows for immediate insights into our behaviour and the impact it has on those around in our workplace.
Simulations also provide a safe learning environment, where we can develop by stepping outside of our comfort zone to try new ideas, experiment with behaviours, take risks and make mistakes, all without endangering ourselves or our organisations. In terms of emotional intelligence, this can mean trying new styles of communications, new ways of building relationships, new methods of decision-making and problem-solving.
In offering experiential learning in a safe environment with an opportunity for immediate feedback and reflection, effective business simulations can provide a powerful and effective tool to explore how we express ourselves, develop social relationships, cope with challenges, solve problems and accomplish our goals. And, in doing so, develop and transform emotional intelligence; in both the individual and the organisation.
Copyright hbr.org[/caption]
Reading the article by Ibarra, however, I was reminded of the old joke that scientists like to tell. It goes like this.
Late at night, a police officer sees an intoxicated man crawling around on his hands and knees under a streetlight. The drunk man tells the officer he’s looking for his wallet. When the officer asks if he’s sure this is where he dropped the wallet, the man replies that he thinks he more likely dropped it across the street. Then why are you looking over here? the officer asks. Because the light’s better here, explains the man.
The point is that we sometimes search for answers where the light is better rather than where the truth is more likely to lie. I believe this to be the case when it comes to Authenticity and Authentic Leadership.
