Observations About The EQi

Following are some observations about the EQi, created by Reuven BarOn and the MSCEIT, the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Interestingly, both tests are published by MHS in Toronto.

Since I know all of the authors and have had a chance to work with them all I thought I might put my thoughts together regarding the two tests and the debate about which test is “more worthy”.

I am friendly with each of the authors and I co-wrote the certification workshop for the MSCEIT with David Caruso, one of its authors. A number of years ago I was asked by David, Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer to help them to find ways to apply what they had discovered about Emotional Intelligence. In a number of presentations that I have done about applying the science of EI I was introduced to Reuven BarOn. Since then I have published two chapters in Reuven's most recent edited book and have become friendly with Reuven. Reuven was the first person to recognize my own contribution of the Emotion Roadmap which is featured on my website www.cjwolfe.com and on this blog.

Regarding the EQi, at one time Reuven had a definition that indicated it was a measure of non-cognitive abilities. People did not find that helpful and more recently he has settled on a far more descriptive and meaningful definition of his EQi which he now defines as measuring social and emotional competencies. And while there is some debate that is continuing about whether his work is a measure of emotional intelligence, I found the debate to only be interesting to psychologists and practitioners who are focused more on academics than practical usefulness. Clearly Reuven’s EQi is an extremely useful assessment. Many individuals and organizations have benefited from the EQi report which is now available in a number of different formats. It can be done solely as a self assessment or for a 360 assessment. You can look at my website for a sample of the EQi. In the last few years Reuven has tied his model to the leadership model developed by the Center for Creative Leadership. I think this was a brilliant idea.

On the other hand the MSCEIT is also a very powerful assessment. I do not think the report is of the caliber of the EQi but when it is debriefed by an expert it is incredibly powerful. It measures a unique aspect or dimension of humanity that has never been measured before. In part this is why I believe it is so hard to write a meaningful standard report. In the work that I do I often use the MSCEIT and I am able to give individuals terrific insight into what the MSCEIT tells us about their abilities and how it may be impacting them in very meaningful ways. The MSCEIT measures abilities in a way that is similar to how IQ tests measure analytic intelligence.

The science is very new and there is still much learn but I would encourage individuals to use both assessments to learn more about themselves in order to become more effective at work and perhaps more importantly, at home.

If you wish to learn more you can explore my website and this blog or you can simply correspond with me.

My email is cjwolfe@farmval.com or cjwolfe@cjwolfe.com and my website is cjwolfe@cjwolfe.com.

Warm regards,
Chuck Wolfe

Inspired Team Performance and Talent Management:

Article by
Charles J. Wolfe

The following chapter is a practical, innovative approach to applying the Emotion Roadmap to create inspired individual, team and organizational performance. Inspired performance begins with a compelling vision that creates feelings of excitement, engagement, pride and commitment. Assuming one is fortunate enough to have a vision like this for your own team, organization or company, the next activity is strategic and tactical planning that has to align the vision with goals and objectives. Organizational goals and objectives lead to departmental, team and individual goals and objectives. The focus for this chapter is to identify the role emotions play in generating inspired performance from identifying a vision and mission that expresses something worthwhile, a bias to action and a clear direction all the way through to managing individual performance. Too often organizations succeed simply because the competition is weak. How many organizations have committed members, excited to go to work every day, who have clear direction, well understood roles and responsibilities, and leaders who are looking out for them.

According to Gallup (2006) typical organizations in the United States have only 29% of their employees who are committed and engaged in making these organizations successful and 15% actively disengaged who are actually working to undermine their organizations. Approximately 59% of most of these organizations have employees who are not engaged who do only what they need to do without energy or passion. The Gallup study suggested that the cost to the US economy of just the 15% of actively disengaged employees is billions of dollars annually (Gallup, 2006). How much better could organizations perform if most of the 59% who are not engaged, and some of the 15% actively disengaged, became engaged and inspired to support their organizations?

This chapter focuses on how to inspire individuals, teams and organizations. Beginning with vision, I recap the inspirational speech John F. Kennedy gave that inspired the US to pull together and leave fear and self doubt behind and embrace hope, pride, competition, confidence, excitement, and enthusiasm as citizens, politicians, government institutions, government employees and business leaders pulled together to send a man safely to the moon. The Kennedy speech is debriefed using the Emotion Roadmap™, a tool I created that helps individuals, teams and organizations apply the science of emotional intelligence to the workplace. The intent of reviewing the speech is to review the elements of what causes employees to be inspired by a vision and mission. The Kennedy speech is followed by other inspirational messages and a vision of an innovative change in performance management that creates positive emotions surrounding the discussion of performance, talent management and the development of team members. There are insights shared that reflect what I have learned about how to inspire people to rethink existing practices that typify large organizations processes that are emotionally and analytically unintelligent.

There will be an introduction to a methodology to discuss development planning that creates a dialogue about performance that engages leaders and team members in very positive discussions about performance. The new approach helps to insure that individuals and teams have the competencies they need to successfully achieve their goals and objectives. The vision for an improved approach to performance management is followed by a case that demonstrates how talent is often mismanaged in most organizations and what can be done to improve productivity and the achievement of goals by operating in a more intelligent manner.

The chapter ends with some reference to other tools and thoughts regarding other ways to increase individual, team and organizational emotional intelligence in order to inspire performance.

The Role of Vision

In 1957 the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite to enter space. The launch generated a sense of wonder, fear and self doubt in the US. At that time the Soviet Union was a super power that appeared capable of possibly launching a nuclear attack from space. A relatively short time later the US experienced the Bay of Pigs fiasco which involved a very terrifying confrontation with the Soviet Union. President Kennedy felt the need to make a bold move that would change the identified feelings of terror and self doubt to the more useful feelings of hope, excitement, and confidence. President Kennedy’s public speech about sending a man to the moon was brilliantly conceived and did rally the country. US citizens begin believing again in themselves and in their young President.

The Emotion Roadmap can be used to dissect what happened and why it inspired a nation:

Figure 1: Emotion Roadmap™ and Vision

Emotional Abilities Questions (Template) Identify What is the situation and what are the current feelings? Who are all the key people involved? How is each key person feeling? The nation was amazed, awestruck and fearful after the launch of Sputnik and extremely worried during the confrontation that took place that historically is referred to as the Bay of Pigs. Use What feelings will most likely facilitate a successful outcome? Based on what we want to have happen, what feelings would be ideal for each key person? President Kennedy felt the need to rally the nation to achieve feelings of confidence, hope, excitement, competition, cooperation, pride and commitment. Understand Are the current feelings the ones you want or is there a gap? Why are people feeling the way they do? How can we create the feelings we want? People were worried that the young President may not be able to stand up to the Soviet Union and its confrontational leader Nikita Khrushchev. The President felt he needed to create a set of powerful feelings that gave the citizens of the nation confidence in him and in themselves. He knew he had to create a vision that expressed something worth going for, a bias to action, clear direction and an inspirational message. Manage Execute a plan and modify as necessary. What are we able to do? And what are we willing to do to keep or change these feelings? Following below are some excerpts from President Kennedy’s written text with a tie back to the Emotion Roadmap.

John F. Kennedy, Excerpts from "Urgent National Needs" speech to a Joint Session of Congress, 25 May 1961, Presidential Files, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

Following is part of the "reading text" section of President Kennedy's address to a Joint Session of Congress in which he called for sending Americans to the Moon. The actual speech was modified some in its delivery but here is part of what was written as he prepared to inspire a nation. Following his text are my thoughts about how this speech generates feelings that inspired a nation.

“Finally, if we are to win the battle for men’s minds…Now it is time…for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future…” The phrases “to win the battle for men’s minds” and “may hold the key to our future” I believe created a sense of excitement and concern which helped to focus people’s attention.

“I believe we possess all the resources and all the talents necessary…while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will find us last.” This statement generates the emotions of hope, some confidence and concern, competition and commitment.

“We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share. I therefore ask the Congress…to commit… to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth… In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon -- it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” These statements reinforce the inspirational vision of a compelling goal, a clear direction, a bias to action and the emotions of pride, engagement and commitment.

“Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action…It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.

“New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. (What will help us achieve these objectives is that) every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant involved gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”

In these last several paragraphs President Kennedy emphasizes the feelings of engagement, commitment, dedication, cooperation and excitement. The speech became a rallying point for a vision of the future that changed the emotional state of the US citizenry from feelings of awe and fear to the more positive ones President Kennedy was seeking (refer back to Figure 1).

A vision often begins with a speech or a written document that is a call to action, a direction that is set with a grand objective. Of course a speech is nothing more than a set of words and yet how those words are spoken and by whom may determine the level of impact upon others. Kennedy’s message of “Sending a man to the moon” and Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” are all messages that have generated strong, powerful emotions in others. In business, perhaps one of the most well known messages that inspired performance is Nike’s “Just do it!” Certainly Nike alone is not responsible for the changes in adult behavior that cause countless adults to get up several days a week, pull on athletic shoes and go exercise. However Nike’s marketing campaign to get people off the couch and doing things to keep them healthy clearly played a part in the changes in adult behavior throughout much of the Western world.

The language of emotional intelligence.

Article by
Charles J. Wolfe

Have you ever heard the words “used car salesman”? How do these words make you feel? What images, feelings and thoughts come to mind when you hear these words.

How about the word “saint”? What images, thoughts and feelings come to mind when you hear someone is a “saint”?

What is curious is that the same person who may have been a used car salesman most of his adult life may have been seen as a saint by his family and friends because he was always good to those he cared about. In his case he also might have had long time customers who bought cars for themselves and for their adolescent children because he always gave them a fair deal and they always felt he was a “good guy”.

How do you think he felt though whenever he was meeting new people and when asked, he told them he was a used car salesman and watched as they judged him without knowing him at all?

How many judgments are we conditioned to make without ever considering who we are impacting in a negative way?

In the Roger Clemens appearance in front of Congress, he argued vehemently that his personal trainer was lying and that he never allowed him to shoot him up with human growth hormones or steroids. The trainer, Brian McNamee, in turn says he did exactly that on numerous occasions.

Now what was incredibly interesting to many who watched these hearings was the partisanship nature of what took place. It seemed that Republicans tended to side with and believe Clemens while the Democrats appeared to side with and believe McNamee.

When asked to comment on this unusual and unexpected occurrence a political pollster named Frank Luntz appearing on the Bill Maher show said something that went like this:

Luntz, who I believe described himself as a Republican, said that it appears that the Republicans are supportive of people that take drugs. Mr. Luntz then appeared to pause and he waited for everyone to react with strong feelings to the Republicans for supporting a drug taker.

And then when the mostly liberal audience had finished laughing at the Republicans he went on to say that the Democrats by seeming to support McNamee appear to be in favor of and support drug dealers. The audience then laughed nervously since they had been caught and confused by the use of descriptive language that made the Democrats appear worse than the Republicans. By setting the situation up the way he did, he used descriptive language to confuse the feelings of the mostly liberal audience.

For those who understand emotional intelligence words are vehicles for making people feel a certain way. Words by themselves are not as powerful as when they are linked with emotional tone and context. Barack Obama seems to be masterful at not only talking about hope but generating in people the feeling of hope. “We are the change we have been waiting for” and “Yes we can” has become a mantra for many and it has people from all walks of life listening to him and marveling his amazing ability to galvanize an audience. Other powerful communicators who appeared to intuitively understand how language can be used to generate emotions intelligently include Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

Emotions also play a meaningful role in business as well. I remember when a number of executives were having difficulty getting along in a large insurance company where I worked, I remember a consulting company coming in and introducing the executives to a new definition for the word possibilities. Now we all know what possibilities means but in this instance it became a code word. When one executive approached another in this company and they say I would like to have a discussion about possibilities it meant that the person being approached would normally object to the idea but was being asked to suspend judgment in order to consider what was about to be brought up. It was incredible how powerful this simple concept was for improving communications by asking people to not become emotional when a new topic was about to be brought up.

In general people can become more emotionally intelligent when they consider the language and words that they plan to use and their likely emotional impact on others.

Charles J. Wolfe

Main Site for Emotional Intelligence

Emotion Roadmap to Inspired Leadership

What is Emotional Intelligence

Becoming More Emotionally Intelligent

Improve Personal & Organizational Performance

Charles (Chuck) Wolfe has created the Emotion RoadmapTM, which provides a way to frame and improve how one deals with any issues involving emotions. The Emotion RoadmapTM can be used as an emotion based problem solving tool or for dealing proactively with any significant change. In this blog Chuck will review relevant Harvard Business Review articles and occasionally articles from other journals by offering a review of these articles through the lens of the Emotion Roadmap. Two such articles are currently displayed. Newly reviewed articles will be featured on a monthly basis at the beginning of each new month.
Explore New Pathways
Emotionally Intelligent Performance
Discussions & Talent Management Workshop
Charles J. Wolfe Associates, LLC (CJWA)
Main Site for Emotional Intelligence

Learn the innovations that CJWA have discovered that have helped
organizations maximize their return on their training and development
dollars. Learn why skill development and planning at the conclusion of the
appraisal process will never work. Discover an alternative that is not based
on a review of the past, but instead creates meaningful dialog about
competencies needed to accomplish present and future work. When an
employee and leader discuss performance needed to accomplish tactical and
strategic goals, rather than simply reviewing the past, the entire emotional
tone becomes much more positive and the resulting discussion more
effective. The workshop also teaches methods to identify when talented
individuals need more challenges and opportunities for growth and what to
do about it. This highly interactive workshop will help you enhance
performance and manage talent throughout your organization. Tom Peters
has written about these innovations in his journal, “On Achieving Excellence.”
CJWA approach to emotional intelligence training is based on scientific
research at Yale University and over thirty years of practical experience.
In theory, discussions of performance should: have no surprises; be based
on facts; be relevant to what needs to be accomplished; and offer to both a
manager and a direct report a valuable and valued opportunity to discuss
performance. The reality is often something quite different.
In this workshop participants will learn how to:
Identify, understand and manage your own and others' emotions during
performance conversations.
Set the right emotional tone at the beginning, in the middle and at the
end of the discussion.
Minimize defensiveness by lowering emotional resistance.
Leverage emotions to gain commitment to follow through.
Get agreement on the current year’s objectives, goals and strategies and
the competencies necessary to achieve them.
Objectively identify high potential and highly talented personnel.
Recognize and build on each person's strengths and agree on important
competencies needing development.

Emotionally Intelligent Performance
Discussions & Talent Management Workshop

Accept weaknesses that can not be developed and create appropriate
compensating strategies when necessary.
Develop plans that are specific, measurable, achievable, results oriented,
and time bounded.
Following this interactive workshop there will be the option of holding a
number of real time performance discussions with leaders and managers to
immediately apply what is learned to discussions about performance. The
workshop leader and assistant will help facilitate these discussions.

Features and Benefits of the Workshop

Features
1. Personalized, present & future oriented development plans.
2. Generates clear expectations regarding roles & responsibilities.
3. Provides structure for reaching agreement on strengths and development needs.
4. Identifies areas of needed performance improvement.
5. Identifies strengths that are currently under utilized.
6. Provides a tool for tracking training and development plans.
7. Provides linkage to all other human resource systems.
8. Helps identify and retain talented individuals.

Benefits
1. Meets organizational and individual needs by generating highly relevant training plans.
2. Prioritizes performance improvement actions based on achieving business goals.
3. Creates employee empowerment by having employees take responsibility for their own development.
4. Focuses on current business & individual performance plans first and later on career development.
5. Improves planning for performance, career development, succession, staff forecasting, compensation and appraisal.

Emotional Intelligence Main Site

In 1999 I was asked by Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College, and his colleagues to assist them in finding meaningful ways to apply their ability based model of Emotional Intelligence to the workplace. To that end, I have created the Emotion Roadmap, a tool designed to help clients improve their ability to respond to difficult situations involving strong emotions and to help them become proactive and ultimately, more effective in anticipating and dealing with the emotional issues associated with managing change in the workplace. Along with my own tools, I occasionally review other people’s research and findings that relate to Emotional Intelligence and share them with my clients.

Below is a review of an article and my commentary that I believe will benefit our understanding of how emotions impact the difficulties women face in rising to senior leadership roles in organizations and what leaders can do to be more effective.
Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership
By Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli
Harvard Business Review September 2007

First, the news is not good. Despite significant progress into the role of management women make up only 6% of the highest paid executive positions of Fortune 500 companies. In 1986 the Wall Street Journal reported that women inevitably would hit an invisible ceiling no matter how talented. “Consider comments made by President Richard Nixon, recorded on White House audiotapes… explaining why he would not appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, Nixon said ‘I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatsoever…mainly because they are erratic. And emotional. Men are emotional too, but the point is a woman is more likely to be.’ In a culture where such opinions were widely held, women had virtually no chance of attaining influential leadership roles.” (P. 64).

Main Site for Emotional Intelligence

While the authors recognize that times have changed, they feel the focus on the glass ceiling is highly misleading. First, while the numbers are small, there actually have been a number of top women executives and leaders who have risen to the top echelon of leadership positions. Second, the authors do not dispute the fact that a glass ceiling exists; instead what they have found is that women face obstacles throughout their careers and not just at the top. Therefore,
the use of the metaphor of a labyrinth seems more fitting instead of a ceiling, meaning that women face walls everywhere in their journey to lead others. The authors cite a variety of studies that indicate that women face barriers all the way up the ladder and not just at the greater heights.

The authors cover the information that many of us already know and understand, e.g., women are seen as more compassionate while men are more assertive. “Study after study has affirmed that people associate women and men with different traits and link men with more of the traits that connote leadership. Kim Campbell, who briefly served as prime minister of Canada in 1993, described the tension that results:

‘I don’t have a traditionally female way of speaking…I’m quite assertive. If I didn’t speak the way I do, I wouldn’t have been seen as a leader. But my way of speaking may have grated on people who were not used to hearing it from a woman. It was the right way for a leader to speak, but it wasn’t the right way for a woman to speak. It goes against type.’ ” (P. 66)

The authors correctly point out that if the issue is not the glass ceiling by itself, then we need to look at intervention strategies that impact women throughout their careers. I agree in principal and think that anyone who reads their article will be informed about excellent strategies for helping women to rise at each stage of their careers. However, many of these strategies have been thought of, discussed, and tried before without success. And while the idea of removing prejudice and making performance reviews less subjective and so forth are all good ideas, they are not new, and I believe the reasons they don’t work is because they do not confront the underlying emotional issues.

AND this is my major reason for reviewing this article. Even if we do everything they say I doubt much will change because we are not facing a rational situation. The reason women are not in higher levels in organizational situations is because some men and women do not want them there, and many that do express a desire for women to have an equal chance are not passionate about creating the necessary changes. And while there are some organizations like N.O.W. that are passionate about change, I believe the general public is dispassionate.

Main Site for Emotional Intelligence

If we really want to see a change in the opportunities for leaders to emerge equally from both sexes, I believe we have to address the issue from an emotional perspective. The Emotion Roadmap offers us a vantage point to see how we may get real change to occur.
The roadmap asks us to consider who are the key people involved and how do they feel? In other words, what really is happening?

1. How are men feeling? And how are women feeling about the lack of opportunity for women (identify emotions)?
2. What would be ideal regarding how men and women feel in order to create the real change necessary for women to truly have equal opportunities for leadership (use emotions)?
3. What is causing the current feelings and what might we do to change them to the more ideal feelings (understand emotions)?
4. What are men and women willing to do to create the changes necessary (manage emotions)?

Identify what is really being felt by men and women

How do men really feel about having woman leaders? I think that while some men and women would welcome improved opportunities for women to lead, there are also a number of men and women that are uncomfortable having women as leaders. There are all kinds of possibilities about why this might be true. Without delving into the psychology of why, the roadmap moves us next to ask what would be ideal.

Use emotions to generate the environment which will enable women’s opportunity to lead. To do so, we need to ask what emotions would be ideal.

For change to occur I believe we want those men and women who do wish to have equal opportunities for women to become passionate about creating change at every level beginning with policy changes at federal and state government all the way through to standard operating practices that do not allow for discrimination. For those from both sexes who would rather not work for women, I believe we need them to move to neutral and to no longer present an obstacle to those women who aspire to lead.

Understanding emotions is the next step in the roadmap where we strategize how to move people from what they are feeling to what we want them to feel.

On such a large scale it is difficult to understand how to move all the people in power who have the ability to shift policy or operating procedures in organizations. What we can say is that there are not many, men or women, who appear to be passionate about changing the situation. For example, while it is intriguing that Harvard Business Review ran this article as its lead, I wonder how many men will actually read it. That is not to say that these men are not interested in women having more opportunity, I simply suspect it is not a top priority. Even for those women and men who do read it, I think the chances are small that many will take action to implement the changes
3
the authors suggest. So how then to move people beyond mild interest in the subject?
In this situation, to move people to feel passion I believe we need to shift the focus away from our present situation to what the future holds for our daughters, nieces and all our female loved ones who already are, or soon will be entering the workforce. When I think about what I want for my wife, three daughters and three nieces, I can tell you with conviction that I want them to have every advantage given to any man. When I think about it from a more general perspective, while I am interested, it is not a top priority. This issue, in order to change, needs to be personal.

Managing emotions is the final step in the roadmap where we consider what are we willing to do, and able to do, to create the feelings we want.

In my role as an executive coach I have exerted influence in organizations to create more fairness. I have also counseled my wife, daughters and occasionally my nieces on how to rise in organizations. I am making an effort to make a meaningful difference for women, especially those closest to me. I hope in choosing to write about this article in this way that somehow others will make this issue more personal as well and do what they can to assure fairness in the workplace for all.

What are each of you willing and able to do to make the world an easier and more just world for all females and particularly those that are closest to you?

I would appreciate any responses you may wish to share regarding my views and also encourage you to read the article by Professors Eagly and Carli and to purchase their upcoming book Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders (Harvard Business School Press, forthcoming in October).

Emotional Intelligence Main Site

Charles J. Wolfe