This week’s blog was supposed to be Part 2 of last week’s “The Emotionally Intelligent Brain, Part 1.” However because of the passing of a historic man, I decided to digress for one week.
Nelson Mandela’s greatness was of historic proportions. He was also—in my humble opinion—emotionally intelligent. Now mind you, I do not believe that all great people are emotionally intelligent. Steve Jobs was a great man. He changed the world. I am not sure if we could say that he was emotionally intelligent—ask his employees. Nelson Mandela was.
By the end of the story, Dorothy pulled her inner Team together and with equanimity was able to move fluidly in all three dimensions so that she could eventually melt the Wicked Witch of the West. Tin Man was no longer frozen, but with some oil was able to move with passion and compassion steadfast in the mission. Scarecrow was no longer ineffective and indecisive. When he found his knowing, he was able to mindfully and persistently see how to move forward with self-control and wisdom. And yes, Lion (finally) found his nerve and was willing to march into hell (the castle) for a heavenly cause to face the most dangerous witch. This, my friend, was Nelson Mandela. Mandela eventually and consistently pulled together his inner Team—like Dorothy—to melt the wicked regime of Apartheid. This is why we love and admire this giant of a man.
Courageous Lion: He spoke truth to “Power” (not unlike Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King). And what courage he exhibited, to confront the green-faced hag of Apartheid and then survive an oppressive and impossibly prolonged imprisonment!
Heart-filled Tin Man: His compassion for his people and his passion for the mission was unshakeable. His life was a life of service. But the thing that I admire most about Mandela was his capacity for forgiveness. He was once asked if he forgave his jailers who brutalized him for nearly 3 decades. His response was profound. He said that he was their prisoner for 27 years and if he did not forgive them he would still be their prisoner.
Mindful Scarecrow: He was a man of patience and self-control. Prison allegedly taught him the benefits of silence and solitude, attributes of mindfulness. One of the sub-categories of EI is what is called “political savvy.” Mandela had political savvy. He knew when to fight (Lion) and when to forgive (Tin Man).
His ability to move freely and dynamically in all three dimensions is why I consider him a notably emotionally intelligent person and a model and inspiration for all of us—on whatever stage we live out our personal and work lives. Emotional intelligence is an intelligence that he lived by. South Africa is grateful; the World is grateful. Rest in Peace.
An interpersonal neurobiology view of well-being holds that the complex, nonlinear system of the mind achieves states of self-organization by balancing the two opposing processes of differentiation and linkage. When separated areas of the brain are allowed to specialize in their function and then become linked together, the system is integrated. Integration brings with it a special state or functioning of the whole, which has the acronym of FACES: Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized and Stable. This coherent flow is bounded on one side by chaos and on the other by rigidity. In this manner we can envision a flow or river of well-being, with the two banks being chaos on the one side, rigidity on the other.
This is how Siegel describes a mentally healthy brain-mind. It is a mind that “flows” optimally between chaos (disorganization) on one side and rigidity (over-organization) on the other. What I find compelling is that these five (FACES) brain-mind functions aptly describe an emotionally intelligent leader (partner, parent, friend) as well. Emotionally intelligent people apparently have healthy, integrated brain-minds.
Who would not like to be married to (or have as a parent or friend) a person who is Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energetic yet Stable–in other words, emotionally intelligent? Likewise, who wants people in their organization–not the least of which a leader—who possesses the opposite attributes of being inflexible if not rigid, unable to adapt, incoherent (confused, unclear and illogical), depressed, unmotivated or unstable? Having someone like this to follow (be married to, parented by and/or friends with) would be at best unpleasant and at worst damaging.
We can’t choose everyone in our life, of course. We get to pick our partners and friends. (Unfortunately we do not get to pick our parents.) We don’t always get to choose our workmates, but organizations can choose employees and leaders. So if emotionally intelligent leaders have healthy or integrated brain-minds and these integrated brain-minds make for transcendent leaders, how do we get a few of these brains into our organization?
I often argue that it is easier to hire a star employee rather than develop one. That is why I spend a good bit of time in my consulting practice helping organizations hire best-fit (emotionally intelligent) people. It is relatively easy to find someone who has the right education, training and even experience–especially in this current “buyers” market. It is much harder to find someone who is Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized and Stable . . . someone who has a healthy brain-mind, someone who is emotionally intelligent.
But it is not possible to hire an entirely new company full of integrated emotionally intelligent people. We have to work with the employees (and owners) that we have. This begs an important question: Can we retrain the brain? Fortunately the answer is YES, however it is a qualified yes. It is not easy, and not everyone is willing or capable of retraining his or her brain. Siegel and other neurobiologist agree that the brain is “elastic.” What they mean by that is that—although difficult—we can recondition the brain: build new and better brain-mind integration. How does one do this?
The better question might be “where do we do this?” We do it in the Middle Prefrontal Cortex. It is the at the crossroads between the emotional limbic system and the thinking cortex and it has to do with things like emotional balance, empathy, insight, fear extinction, intuition and morality. One key way to effect and eventually develop this part of the brain-mind is through awareness. When we raise people’s awareness we increase the proper functioning of this important region of the brain.
There are different ways to raise awareness in a business environment: the use of assessments, targeted workshops and especially one-on-one coaching. But there are other ways to affect this region of the brain-mind. Stay tuned, I will discuss them further in part two of this article. For now, I hope you are encouraged to understand that we really can increase emotional intelligence and thereby improve relationships with everyone who crosses our life path.
Please let us know your experiences with emotionally intelligent (or lack thereof) bosses or leaders, as it pertains to FACES. And remember, EI is intelligence you can live with.
One of my friends is now in Europe, all his expenses paid by his employer. (Oh yeah, did I tell you that he went with his wife and they are paying all her expenses too?) Another friend just released a book which is well on its way to becoming a national best seller (see Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior Is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder, by Dr. Enrico Gnaulati). I have two friends who just retired in their 50’s and will never have to worry about money again. So do you think I am happy for them? To be honest, the envious part of mind wants an all-expense paid trip to Europe with my family. I want to have a bestseller so I can retire and never have to worry about money again.
What do you envy? Do you envy your friend who can eat anything she wants and is still as skinny as a rail? How about the guy at work who used to report to you who was just promoted again? Or how about your friend who is (apparently) happily married and expecting her first baby and you have not had a good date in months (okay years)? Do you envy those people who have the Midas touch—everything they do turns to gold? We can envy anyone who has more (money, looks, happiness) than us; we can envy anyone who has less (body fat, bad luck, marital troubles) than us. The list of things that we can be envious about is as long as things in the world that we can possess or acquire or experience—but don’t. And the list is long.
Envy Happens! Envy is a basic human emotion—a state of mind to be exact. It is reflected in some of our earliest literature, for instance religious texts. In the well-known Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, the author of Genesis writes that eating of the forbidden fruit would make the couple like God. Embedded in this narrative is a story of envy. They envied God and who would not?—Which of us would not want to be described as all powerful; all knowing? But what really seemed to piss them off was that they needed God. According to British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, we are prone to envy anyone on whom we depend. Why? Because we are not all powerful and all knowing and we do in fact need others.
Envy unchecked is very destructive. Envy hates. Envy wants to hurt if not destroy the envied. This is also seen in the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. If you remember the story, Cain envied his brother Abel and as a result murdered him. Sometimes the expression of envy is huge; many wars have been started because one group wants what another group has. However, more often the expression of envy is more “civilized” showing up as resentment, backbiting and passive aggressive behaviors. And when we envy, there are often serious feelings of inferiority lurking in the shadows of our self-concept.
I have struggled with envy my whole life. I grew up in a very poor family and often heard my father talk about all the rich people who had it easy. I still struggle with being content with what I have and where I am in life. However, as I have worked through issues in my own personal therapy and lately in my mindfulness practices, I find myself more content and yes—even at times grateful—for my life as it is now. I want more and will get it. But gratitude is not about the future; gratitude is about the NOW. So I choose to be happy for my friends who are retired at 50, traveling in Europe, and a successful author. I am truly glad for them, as I am glad for all the good things in my life. And I hope that you find that quiet, sober place in your mind and heart that appreciates what you have NOW this Thanksgiving and for the other 364 days of the year.
If you have a moment, please share with us what you find yourself envying and/or what you are personally grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving!
In the previous (maiden) blog on EI, I introduced some initial ideas on this most important concept, emotional intelligence. If you remember, in the first article I featured Daniel Goleman’s four basic factors of EI: Self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and relationship-management. Well I have another way to cut the EI pie, taken from my book (Follow the Yellow Brick Road: How to Change for the Better When Life Gives You Its Worst). It is also the subject matter of my new book coming out in 2014 and I am pleased to present it to you now.
Over a half-century ago Karen Horney, M.D. enhanced the psychological world with her book, Our Inner Conflicts. The now-classic book introduces the three primary ways people relationally move: we move toward, move against, or move away from others. Across the ocean in England—and independent of Dr. Horney—Wilfred Bion, M.D., used three different terms to describe how we emotionally “link” or connect to each other. He said that people interpersonally connect either through love, hate (Power) or knowing. Although the terms differ, in essence, these two psychoanalytic giants—independently of each other—identified the three fundamental ways in which we interpersonally move or connect to others.
Over the years, I have relied on these tripartite concepts to guide me as a therapist, a teacher and an organizational consultant. As I have worked with these concepts, I’ve gradually developed a model that I call the Interpersonal Triangle. The Interpersonal Triangle is strongly confirmed throughout psychological literature, as well as in other places such as systems theory, biology, organizational psychology, philosophy, religion, literature and even pop culture (too many to speak of in this article). But what does all this have to do with the Wizard of Oz?
Early in her journey Dorothy meets three companions—Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. Each of these companions has some characteristic that is underdeveloped and in need of fulfillment. Remember Tin Man who cares about having a heart? He represents “love,” or “moving toward.” Lion, who battles for courage, represents “power,” or “moving-against.” Finally, Scarecrow, preoccupied with having a brain, symbolizes knowing, or “moving away”—mindfulness, if you may. Each of the movements can either be negative or positive in their impact, as we will soon see in the example below.
So what does this have to do with EI? I maintain that an “effective, mature and decent” human being is someone who relates to others in a dynamic yet flexible way, integrating the positive aspect of all three dimensions at the same time. And when we are not able to respond in a positive way in one or more of the dimensions, we are thrown out of kilter. Let me give you an example.
Mary owns her own small firm. Ever since she was a little girl she had a hard time with Tin Man. She believes that all the “touchy feely stuff” is a display of weakness. Because of that, she tends to overdo Scarecrow (being cold and distant) and Lion (being impatient and domineering). I was hired to help Mary find out why she was having such a difficult time retaining talent in her company. A quick (anonymous) survey of the employees, along with some personality testing, soon brought the answer clearly into focus.
Based on the feedback that I gave her, she reluctantly agreed to a series of coaching sessions (after all “needing” coaching—moving toward—is a sign of weakness). Based on the theory of the Interpersonal Triangle, we did not focus on her overdone cowardly Lion behaviors (her impatience and micro-management) nor did we consider her overdone Scarecrow (her cold disposition toward employees). Instead we focused on Tin Man–her least favorite dimension. At first we experimented with safe Tin Man behaviors; for example, giving compliments to employees who did a good job. Later we worked on more difficult Tin Man behaviors, like seeking input from the project managers on how to run a project.
Even though I focused mostly on Tin Man, my goal in this coaching assignment was to move her toward full positive functioning of ALL THREE of the characters. As she began to improve in her Tin Man behaviors, a wonderful thing began to happen. Not only did she begin to exhibit more positive Tin Man behaviors, which was most welcomed by all employees, BUT she no longer manifested the overdone negative LION and SCARECROW behaviors. Instead LION transformed into effective leadership and candor; and SCARECROW showed up more as wisdom and patience. Mary was learning to more effectively move through the three dimensions of her interpersonal world. She was exhibiting Goleman’s self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and relationship-management. Mary had become more emotionally intelligent.
In this very brief introduction of the Interpersonal Triangle, it is enough here to raise awareness of the three ways we can relationally move—positively or negatively. And to know that if we are weak in one mode, we will go out-of-balance in the others—making us less effective in how we relate to and impact others. And when we find the “synergy” of all three we can move powerfully and effectively through the three dimensions of the interpersonal world.
Dorothy’s weakest link was Courageous Lion. When she finally found her mojo, she was able to pull the inner team together and melt herself a witch and fire a wizard (more to come on Wizards and Witches). Which character do you have the most trouble with in your life . . . as a manager, a parent, a spouse? (We are often different in different settings.) Don’t bother working on your weaknesses, work on the strengths that are underdeveloped and you will be more emotionally intelligent. And emotional intelligence is intelligence you can live with.