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• Esther Orioli 12:29 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

  How do YOU measure resiliency? 

  At a time in the world where everyone is having to COPE in a capital letter kind of way, resiliency has become the new buzz word for health and wellness and the prescription for getting through during tough times both at work and at home.

  As the creator of Resiliency Map®, a resiliency assessment used by major corporations worldwide to help their people, I am often asked how knowing your resiliency “score” really makes a difference in the day-to-day ways we handle pressures and persevere to live another day. Some leaders I have worked with think that when bad things happen we should just pick ourselves up and push on. They want their people to stop being cry babies and get the job done! If it were only that simple.

  Forcing ourselves to hang in there, again and again, without a break or some tool to manage during distressful times, leads to increasing the rate of wear and tear on the body, mind, emotions and spirit. After awhile, i.e. months or years, of keeping a stiff upper lip it is no wonder we’re a little bundle of ailments – back pain, headaches, anxiety, frustration, getting less done and using more effort to do it. That being said, how can accurately measuring your resiliency really help you have a better, easier life?

  Having a scientifically sound assessment gives you information. It shows your unique strengths and personal vulnerabilities. It tells you if you’re eating too much junk, getting stuck in old habits, or acting out through anger or passive aggression when things go wrong. It tells you if you’re not making your needs a priority so you can bolster yourself to be present and successful in the ways you want to be in your life. I have often said that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This has never been more true.

  Based on years of research and data studies, my definition of resiliency is this: The ability to come back after disappointments, failures or setbacks, to be adaptable and flexible, to renew your sense of vitality and reengineer yourself based on life experiences. These three prongs of resiliency give you everything you need to thrive, not just cope, in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty.

  How do YOU define resiliency?

  
   

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• Esther Orioli 3:27 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Emotional Intelligence ( 2 ), emotional intelligence and iq, eq and iq, Eq vs iq, Leadership ( 2 ), self improvement ( 3 )   

  EQ and The IT Guy (and other IQ-centric professionals) 

  Show me the numbers! Show me the data! You’ve heard this mantra before. As leaders we have all had to deal with colleagues, supervisors and team members who doubt the real impact of emotional intelligence at work. In fact, some of the most resistant to embracing EQ are the ones most in need of its benefits. While programmers, accountants, lawyers, and engineers are often thought to lead the hit parade of ‘doubting Thomases’, they are not by any means the only ones. So how do you get people in these and other IQ-centric fields to recognize and utilize the valuable assets that come from developing and using their EQ?

  Here are a few suggestions I make to organizations of how to bring EQ to an IQ World:

  Meet people where they live. If you have a science guy, present the facts and figures. Through presenting the business case for EQ I find that business leaders and heady people of all types can wrap their minds around the facts of productivity, customer loyalty and profitability that EQ brings to the equation. For example, 75% of the reasons that companies lose their clients or customers are EQ-related reasons. That means that three quarters of all reasons that the customers who purchase their product or services do so because they like the way they were treated (an eq trait), like the service they receive when things go wrong (an eq trait) and keep coming back because of their positive experience (an eq trait).

  I then progress from the business case to the brain science case. Explaining how every decision is an emotional decision, based on the limbic system and the science of how the brain works, goes a long way to helping the IT guys and gals reframe how they make decisions.

  Finally I’ll bring up the all important fun fact that EQ skills can be learned. Often I think it’s more difficult for heady people to break out of the mold of acting a certain way. So if you tend to be a more IQ-centric person and want to break out a bit there are things you can do to expand your repertoire. like starting a conversation with “I feel” instead of “I think.” Or asking for someone’s opinion before giving your own. And then actively listening to that opinion before offering your thoughts. Really basic small steps that people can put into practice right away and see results.

  As leaders we can’t always be smarter than the smart people we seek to surround ourselves with. The thing about super heady people is that they often do know more or are “smarter” than many folks. So ask for their opinions because they’re smart but don’t let them off the hook by never asking them to step up to the “feeling” plate, at least a little. Remind them that emotions are really heady stuff.