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Hosts Spencer Horn and Christian Napier discuss a better way to build and strengthen teams in any organization.
00:13 - 00:24
Christian Napier: Well, hello everyone and welcome to another special episode of Teamwork a Better Way. I'm Christian Napier joined by my illustrious amazing co-host Spencer Horn. Spencer, how you doing this Monday morning?
00:24 - 00:31
Spencer Horn: Good morning. Good early Monday morning, Christian. Fabulous to be with you again. We were Just together on Friday.
00:32 - 00:43
Christian Napier: I know. You know what? We had such a great time on Friday. We just had to do it again and I'm super excited to be with you. You may notice that my backdrop looks a little bit different than normal.
00:43 - 00:45
Spencer Horn: I do notice, where are you?
00:49 - 00:54
Christian Napier: I happen to be in the airport on my way to an AI conference in Austin, Texas and so hopefully the sound
00:54 - 00:56
Spencer Horn: and the lighting is okay.
00:56 - 00:56
Christian Napier: I mean,
00:56 - 01:05
Spencer Horn: like 1 of these little I think you look great. You look great. I love it. I love your glasses and the black shirt. You look very you know,
01:05 - 01:08
Christian Napier: ring of fire like you're
01:08 - 01:09
Spencer Horn: ready to sing
01:09 - 01:09
Roberta Moore: the going a little Johnny Cash here?
01:09 - 01:10
Spencer Horn: Johnny Cash on us, yes.
01:11 - 01:23
Christian Napier: All right, well Spencer, let's not delay any further because we've got an amazing guest here with us today who has taken time out of her very busy schedule to be with us. So why don't you go ahead and introduce her?
01:23 - 02:08
Spencer Horn: Yeah, so we have Roberta Moore. I'm so excited to bring her up here just a second. She is the founder of EQI and she's an executive coach and author of Emotion at Work, which is just perfect for our podcast. Emotion at Work, Unleashing the Secret Power of Emotional Intelligence. And Roberta draws on nearly 4 decades, no Roberta, you started when you were 12 for heaven's sakes, 4 decades in executive coaching, professional service and psychotherapy to help her clients understand and unleash the power of emotional intelligence through individual and team coaching. I'm excited because I'm also a
02:08 - 02:47
Spencer Horn: team performance coach and I want to ask her about that but she does EQ coaching and team workshops and EQ assessments and audits and Moore's work, I'm not going to call you Moore, I'm going to call it Roberta's work, has earned her several really prestigious awards, Christian. In 2020, she won the Enterprising Women of the Year Award and 1 of the most prestigious recognitions for women business owners, as well as the 2020 GloBi Women World Female Achievers Champion of the Year Award. That's a mouthful. Sorry, I'm messing that up. And in 2021, she won the Stevie's
02:47 - 03:21
Spencer Horn: Award. And Roberta is also a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, which is fantastic, and publishes articles on Forbes monthly. And I've read some of those. Really, That's quite an honor. And she is contributing author to the 2020 book, The Anatomy of Accomplishment, Your Guide to Bigger, Better, Bolder Business Results, an anthology of professional wisdom from women business leaders across the country. So all of our listeners, I want to introduce to you Roberta Moore. Welcome, Roberta. Good to have you.
03:21 - 03:25
Roberta Moore: Thank you. Thank you for the warm welcome. It's very exciting to be here.
03:26 - 03:34
Spencer Horn: Yeah, so coming to us from St. Louis, Missouri, I hope that it's, the weather's good right now for you.
03:34 - 03:43
Roberta Moore: Oh yes, it's unusually cool today. Usually we're a lot hotter and we're burning up, but not this morning.
03:43 - 04:09
Spencer Horn: Yeah, we too. It's starting to feel nice. We're getting these cool off rains. I don't know about you, but let's jump into our topic. This is really putting EQ in action in teams is really what we wanna talk about today. So how would you define, emotional intelligence is a big topic. I mean, how would you define it in the context of team performance and why is it so critical for the success of
04:09 - 04:10
Christian Napier: a team?
04:10 - 04:53
Roberta Moore: So, you know, emotional intelligence, there's many different definitions. And let me just tell you my favorite definition because I think it will help illustrate the point. I like to tell people, if you play cards, if you could pretend you have a deck of cards and each card in the deck represents 1 emotion, And you're in a situation, let's say there's a team meeting or something, and let's pretend tension is building because let's say it's a hot topic and people have different opinions and they're being very vociferous and almost bordering on argumentative. If you're somebody who instead
04:53 - 05:25
Roberta Moore: of just blurting something out that you can't take back that might be damaging or offensive, if You can pull selectively and intentionally a card, meaning an emotion from that deck, and you play that card. You play it instead of that emotion playing you. You're going to be more effective in that meeting. You're going to be more productive. You'll make a better contribution. That's my favorite definition of emotional intelligence. And you can understand.
05:26 - 05:54
Spencer Horn: Go ahead. No, sorry, I really like that because, you know, it's about kind of viewing yourself and if you look at that card deck, you're looking, okay, so I have options here and I'm not just going to allow my emotions to dictate. Well, and sometimes we don't even think about it. We just automatically allow our emotions to dictate. So instead, we're viewing this deck of cards as a way to respond. I love that. Well, you gave an example of maybe a sign that a team is struggling. You know, there's arguments going on. What would you say
05:54 - 06:05
Spencer Horn: are some signs that a team is struggling emotionally? I know you have an assessment, I have it here. What are you looking for when you see a team struggling? What are the signs?
06:06 - 06:46
Roberta Moore: They can be different for different members of the team. Probably no surprise there, right? But you might notice If you're the team leader, if somebody's kind of sitting in the corner and they're being quiet, and because that happens, some people who are very introverted or not, they don't have their assertiveness or their emotional expression skills built up yet, will tend to sit in the corner and be quiet. That's a bad sign because you want, if somebody shuts down, you don't know what they're thinking. And they're usually thinking something that they're timid or reluctant to put out
06:46 - 07:31
Roberta Moore: there and say, maybe because they're afraid of judgment from the other team members or the boss, the leader, they might be afraid of conflict. When actually conflict, healthy conflict in a team is actually vital for top performance. So again, if you can feel the tension, you know how in a room when people are not talking, you can feel that tension. Yet encouraging people to speak, making it a safe psychological workspace means the leader sets the tone. And if the leader can set the tone of, hey, we all respect each other here, we can have a conversation
07:31 - 07:51
Roberta Moore: where everybody feels safe, that they won't be shamed, blamed, judged, or criticized. Can you understand that that leaves people to be more free to express themselves? And then you can get this really good discussion going to find out where are the gaps, where are the holes in the team and in their dynamics.
07:52 - 08:03
Christian Napier: So I'd like to take a step back, Roberta, if I may. You know, when you think of these words, emotional and intelligence, you know, traditionally, they don't go together, right?
08:03 - 08:04
Roberta Moore: When
08:04 - 08:44
Christian Napier: we thought, we think about intelligence, if you just say that word without any other context, it usually appears to be a pretty, I don't want to say cold in a negative way, but it's more analytical, it's studious, it may be a little bit more academic. When you think about emotion, you think about spontaneity. And again, I'm just taking these words completely out of context. And so what I'm curious to know is how did this come together for you? You know, what is the story behind your career that led you to this point? Because we throw the
08:44 - 09:04
Christian Napier: word around now And like you said, there are many definitions and we may just kind of take it for granted or, you know, emotional intelligence. But those, you know, at least from a layperson's perspective, they come from 2 different places. And I'm curious to hear from you how you got to where you are now with emotional intelligence.
09:05 - 09:45
Roberta Moore: Thank you, Christian. I love this question. I love being able to answer this question, and I often talk about it in my EQ workshops. So I started out in accounting, in internal audit in a large company, and then I went into public accounting. And when I was younger, I was very sensitive to anything that felt like criticism, because I grew up in a household where there was a lot of criticism and you had to get things right. And I became a little perfectionist. So I, when I was younger and we had, I had an evaluation after
09:45 - 10:24
Roberta Moore: an audit that I performed. And the person doing the evaluation said, why did you take such a big sample size? You took too big of a sample size. And I burst into tears. I mean, no kidding. Poor guy. I was young, older man. And I was like, well, because there was nothing else to do, where there was nothing else to audit, and I wanted to be busy, and I wanted to work, so I did my big spreadsheet. But I learned then that even though I was book smart and intelligent myself, I was not intelligent about the
10:24 - 11:01
Roberta Moore: use of my emotions. And I knew I had to do something about it. So at the time, back in those days, they didn't have coaches, performance coaches, but they did have therapists. So I saw a therapist to help me learn to use my emotions better at work and then just along the way When I was an expert doing tax returns in public accounting I realized that it was more exciting to me to deal with a client Than it was to actually put the tax return together and I noticed in the in our culture at the time
11:02 - 11:34
Roberta Moore: people were people were not gelling the team wasn't gelling and what was missing was it wasn't that people didn't have the expertise on how to do tax returns, it was how people didn't know how to talk to each other. So I decided to go back to school, got an EDS in marriage and family therapy because that's all about systems theory. Because I was interested in how relationships work and how 1 person in a family or a team, if they're having an issue or a problem, they can affect the whole team or the whole family, then the
11:34 - 12:12
Roberta Moore: whole family becomes part of that problem. So I studied all that and then somewhere along the line, noticed, you know, people were coming, you know, for therapy at that point, but I noticed if they were having trouble communicating with a spouse, and they were professionals, and I'd ask them how they were doing at work, they'd be having trouble communicating at work too. And I got the big aha, Like, oh my gosh, we are, we're not people who can chop ourselves up into little pieces. We were holistic. And if you combine emotional intelligence, which is a skill
12:12 - 12:49
Roberta Moore: building, it's a skill building coaching type model with, If I combined that with what my knowledge was in therapy and psychology, it would be holistic. I'd be able to address the human being as a whole Because let's face it, Christian, what we do, if you're having a problem at home, if you get into a spat with your spouse before you leave to work, are you going to perform at your best that day if you're preoccupied worrying about, you know, what things will be like when you go home that night, you know, if you work outside your
12:49 - 13:05
Roberta Moore: home So I wanted to address people's personal lives and their business lives because when those 2 are solid and integrated A person is definitely more productive and then more profitable and they're also more personally fulfilled.
13:06 - 13:25
Spencer Horn: How often do you hear that someone say to you, Roberta, I keep my personal and my professional life separate. I'm 1 way at home and I'm another way at work. Like there's some kind of bifurcated, you know, individual into 2 people. How often do you hear that?
13:27 - 14:04
Roberta Moore: Well, you're right on point Spencer because you might guess I hear it a lot. It's a very common thing and where it tends to come out, where it first tends to come out is when I'm usually starting a coaching engagement, I use the EQI 2.0 assessment tool. It's owned by MHS, incorporated, and it was developed by 2 clinical psychologists. And people will say when I go to debrief them to share their results, 00I was thinking about how I am at home. I wasn't thinking about how I am at work. Or they might say I was thinking
14:04 - 14:36
Roberta Moore: about how I am at work and not how I am at home. But the 2 clinical psychologists who created this model and this assessment tool, my understanding is they factored the questions and the research so that it's really doesn't matter if you think of how am I at home or how am I at work. It's all coming out the same. You either have the skills or you don't have the skills. You're either balanced in the 16 skills or you're not balanced in the 16 skills.
14:36 - 14:45
Spencer Horn: I'm curious, do you think that's some sort of deflecting though by saying, well, you know, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm more aware than I really am.
14:46 - 15:26
Roberta Moore: People just don't, you know, they don't know themselves. We're, we have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. So I'm hoping to give people the benefit of the doubt. They're just unconscious do it, or they haven't reflected on it before. But often Spencer, as we push forward, as we move forward in the coaching engagement, they will start, I just had somebody on Friday say, Oh, 0, I've been thinking about what we talked about. Oh, because I asked this person, this person tends to jump in as a leader and do somebody else's work. When somebody's struggling with
15:26 - 15:52
Roberta Moore: a problem instead of teaching them how to do it, right, they just want to jump in and save the day. And I've been asking that person for the past month. Where does that come from? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, it probably feels good, right? Well, I guess. And then bingo, on Friday, they sent, you know, they sent me an email saying, Oh, my mother was like that. Oh, my grandmother was like,
15:52 - 16:16
Spencer Horn: but they never stop and think about that. So I, I, I've got to ask you, I got to ask you, I just heard a, you know, a quite famous neuroscientist, I don't know, Renee, is it Gomez? He speaks a lot and he says that only 10% of people, and that's everybody worldwide are self-aware. What do you think about that number?
16:17 - 16:19
Roberta Moore: I would have thought it was 5 percent.
16:22 - 16:42
Spencer Horn: Okay, so I feel good. But we all know somebody, if you think about it, if you don't point it yourself and just think about who you work at. How easy is it to think of somebody that you know that's not self-aware? Now, and then I have to stop and say, well, that's me too.
16:44 - 17:13
Roberta Moore: You know, you can be too self-aware. Did you know that? That was me when I was getting my leadership coaching specialization. Doug McKinley, who was facilitating the group said, Roberta, you've got to dial back your emotional self-awareness because I was I was picking on myself and I was over analyzing everything I did that's not productive either you know so that's that skill of being in balance
17:14 - 17:50
Spencer Horn: yeah well it's interesting and balance is sometimes about you know managing contraries and we struggle with that as humans. Mercy and justice and action and thought. I mean, what's the right balance? That's really hard. But before we move off, I want to go back to what you talked about systems theory for just a moment. And you're talking about how families are a system that impact the individuals in that system. The same is true at work. And so you're a team performance coach. Tell me how do you address that system? Do you do it by working with
17:50 - 17:54
Spencer Horn: individuals in the system or do you address the system as a whole?
17:55 - 18:37
Roberta Moore: That's a great question and I'm so glad you asked that Spencer. Both, the answer is both. And it really just depends on the appetite of the company that hires me and their culture. So for instance, in 1 very large insurance company, I did a three-year program where the managing partner chose the team he wanted me to work with, because there were several different teams, as you might imagine. And so he took like the elite team, and we, I assessed each person with the EQI 2.0, debriefed them confidentially and individually. And then the coaching to build the
18:37 - 19:22
Roberta Moore: skills was done in a group. So that was done in a group over 3 years to develop better sales skills. So for instance, most of them had to cope with the fear of rejection, you know, from cold calling and things like that. So building up your self-regard, building up your emotional expression and your interpersonal relationship skills, as well as empathy, those were some of the things we worked on there. And to get more detailed into your question, there was 1 individual on that team who was, well, they didn't have the most positive of attitudes. So they
19:22 - 20:09
Roberta Moore: were low in optimism. And in that group meeting, being while they were just more biased towards the negative, you might imagine they'd pull everybody down in the meeting sometimes. So I had to counterbalance that by lifting everybody back up and then coaching individually one-on-one with the leader. So there was group coaching going on and then coaching with the leader to help that person so that he coached that person on the side to be better able to see the work that he was doing positively. And then in other companies, I might, and it's so much fun. I
20:09 - 20:50
Roberta Moore: have so much fun when I'm able to coach people from different teams in different divisions of the company, one-on-one, confidentially, privately, because then that's how I get, and I bet you know this too Spencer, in your work, that's how I get the big aha, the big picture about, oh This is what this company's culture is like. And then I can see it. It's almost like I can see overarching patterns and principles. And then sometimes I write up a report about what I see and ask for an audience with HR or the CEO and report my findings
20:51 - 20:56
Roberta Moore: and suggestions about how we could tackle this or different things that we could do.
20:58 - 21:31
Christian Napier: Well, I wanna come back to the pessimistic person. Because the pessimistic person may also be pessimistic about the work that you're doing, right? So you might get some people who think, well, this is just gonna be a waste of my time. This isn't gonna have any impact on me or my team. What in the world are we even doing this for? You know, I should be spending my time out there making sales calls instead of talking with this person. And I'm curious how you are able to build a desire in a person who is resistant to
21:31 - 22:03
Christian Napier: it. Because not everybody immediately buys in and says, yes, Roberta, we need your help. Right. There might be some people on the team who are like, what are we doing this for? Or because of their company culture, they may say, oh, well we do this stuff and then a person leaves and then, you know, we just fall back into our same old habits. And so why are we trying this again? And I'm curious to hear from you how you overcome that, how you overcome doubt in the part of, on the part of the participants to get
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Christian Napier: them to actually buy into what you're doing.
22:07 - 22:53
Roberta Moore: Okay, Christian, another great question. You have hit the nail on the head because that happens a lot, probably maybe 50 percent of the time, and it's about building trust. So I work very hard to provide that safe psychological space that I told you that it's, you know, a good leader does. So starting out with a person by saying, let's make sure there's something in this for you. Here I am. I'm here as your cheerleader. And here I am with lots of knowledge from different aspects, you know, the different careers that I have had. And my job
22:53 - 23:31
Roberta Moore: is to be here for you to help you get something out of this for yourself. So if we put beyond what your company wants you to achieve. What do you want from this? And a lot of times I borrow from, it's called solutions focused therapy. I say, if my pen here is a magic wand and I wave it and you wake up tomorrow and your life, both at work and at home, is amazing and wonderful and you are very happy. You're on fire because you're so happy. What would that look like? What would have to change?
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Roberta Moore: What would have to be different? And sometimes then they wanna talk about the boss. Oh, I'd have to have a new boss or I'd have to have a new team or I'd have to work in a different company. And then I have to say, okay, maybe there's some grain of truth there but we're just talking about you because right now, those things are not changing. Unless that's a long-term goal of yours to change that, you can only change yourself. So by changing you and how you respond to where you are in this moment, you can get
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Roberta Moore: something out of this for you and you can become a more productive and happy person. I think, Christian, the longest time it ever took to, let's say, gain somebody's trust was about 6 months and that was 1 of the toughest, toughest engagements I ever had. But I'll tell you what, once I did build trust with that person, then that person became a fan for life. I haven't heard from them maybe in the last year, but sometimes I get Christmas cards and they did change employers, they did change jobs. But I believe that, you know, I know
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Roberta Moore: how to build trust in interpersonal relationships from my therapy training and my therapy skills.
24:55 - 25:31
Spencer Horn: Let's transition from building trust with you to that leader then building trust to connect with their team members? How can team leaders use emotional intelligence to connect with their team leaders? You mentioned 1 thing earlier and that's create that psychological safety. And you mentioned that in the context of having conflict. You've probably heard of the idea of mining for conflict or, you know, asking people to come up with, you know, what maybe disagree with you as a leader. What are some things that you can do as a leader to create psychological safety and drive performance with
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Spencer Horn: your team?
25:32 - 26:21
Roberta Moore: Great, another great question. So I always like to tell leaders, you need to learn to be warm and firm, warm and firm, warm and firm. 1 of the principles from working with children, so I have a minor in early childhood psychosocial development, is what children need, we all need as adults because inside of us are all little kids, right? Structure, consistency, routine, limits, rules, and boundaries. Those things are also true for leaders who are adults. So if you as a leader are good at communicating those things, that's where people are going to be feeling safe and
26:21 - 27:12
Roberta Moore: held. And in the EQI 2.0 model, there are 2 what they consider pillars of leadership. 1 is authenticity and 1 is coaching. So the authenticity style of leadership, which I'll use that 1 as the answer to your question, is about being a transparent leader. It's about setting the example. It's about being moral and ethical and honest. Where you can, I mean, I understand sometimes leaders are not able to share everything? You know, they sometimes have to hold some things back. But the leaders who are able to be upfront, give the team a voice, be letting the
27:12 - 27:56
Roberta Moore: team know they're perfectly fine if you disagree with them, like they can take it in stride. That's what's going to allow people to on the team open up and really express their opinion and voice their opinion. So again, being warm and firm. Another concept comes from Richard Boyackis. He's an adjunct professor at Case Western University. He developed an emotional intelligence term called resonant leadership. So resonant leaders are like tuning forks with the people that they lead. So if the people they leave are tuning fork and the leader is a tuning fork, the idea is the leader
27:56 - 28:34
Roberta Moore: sets the tune or the tone, sends it out from this tuning fork, and then the team picks up that vibrational tune and they're in resonance. So being approachable, being the leader who is always going to be there for somebody like you know you can come to me I will tell you the truth as I as best I can. I will be there for you. I'll set the tone. And sometimes leaders who can say I'm, I'm in it with you. Like, hey, we're all struggling because interest rates are high and it's an election year and we don't
28:34 - 28:49
Roberta Moore: know where things are going. I'm in it with you and I'm working hard too. Often, it is 1 of the best ways to be, especially with your high achievers and your high performers.
28:50 - 29:00
Spencer Horn: I love that you quoted Richard Boiazas and I guess he co-wrote with Annie McKee and Daniel Gohmann, Primal Leadership, where he said the
29:00 - 29:00
Christian Napier: fundamental leaders.
29:00 - 29:00
Spencer Horn: It's
29:01 - 29:02
Roberta Moore: on my shelf over there.
29:03 - 29:17
Spencer Horn: Yeah, it has to prime good feeling in those they lead, and that happens when you create that resonance that you were talking about. We have a couple of comments, Christian, I wanna share before you ask your next question. First of all, we've got Linnea Brumbaugh. I don't know if you know Linnea.
29:18 - 29:20
Roberta Moore: I sure do. Thanks for tuning in.
29:20 - 29:45
Spencer Horn: Oh, great. So she's got a couple of comments that she loves your comments here. And then she said this about your warm and firm. I tell my new teaching colleagues who feel bad about their students hurt feelings, high empathy, you know, low grades, you got to be warm, but firm. I guess she's, she's, she's confirming what, what you said there. Thank you for joining us.
29:46 - 29:48
Roberta Moore: Yes. Thank you so much.
29:49 - 30:04
Christian Napier: Yeah. We appreciate those comments. Now to my question, I want to come back to this tuning fork analogy, which I think is quite powerful with the leader setting the tone. But we all know some people who are tone deaf, right? They just can't
30:04 - 30:08
Spencer Horn: get it. I told you, Roberta, he always asks great questions.
30:09 - 30:41
Christian Napier: And so as a leader, how do you know when to just cut bait? Because you may go through all of these steps. And sometimes the fit is just not a good fit. How do you know and how do you advise leaders and also individuals who are with an organization? You know what, We've tried all this stuff. This doesn't work. That doesn't work. It's time to get somebody in here who could be more in tune because sometimes there are people who just, they just can't.
30:43 - 31:27
Roberta Moore: And so an interesting question. I certainly have had clients that, you know, we come to the, or we do come to the conclusion that they might be better served elsewhere. And often it's not only that, well, they might need to develop their emotional expression and their reality testing, which is what I think makes somebody tone deaf. But it could also be that the company is tone deaf. I'm thinking of a recent person. 1 of the things that I helped them to do, we had several discussions about this, is how to leave their position gracefully because they
31:27 - 32:12
Roberta Moore: were a director level. In that company, that was just 1 level below the C-suite. And this person wanted to be a member of the C-suite, felt that they had been led to believe they'd become a member of the C-suite. And then it just, it became obvious it wasn't going to happen. And the background wasn't a fit either in terms of the technical skills. This person was better suited for a much larger company and found themselves in a smaller company. And the skills are different. The mindset is different. Sometimes it's not so transferable to come from a
32:12 - 32:48
Roberta Moore: very, very large company. And when you have what I think he had had 200 people working for him, and then went to a smaller company where maybe he had to, he had 6 and had to form a strong argument, let's say to have a seventh that was just not a good fit. It wasn't going to work. So then how do you tell the company, how do you leave gracefully, how do you leave so that you're on good terms and you have not burned any bridges? And then I worked with him on that as he made his
32:48 - 33:30
Roberta Moore: announcement. And then I also was able to talk to his boss, you know, just to close the gap, if you will, and help pave the way for that transition. And last I heard it worked out well and the company hired a new replacement that seems to be working out well. And then the other person is moving on in their career too. So that does happen. Sometimes it doesn't work out all warm and fuzzy like that 1 did. I've had it where the person who needs to leave is very unhappy, very unsatisfied, and they might even border
33:30 - 34:05
Roberta Moore: on being bitter. That is really hard to help somebody change. But what I try to look for with that is to say, let's, let's do some reflection and contemplation. And why don't you make a list of the things that you're, that you learned at this company that you would be grateful for that will now be on your resume to help you move into a different position in a different company. And then you can also make a list of things that you would not want to seek out in the new company because they were not a fit
34:05 - 34:08
Roberta Moore: at this company. So it's almost like a pros and cons list.
34:08 - 34:50
Spencer Horn: That's a really good answer to that tough question. So, you know, I'm thinking, Christian, that There are just some people that companies need to let go of, but struggle with that and they allow that disresonance to happen longer than they should. There's so many costs to that. But let's transition to some successes that you've had utilizing your coaching, your systems, to raise emotional intelligence with on teams. Share with us some successes that you've had in improving team performance, and what are some steps that team leaders can take to raise their emotional intelligence?
34:51 - 35:39
Roberta Moore: Well, it's very, very exciting, as you might imagine, when somebody has vast improvement. And again, as I'm thinking of 1 particular person, 1 of the things I build into almost all my coaching engagements, unless the company just doesn't want to do this for some reason, is a pre-engagement and post-engagement assessment, the EQI 2.0. Because you can use it after 6 months. It still has a high reliability and validity factor. So 1 person I've been coaching, We're on a little break right now. But this person came on board and was burnt out, or at least that's what
35:39 - 36:23
Roberta Moore: he reported. He said he was burnt out from the role he had in the company before he came to the company where I met him and I'm coaching him because because they're a client company of mine and he he was facing a big challenge because here he is burned out he wasn't really certain about the new role and he was he's in operations And he was having some trouble with somebody who is on the sales team. So in logistics companies, I've learned that sales and operations can often be at odds or there can be tension there
36:23 - 37:06
Roberta Moore: because the salespeople are obviously trying to keep a client satisfied with the sale and then the operations people are trying to carry the job out, policies, procedures, so on and so forth. So he was timid in the beginning. When I first assessed him, he needed to develop self-regard because he was knocked down in the previous company, and he needed to develop his assertiveness. He was reluctant to offer an opinion and to be into, he had strong opinions, but he was reluctant in his emotional expression to offer those when he was on calls with people from sales
37:06 - 37:42
Roberta Moore: and people from corporate So on and so forth. It was so exciting to work with this guy for me because he rolled up his sleeves Dug in he wanted to improve his leadership skills. He actually had asked for a coach. So that's, that's, that's always better than if your boss says, We need you to be coached. He asked for a leadership coach because he said he needed more leadership training. So can you imagine Spencer right there, that's somebody who's open to change, and I don't have to really convince them that they need to change and do
37:42 - 38:27
Roberta Moore: better. He came to each coaching meeting with questions, with examples, things that he did. Like I would tell him, okay, work on being more assertive with this salesperson, work on explaining why operations has to do what they do and ask this person, you know, what you can do with them so that their life at work goes better. So he set up, I know I think it was monthly, monthly coffee meetings with this salesperson. Long story short, he was on fire. He did so well, he got promoted to like a regional director, maybe about three-quarters of the
38:27 - 39:10
Roberta Moore: way through the engagement. And then when I assessed him again, he's like the only person I've ever coached that improved in this model by 20 points. So he went from being below average statistically to being above average statistically. And I want to say about 13 maybe out of the 16 skills, that to me is unheard of, at least in my experience of running about maybe about 800 of these assessments on different people. He's like the only 1 that so greatly improved and it was just so exciting to talk to his HR director because they said you
39:10 - 39:21
Roberta Moore: know I told them this guy is on fire he's got to be 1 of your high potentials and they see it they know it they see it so so that's good too and he is a leader.
39:21 - 39:43
Spencer Horn: So I mean I I agree I love working with people that are excited to improve. And they're not looking at this as remediation, some type of punishment, right? They're looking at this as, wow, I get to work with Roberta and really work on my career. And I think that just that attitude starting point is hugely helpful.
39:45 - 39:48
Roberta Moore: Spencer, may I tell 1 more story?
39:48 - 39:49
Spencer Horn: Please, please. Absolutely.
39:50 - 40:32
Roberta Moore: Because this is something new I learned. And I was really excited about this last week. So another person that I've been coaching, who also came burnt out and into their leadership role, And we've been coaching about a year and a half, almost 2 years now, twice a month. Went to, I do offer workshops, but this particular company had not purchased 1 of my ongoing, like I'm educating you on EQ, just generally speaking, they had not purchased that. But they sent him to another, like a leadership training conference, I guess, for 3 days. He came back from
40:32 - 41:08
Roberta Moore: that conference and he was so excited to tell me, oh my gosh, Roberta, now I understand why EQ is so important. Because they spent most of the conference talking about EQ for leadership skills and he said They told me, If you don't have good EQ skills, you're just not going to succeed at your job. And so he said, Roberta, I hear that now. I hear it. And what that, what I learned about that, because now he's all excited, and he's asking me more questions than he used to. And we just re-upped for another year of coaching.
41:08 - 41:40
Roberta Moore: So I'm excited about that. I learned how valuable it is for people that are doing one-on-one coaching, that they need a training. They need the, they need to hear the research. You know, Time magazine has a quote that not 90% of successful people have high emotional intelligence skills. And so I may not I may not always remember to say that when I'm coaching somebody and we're just developing 1 skill at a time. So that was just an exciting thing for me to learn.
41:42 - 42:15
Spencer Horn: Well, thank you for sharing that. And you're absolutely right. So it's like the skills, a lot of people put extra emphasis on the skills that they've learned. You know, I'm a good accountant or I'm a good computer programmer. That's what gets your foot in the door. But what allows you then to climb and succeed within that organization are the things that we're talking about now that they don't always, they're not always aware of. So I want to say 1 more thing, Christian, before I throw back at you, but you talked about the tension that exists between
42:15 - 42:54
Spencer Horn: production and sales. Those dynamics in teams are happening every day because within a team, you have different roles that are naturally in tension with each other. So For example, what's the role of accounting? To make sure that we're preserving our capital and what's the role of marketing? To spend that capital and those 2 things are naturally at odds with each other and so that can create tension with each other. I think it's really interesting that in your EQ assessment, 1 of the things that I can't remember where it was, but just how do you handle those
42:54 - 43:21
Spencer Horn: team dynamics when they're at odds with each other? But The first thing I think is to normalize that. It's normal for these departments to actually be in opposition to each other. And that's not dysfunction, that's just, you've got a role, but how do we overcome that as an organization to get united for the same end, even though our individual focuses might be actually at odds with each other.
43:22 - 44:00
Roberta Moore: So 1 of the skills in the EQI 2.0 is social responsibility. And I think that 1 gets misunderstood sometimes. So that is, again, in this particular model, it's the skill of I care as much about I care about my own goals and meeting my own goals as much as I care about you and your goals. So if you as the company or you as another team, we're all working towards a common goal. And if I take as an individual, whether I'm a leader or a, you know, a member of the team, if I have this skill
44:00 - 44:42
Roberta Moore: of, I care about meeting my own goals as much as I care about you meeting your own goals, then that is a more collaborative, like that's a skill of being collaborative and having high, you know, high communication. So finding the commonalities between different teams. It might be, it could be, hey, if we all succeed, then we all get a bigger bonus or the company does better, it affects all of us because then it will, you know, trickle down in terms of salary or bonus or some people have equity positions, right? So finding those commonalities using that
44:42 - 45:16
Roberta Moore: skill, also the skill of interpersonal relationships, That's the skill in this model of reciprocity and mutuality. You know, so having an equal give and an equal take, setting a relationship up between 2 competing teams or teams that might have different interests for the company, you know, saying, you know, how do we make things mutual? How do we find reciprocity? That is a way to help bridge those gaps.
45:18 - 45:57
Christian Napier: So I've got 1 final question for me and then Spencer, if you've got a final question, but kind of coming on this idea of commonality, I was thinking, as Spencer was asking this question about differences in the teams and their various missions in an organization. There may be differences on our teams themselves. So, you know, in my organization, we've got Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Z. And I'm curious to hear from you. Are there certain are there some nuances to dealing with these different groups? Or do we have commonality? Coming back to what you said
45:57 - 46:01
Christian Napier: near the beginning of our conversation in the inside ultimately, we're all children.
46:07 - 46:11
Roberta Moore: Yeah, I usually tell people that I usually tell people that. So I
46:11 - 46:13
Spencer Horn: get told that all the time, Christian, you are a child.
46:14 - 46:15
Christian Napier: Same.
46:17 - 47:01
Roberta Moore: And that's the thing in, in the research that doctors Steven Stein and Dr. Ruben Barone have done. To put together this model, the idea of intergenerational teens is already baked in. And if you know how to relate to somebody, doesn't matter what age they are, right? It doesn't matter what background they are. If you have the skillset to know how to reach somebody, usually because you have a high empathy, right? Because you're able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, see things from their point of view, and not judge them. You don't have to agree with
47:01 - 47:32
Roberta Moore: their point of view, but to be able to say, I see you, I hear you, I understand you, that is, I would say, 1 of the biggest ways to work with diverse members, members on a diverse team, is if everybody feels seen, heard, and understood, and then I might add, if they feel valued, then that's going to help, you know, that's just gonna set you up for good teamwork.
47:33 - 48:03
Spencer Horn: Yeah, I agree. I think we put too much emphasis on all those differences instead of just listening and connecting and talking to people. I really like that. We have been kind of steering the direction of this conversation. So my question, Roberta, is what have we missed that you want to share with our listeners that really helps get EQ into action within their teams? What message would you like to leave our listeners with?
48:04 - 48:45
Roberta Moore: Oh, thank you for that opportunity. 1 of the things that the research of Dr. Stein has taught us is that there are 3 skills, and I always remember them by the anachronym ACE, for assertiveness, confidence, and empathy. When those 3 skills are in balance, he looked at a sample size of 76 of the most profitable CEOs, And he noticed, he wanted to see were there any statistical correlations between the 16 skills in the model and those CEOs who were the most profitable. And they came from, my understanding is they came from a diverse group of industries
48:46 - 49:37
Roberta Moore: across the U.S. And Canada. And he found out that these most profitable CEOs were high and balanced in those 3 skills, assertiveness, confidence and empathy. So that has always intrigued me and excited me, especially because EQ is not considered a personality trait. So, you know, assessments like the DISC or Myers-Briggs, those are also wonderful tools. I use both of them too. But those measure and assess personality traits and researchers have found that our core personality stays relatively the same over time. Time. Yes, you can change your personality a little bit, but not dramatically. With EQ, you
49:38 - 50:15
Roberta Moore: can have dramatic shifts, both increases and decreases, just depending on what's going on in your life. Like if somebody's been let go, if they're burnt out, if somebody went through a divorce, they didn't get the promotion that they wanted to get and they take the EQ assessment, they could end up scoring lower than if they took the assessment at a time where, you know, they just got married and they're all excited or they just started at a new company or they just got a new promotion. Again, this is a these are skills that anybody can build
50:15 - 50:57
Roberta Moore: your EQ skills are at any age, at any time, under any circumstances, if you do the work. So to me, I like to tell people, why not be like those most profitable CEOs? And why not focus, if you do nothing else, focus on building and keeping in balance your assertiveness, your confidence and your empathy. And that goes back to that warm and firm type of leadership that I told you about earlier, because that's what's going to set you on fire. I mean again here I am with a psychotherapy background which of course I love I love
50:57 - 51:41
Roberta Moore: what psychotherapy can do. However when I first took the EQI 2.0 to get certified myself, I had a little hubris and I thought I would score a lot higher than I did. And I didn't, not on every skill, and I had some balancing work to do and then I went huh why is that oh it's because we don't go to school and we're not taught okay you have to develop emotional expression you have to develop emotional self-awareness you have to develop independence problem-solving stress tolerance flexibility optimism reality testing so on and so forth So when I
51:41 - 52:19
Roberta Moore: got my score that wasn't the way I wanted it to be, I hired an EQ coach myself, Dr. Dana Ackley, who's now, Dana taught me a lot, so shout out to Dr. Ackley, who's now towards the end of his career. But I noticed when I took my learnings from the EQI 2.0 and I coupled them with what I had learned about myself by being a client of therapy and a therapy provider. I just got so excited because I thought, oh my gosh, anybody can transform themselves. If you're unhappy, if you don't like where you are, either
52:19 - 52:37
Roberta Moore: at home or at work, you have the sovereignty or the power to own your own destiny in terms of you study this stuff and you can get better. And it's up to you. And to me, I find that very exciting.
52:40 - 53:10
Christian Napier: Wow, well, this has been a super impactful conversation for me on a number of levels. And Roberta, I really appreciate you taking time out of your very busy schedule to join us here today and share so much of your knowledge and experience. If viewers or listeners are watching this or listening to this, our podcasts, and they want to connect with you, They want to learn more about how they could develop emotional intelligence. What's the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?
53:12 - 53:36
Roberta Moore: Thank you, Christian. My website is EQICOACH.com. So EQICOACH.com. I'm also on LinkedIn as Roberta Moore. And you can always email me, Rmoore at EQICOACH.com or phone me at area code 828-329-0431.
53:41 - 53:57
Christian Napier: All right, folks, a million different ways to connect with Roberta, so No excuse. Please connect with her. And Spencer, you've been helping teams for decades, helping people build high performing teams. What's the best way for folks to reach out and contact you?
53:57 - 54:31
Spencer Horn: LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Reach out to me on LinkedIn and say hi, give me a message. And I just want to acknowledge Roberta for you know just the humility of talking about the EQ self-awareness. When I took my first assessment I was like oh my gosh I am so terrible and it was that that journey is is hard and it takes some humility and I'm so pleased that you know you shout out to your coaches and that just says a lot about you and your openness and vulnerability and that's very refreshing in today's world. Christian, the brilliant mind
54:31 - 54:38
Spencer Horn: that you are are a value to so many people and so many more need to know you. How can they find you?
54:39 - 54:52
Christian Napier: LinkedIn as well as easiest. Just look up Christian Napier on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect with anyone. So listeners, viewers, thanks for taking an hour of your day and joining us. We really appreciate it. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch