This section of the book begins to
focus on how organizations can, themselves, transform and become more
emotionally intelligent from a systems perspective. The first key difference they point out
between team transformation and individual transformation is that steps one and
two are reversed. A team must first identify their own reality (challenges,
strengths, etc.) before they can think about their ideal vision. The reason for
this has to do with motivation. An emotional connection to a vision works very
well to get people energized, however the collective vision of a team is often
not quite personal enough to serve that function. To illustrate this, they talk
about a company’s mission statement. It’s often very lofty and emotional but
not specific enough to be operationalized in an individual employee’s role.
This ties directly to what I do at work. We help companies develop what we call
a “Common Purpose.” The common purpose is basically a mission statement in
street clothes. It’s simplified language that has two key elements: It is
actionable and it helps to create an emotional tie to the company they work
for.
You often hear that a team is more effective than an
individual (sum is greater than it’s parts, two heads are better than one,
etc.). The authors make what I found to be an insightful statement, “groups are
smarter than individuals only when they exhibit the qualities of emotional
intelligence.” (p. 174). An emotionally unintelligent leader (and other team
members) can wreak havoc in a group dynamic, making them less effective than an individual.
Though the order of the five discoveries are different for
teams vs individuals, the four elements of emotionally intelligent people are
the same as those for teams: Self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness,
and relationship management. The development of emotionally intelligent teams
has a cumulative effect. The more people on the team exhibit the behaviors, the
more the ‘norm’ of the team shifts, so more people begin to exhibit these
behaviors. They give a couple of examples of teams that have exhibited these
behaviors. In one example, the executive hands out a sheet of norms and
expectations at the beginning of each meeting. This makes things clear for
people (explicit) and gives the leader (and all attendees) the ability to shut
down negative behavior by referring back to the printed norms. Another example
involved an R&D team who established a policy called the “angel’s
advocate.” Whenever someone at a meeting proposed a new idea, the next person
to speak would have to demonstrate support for the idea. This created an
environment where ideas were less risky and a supportive environment was
created (or at least some support existed).
This chapter wraps up by talking about the importance of the
leader in helping the team discover their emotional reality (strengths and
weaknesses). Things like modeling transparency and self-reflection are
important tools. But when digging into the team’s dynamics, they warn against
sticking to the safe topics. They encourage stepping outside the comfort zone
and working on the difficult items. They identify three benefits to working
through the tough conversations. First, a “healthy legitimacy” develops around
the change process. Second, the act of engaging in these conversations begins
to create new habits. Lastly, when team members see this type of truth-seeking
coming from the top, they are more willing to engage in the behaviors
themselves. The effect of the leader’s own emotional intelligence on the team’s
EI cannot be underestimated in creating organizational change. I see this often
in my consulting work. When the executive team brings us in to create change
but they are unwilling to do so themselves, the initiative rarely succeeds.
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