Emotional Intelligence in a Changing World

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How does EQ fit today?

Charles Darwin was the first to identify the value of emotions as a critical element in the life. Sweaty palms for nervousness a churning stomach for anxiety and other signals. This moved to something called “social intelligence” in the 1920’s identified by F.L Thorndike. In 1990John Mayer and Peter Salovey di the research that led to “Emotional Intelligence.”

The world got onboard in 1995 when Daniel Goleman published his book “Emotional Intelligence.”

At the core of the book is the following statement:

“We are being judged by a new yardstick. It’s not how smart you are but how you are smart. The technical skills or the business expertise that so often propelled people to the top are not the abilities that make you effective in inspiring people, in guiding people, in coaching people, in developing people, in motivating people.”

In an International Study of 515 senior executives delivered interesting results. An individual’s emotional intelligence was proven to be a better indicator of success than having strong technical skills, previous experience and the standard “IQ (Intelligence Quotient).” Dr. J.P. Pawliw-Fry, who works with Olympic athletes as well executives refers to a study of sixty of the top US entrepreneurs that states – “Fifty-nine of the sixty went with their gut feeling first and then backed it up with rational reason when they made important decisions. The gut feeling is real. I t helps people make better decisions.”

Why am I focused on EI this week you ask?

Emotional intelligence can be developed. It can be learned. It is not like your native IQ. It ties back into emotions. As people we can control our emotions. Tough but it can be done. We can choose to express or repress our emotions. This also affects our health. The good old Type A personality has been shown to have increased risk of heart damages.

So now let’s return to the recent theme in this blog – change and technology. Change creates anxiety and employees need to have a good leader to help them overcome their fears related to this change. Without strong Emotional Intelligence leaders will be confronted with resistance to change and even anger at change in the work place. Don’t forget that it is the change agent – the individual who is bringing the change – who is the guilty party in this path of development and change. They are viewed with animosity generally. It is only through strong and effective leadership can this emotional feeling be overcome.

One of the life issues hat I have dealt with in my personal and professional life is exemplified by the question “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” This best viewed with the decision we made to go into business for ourselves when I was 33 years old. I had a comfortable position and had interesting and challenging work and I worked with talented people in a great Company. Yet it didn’t match what I felt were my skills. I was too impatient, needed more speed in process change and faster growth and development opportunities for my co-workers. But that was a large change. From the comfort and security of a regular income to being completely on your own with the skills and work ethic. I am so grateful that we have the courage to overcome our fears.

How about you?

Are you looking at a process, or a method, or a form or a screen that should be changed? What are you doing to make it change and get better? If the answer is nothing then I want you to ask yourself the same question “what is it that you are afraid of?” The answer can be very revealing and if you can overcome your fear imagine the possibilities. You can make your job, your department, your company and the world around you a better place.

The times have changed and they are still changing and the rate of change is accelerating. What are you waiting for?

The time is now.

Drones and You!

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For some time now, the Capital Goods Industries has used global position and equipment monitoring technologies. Last week I talk about the Cloud Based Technologies that were impacting our world. I want to look in a different direction this week.

On March 22nd the following press release got my attention:

China: – Commercial drone data company Skycatch, and DJI, the world’s leading manufacturer of civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, have extended their partnership to manufacture and deliver a fleet of 1,000 high-precision drones for Komatsu Smart Construction.

The Skycatch Explore1 drone autonomously flies over job sites to create highly accurate 3D site maps and models and will be deployed on Komatsu job sites. This map data will be used for Komatsu Smart Construction’s new data service that enables robotic earth moving equipment, used in the earthwork stage of the construction process, to correctly dig, bulldoze, and grade land autonomously according to digital construction plans.

“Conducting a site survey using a drone used to take hours. However, by implementing Explore1, users can carry out surveying quickly and easily. Now it is possible to perform drone surveying every day. Taking off, landing and flight route setting are all automated. Ground Control Points (GCPs) are no longer needed. 3D data is immediately generated and an entire construction site can be visually checked with the 3D map. The Explore1 is a true game changer for the construction site,” said Chikashi Shike, Executive Office of Smart Construction Division at Komatsu.

And some of you didn’t think we were being impacted a lot by technology. Imagine?

How do we keep up? That is an interesting question for many of us. In University I took a minor in Computer Science. We learned to program in Fortran and Cobol. We used punched cards. How old do you think that makes me feel?

The last time I purchased disc drives for a computer center was in the late 1970’s and for the price of $1,000,000 I bought eight-disc drives with removable 44 MB drives and two controllers. You read that right – a million bucks for about 350 MB or storage. The current pricing is about $1.00/GB.

In the early eighties I was running a software business in Denver. They had at their peak over 450 dealers using their software. Caterpillar was offering a product from DDPD – Dealer Data Processing, that took paper input from dealers had it keypunched and returned to the dealer after processing. They did the invoicing, inventory management, everything. With Paper.

Time have certainly changed.

That is one of the challenges that we have faced in our training business. I have personally had to change and adapt. I used to teach at University. I had a classroom, a blackboard with white chalk and a room of students. I talked (some called it teaching) and they listened. In England they called it learning from the pipe smoke of the teacher sitting in a room with the students.

I started Quest, Learning Centers, in the early 1990’s and taught in a hotel meeting room to a group of 25 or so students. It was for me going back to the classroom. But first we had overhead slides. We had “text” books of about 250 pages each that we created using voice recognition software. Voice recognition is everywhere today but it was a rarity in 1992. Overheads morphed into power point presentations.

However, training was a challenge for many dealerships. You see it cost money. Many dealers didn’t want to invest in their employees. The employee was expected to arrive with the necessary skills and they would be taught about the products. That is another “Imagine That” isn’t it?

In many cases that still remains true today. Companies are not investing in employee development as they should. It is quite disturbing actually.

To go full circle, we moved from the classroom to webinars. The classroom was thought to be too expensive and the webinar eliminated travel. The problem with a webinar is that the instructor has no idea what the student is learning. I was not happy about that learning device at all.

Then we explored Learning Management Software (LMS) starting in the early 2000’s,  or what they call the “aughts.” Well the products available weren’t ready for prime time. Today they are amazing at what they can do. Now we can do some amazing things. I know more about what the student is learning using current LMS software than I did in the classroom. It is terrific.

Then we took the slides from power point with audio tracks overlaid to them and had an online webinar. Then we used an extremely capable film company to come to Hawaii and spend a week filming us. We created over 500 film clips that we have embedded into the learning products we put out in Learning Without Scars.

Paul Baumann, the owner of Xfinigen, was excellent at flying drones which is why I was do interested in the Press Release from China talking about Komatsu. He used drone shots for many of our film clips. You can see them on our web site at www.learningwithoutscars.org and select either of the two blue bars to see some film clips. The one on the left shows some of Paul’s talents with drones.

Time have changed and they are still changing. The pace is accelerating. Adapt or Die.

The time is now.

Approaches to Learning

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A Great Idea on Learning from a Customer.

Many of you know that we, at Learning Without Scars, are very supportive of new and improved approaches we could be taking with our training platform. That is how we have developed from Management Training, that we first offered with Quest Learning Centers in the early 1990s, to the four different approaches we have in Learning Without Scars; The Learning On Demand Program (LOD), The Planned Specific Programs (PSP), The Virtual Classroom (VCR) and the Planned Learning Programs (PLP).

 

Recently we were approached about an idea a client had who is the Director of Operations of a Bobcat dealership. This talented lady asked if anyone had approached the LOD programs as part of a monthly department learning plan. Of course, at that point no-one had suggested this to us or discussed it with us.

 

She wanted to have each of their stores take the same LOD class. At the end of the month, after everyone had completed the program, they would have a Skype Call or a GoToMeeting and talk about the program of that month. That way each team Member and their Manager would have a clear view of where everyone stood on the knowledge scale. They would have a common understanding of what was expected and share common jargon in communications.

 

What a great idea!

 

They had ten stores with each store having one in-store sales person who handled everything; parts and supplies and rentals. They would get a membership for each store ($50.00/store – total $500.00) and then everyone in the store could take classes for the member pricing. An individual LOD is $115.00/student So if there were one person in each store the monthly training cost would be $1,150.00.

 

She thought that they should take the PSP – Planned Specific Program – which covers four individual classes – but do the classes once a month together. That then morphed into a specifically designed program of LOD’s as she saw the need. This would allow her to create a “personalized” learning program for her business and her teams. What do you think about that?

 

The Time is NOW.

Books and Reading #MondayBlogs

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Today for #MondayBlogs, I want to talk about books and reading and their ability to bring about dramatic change.

Learning is undergoing a radical transformation, although you wouldn’t know it looking at our present school structures and systems. You are seeing the internet transforming schooling. You have the Khan Academy changing the early school years and EdX transforming the Universities of today.

The standardization of curricula designed to create efficiency and accountability may fail to tap the intrinsic motivation of students. It may feel especially restrictive to those who have an intense drive to learn, their intellectual wings constrained by too much structure. Innovators and other change agents are not much interested in the standards applied to schooling.

Innovators wanted to dive deep into topics of their own choosing rather than follow the path of a syllabus. They exhibited a true love of learning – even if they had no love for school.”

This is from Melissa A. Schilling, the John Herzog professor of Management at NUU’s Stern School of Business who is the author of “Quirky: The remarkable story of the traits, foibles and genius of breakthrough innovators who changed the world.”

She also notes the power of reading and of books.

“Their stories (the innovators) also highlight something else: the power of books. Books may not seem as glamorous as recent technology-enabled alternatives like videos and webinars, but few learning vehicles can rival what can be delivered with a book. It is far easier to customize how one consumes a book than a video, lecture, or in-class discussion. These latter alternatives are great complements to books, but not substitutes. You can skim sections of a book to see its overall structure; you can study some passages intensely, re-reading them if you want, and pausing to contemplate. You can also easily move back and forth between text and diagrams in whatever pace and pattern works for your learning style. You can take a book home and read it in bed, or out to a park or coffee shop. This is more important than may at first be obvious; some people function better with some level of background stimulation while others require a setting with as little background stimulation as possible. Allowing people to choose is important. And when a book sits on your shelf, it serves as a visual placeholder that reminds you of its content (a large advantage print books still have over digital).”

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every serial breakthrough innovator I studied had an outsized appetite for books. Books enabled them to choose the areas of expertise they would develop, and to circumvent barriers that might have held them back.

A few blogs ago we exposed to you the reading list from our consulting web site www.rjslee.com and also the articles we have written over the past twenty-five years. Have a look and do some reading. It will help in your personal growth which is, after all, our goal at Learning Without Scars.

The Time is NOW.

Change #MondayBlogs

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The past two weeks I spent reviewing two great dealers in Europe. One was in Norway and the other in Belgium. They were both family owned businesses with a strong history and terrific presence in their markets.

What I wanted to point out, however, is not how good they are at what they do, nor how skilled their employees are or how well their leadership executes strategies. No, it is how they view change.

Each part of the world seems to view change through a different lens. In North America one would think that American Companies would be right our front about innovation and change. Not so fast. In Canada you might be thinking about the conservative Canadian being more entrenched in tradition and not that open to change. Hang on there. Europe with all the centuries of tradition would be another case. Similarly, the South and Central America, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Russia and Africa. All areas approach the need to change differently.

Change is difficult and except for a very small number of us would not be part of our lives. We love predictability. We struggle to learn how to live on our own, or the changes required when we get married or have children. We struggle to learn our jobs and get good at them. And once we get comfortable with our lives BAM along comes change.

I grew up in the late fifties and sixties, the 1900 version folks. Do you think the “baby boomers” see and have seen change? For starters think about this: The “Baby Boomers” were the first generation to have credit cards. No matter what you think about credit cards they have had a dramatic impact on the lives of everyone in the developed world. But the element of the credit card that I want to focus on is the unintended consequence of debt. We all have too much debt. Right? Look at governments, then look at credit card debt, then look at student debt. Need I say more?

Next look at Technology. I took a minor at University in Computer Science and learned how to “wire” Unit Record equipment. That is true. Most people would think about Unit Record computing in the same way that they would think about an “Outhouse” and indoor plumbing. But look how far the “computer” has come in the last seventy-five years. The last set of disc drives that I had to purchase cost over $1,000,000 that is right one million dollars. There were two banks of disc drives each four drives requiring a control unit. Each disc drive held a removed 44-megabyte storage unit. That eight-disc drive set up gave me 352 mega-bytes of disc storage and the cost was more than $1,000,000. Imagine that. Today I can buy a thumb drive with 8 GIGA-BYTES of storage for less than $20.00. How about that? Then we have cellular telephones. They are everywhere. They didn’t exist a short ten years ago. And what about AI, Artificial Intelligence? Big Blue, from IBL, beats the best chess player in the world. Watson wins Jeopardy. The self-driving car, the Roomba Robot vacuum, photography and on and on and on.

Jack Welsh, when he was CEO of General Electric is famous for saying “when the world around you is changing at a rate faster than you are, the end is near.” Look around you. The world is changing very quickly and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.

We need to embrace change as difficult as that might seem to many of you. To resist change is to be run over. So, look around. What could you do differently? What do you do that you don’t even need to do anymore? The world will be a better place and your job will be more enjoyable if you do things more effectively. The only thing in life that we don’t have enough of is time. Take advantage of all the time you are given. Make you job and your world a better place.

The Time is NOW.

Resources and Reading #MondayBlogs

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Reading is so much more than an enjoyable pastime.

Reading can broaden the foundation we use to build our knowledge, taking our learning to the next level.

Tonight, quickly, I want to share with you all that we have resources available.

For quick bites, if you’re pressed for time, we have an entire library of articles available to you here.

If you have a little more time at hand, we also have an entire reading list of books that are we highly recommend.  That reading list can be accessed on this page.

I hope you find some ideas and thoughts that help you along the way.

The time is now.

Learning #MondayBlogs

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Education has undergone many changes over the years.

From the 1800’s to now learning has changed dramatically. From the days of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, the heroes of teaching and learning we have been on an interesting road. The quality of education has appeared to be based on the number of PhD’s on the faculty. Nobody talked abut the quality of the TEACHING. That has been one of the flaws of the education system.

In the 1960’s Clark Kerr gave a series of lectures at Harvard that were put into a book called “The Uses of the University.” Harvard had created the “elective” system whereby the student chose the curriculum. This resulted in a lot of people who graduated with very little “learning.” Kerr developed the California system with the UC system on the top, then private Universities, then Junior Colleges. The UC system for the ‘smarter” students to the others at the private to the lower skilled to the Junior Colleges or Technical schools. Imagine.

Yet there still exists a HUGE hole.

Who is it that qualifies the teachers?

How do we measure learning?

Today we have HUGE student loan debt.

How did we get here? When I went to University I paid less than $500.00/year plus books and lab fees. Today we are talking about more than $25,000/year plus, plus, and I am being very gentle. This level of tuition inflation is becoming ridiculous.

There was something else going on at the same time. Parents in the US had been convinced that their children would be better served if they went to a University. They would make more money over their lifetime. As a result, less than 10% of the population had a bachelor’s degree in 1960. That passed 20% in 1970 then 25% in the 1990’s and over 33% today. At the same time, it is said that 50% of the technical schools in America closed for lack of attendance. Quite a commentary isn’t it?

Many ideas of how people think and learn are a mystery to most people. However, at a few Universities learning scientists and computer engineers came together and started to develop educational tools that could be far more effective in teaching and learning. Mark Kamlet, the provost of Carnegie Mellon University, opines that 25 to 50 Universities are the total of the Universities that will survive over the coming decades. That is because teaching and learning are changing. The current universities are creating their own destruction. They are conducting research and they are trying to make things better.

In 1955 Herbert Simon attended a conference at Dartmouth where he and a small group of scientists gave a name to a new field of research called “Artificial Intelligence.” Learning is not a matter of accessing information but rather a matter of organizing and making sense of it. Cognitive scientists started asking the fundamental question. “How do people think and learn?” It is clear that our brain is a very complicated tool. The importance of thinking patterns and expertise means that learning needs to be looked at in different ways. The trouble with this is that this making developing courses very difficult. It is not easy to simulate working environments. Believe me we are in that business. But that is where as a society we are going. The University of Everywhere is here now and will become even more significant going forward.

We are perpetuating the class society with our education system.

Clark Kerr institutionalized this within the California system. If you have access to money you can get into a different school. Not a good approach to anything.

The new barriers of entry should be based exclusively on ability. Wouldn’t that be a nice change? That is where learning Management Software is taking us. That is where non-traditional teachers are coming from. We have to be extremely alert to the changes in learning.

We are mindful of these changes and watch the result of the student assessments from our online programs, not just to evaluate the student but also to evaluate our ability to transfer information. That is where we all have to go. Making learning easier and more effective.

The Time is NOW.

The Year in Review #MondayBlogs

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2017 has been an eventful year for us.

We have been very busy.

The product offerings are filling out. We will have more individual subject specific classes (Learning On Demand – LOD) than anyone in our Industry. We introduced Job Function Specific Programs (Planned Specific Programs – PSP) this year and have ten available currently. We also have introduced the Virtual Classroom – VCR series which allows each employee within the Parts and Service groups to develop and obtain all the knowledge required to work effectively. Our foundation, management and supervisory training, we now call the Planned Learning Programs – PLPs. We are excited about all of these programs. We are well along the road to obtaining International Association for Continuous Education Training certification. We have created over five hundred minutes of film clips which we add to our learning programs to provide dynamism. We have opened a Vimeo Channel which contains some of our film clips as a “taste treat” for companies and individuals who are interested in seeing for themselves our style and content. And importantly, we introduced Socrates our mascot to the world.

Our goal is to provide you with the learning tools to allow your employees to become the best that they can be.

Let’s turn to your employees and their personal development. What is your goal for them?  What is their goal, personally?  What is their purpose in their job or their career? What is the purpose of your business? Surveys clearly indicate that people want to work for companies that have a clear purpose. Clarity of purpose is not that common in businesses today. In America surveys tell us that over 80% of business fails to achieve their strategy.  This failure in achievement is caused by lack of clarity. 95% of employees cannot state the strategy of the business.

There are a few truths to be exposed.

  • Know your goals and what can be achieved.
  • Have clear targets but recognize they are constantly moving.
  • Don’t let technology take over – business is very personal
  • Seek common ground with your market and customers
  • Constantly be doing research
  • Celebrate your successes don’t be afraid to be good.
  • Be extremely visible
  • Make it personal
  • Seek outside opinions
  • Keep it simple.

Skilled people are strong in building and maintaining relationships with your customers. They are your heroes. Let’s not forget to invest in their continuing education.

The time is now.

What Is Training? #MondayBlogs

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During the economic downturn, the first budget to be slashed was the training, or employee development, budget.

When it’s time to tighten our belts, training is the first thing to go.

But it is clear that employees need to invest in your business, just as you invest in your employees.  One of the things I teach in our classes is that our procedures and methods must be understood, and agreed upon, by the team.  In other words, your employees must not only understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, but agree with the goal and the approach to that goal.

Lately, we’ve seen more room for employee development again in the budgets.  We have also seen employees taking a greater role and a more vested interest in their business’ success when they are provided with a foundation through training.

People are our greatest asset.  They are your heroes with your customers, and they help to build the relationships that give a business “customers for life.”

It is crucial that we never forget that, although our industry is equipment, it is the people who make or break it for a business.

We must make an investment in the future through providing our employees with the training and tools they need to grow in our business.  This is an investment that benefits every aspect of the business.

The time is now.

 

Customers for Life #MondayBlogs

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In selling, we often look towards finding new customers and cultivating a relationship with them.  But what about the customers we already have?

Japan taught us the concept, and value, of “customers for life.”  With proper care, via a “hugger” or a “hunter,” there is no reason for us to lose our existing customers.

Customer Retention is often overlooked in our average marketing focus, as we seek to broaden our reach.

We must be wise, and be sure to appreciate and nurture the relationships we already have.  There is no “old business” in our business: our relationships are dynamic, and changing as our industry does.

The time is now.

 

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