Success

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I taught a module last week on social intelligence, and as part of it I gave my students a homework assignment to find opportunities to practice the skills I taught, especially the skills that make for favorable first impressions. They have to look for opportunities to practice their nonverbals, their social gifts, adjust their warmth and competence, etc.

There are opportunities everywhere you look; I know, because I have this strange habit of feeling compelled to practice what I preach. Since class ended on Wednesday afternoon, I have practiced these skills on TSA agents, gate agents while boarding my flight, old friends in a social situation, new friends in a social situation, supermarket checkers, a homeless man, and even my brother-in-law (that last one probably surprised him as much as it did me). I’ve also watched others practice these skills and have learned from them. Conservatively, I consciously practiced my social skills on at least a dozen occasions in the past four days.

Seriously, every time you speak with someone, no matter how briefly, there is a lot going on. You are exchanging words, participating in rituals, giving or withholding appreciation, transmitting and receiving messages about your respective moods and mental states, gauging their warmth and competence unconsciously while they do the same to you, making decisions about how much intimacy to seek or allow, etc. We are performing a rapid and unconscious algorithm to measure how much we like, respect and trust the other person, and it’s all going on below the level of conscious awareness.

Another way to practice mindfulness in social intelligence is to observe others, particularly those whose social skills you admire. What do they do differently than you do? What do they do more of, or less of? How do others respond to what they do?

Most of us go through most of our days without even thinking about what’s going on, which puts us on autopilot. The nice thing about autopilot is that it’s efficient; the sad thing about autopilot is that no learning or growth is taking place.

Practice the habit of being more deliberate and mindful in your interactions with people, and you start seeing other things that most people miss. You notice how people respond to questions about themselves; you see how a smile elicits an equal but not opposite reaction; you quickly find out that your mood is contagious; you may actually learn a thing or two. And best of all—others benefit as well!

In this podcast I go into detail about how to increase your awareness, adjust your attitude, practice the proper skills, and work towards turning your new skills into habits.

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I’ve been researching and thinking a lot about Social Intelligence in for a module I’m putting together for a client. The goal for that course is to work with a team of accomplished engineers and help them to develop stronger client relationships. I’m always wary of stereotyping anyone, but engineers in general can usually benefit from being exposed formally to the principles, skills and techniques of social intelligence. Why do I know that? Because any functioning human being can usually benefit from increasing their social intelligence.

What is social intelligence?

Social intelligence, or SQ as it’s also called, is the external counterpart to its better-known cousin, emotional intelligence, or EQ, a term which became part of the popular culture when it was used by Daniel Goleman in a book by the same name in 1995.

One of the reasons the term is not better known is that Goleman himself initially considered it a subset of emotional intelligence, but he soon realized two things. First, it’s a big enough topic in its own right, and second, you can be good at one without being good at the other. (We all know some people who are wonderful around other people but completely messed up inside, and others who have it all together emotionally but don’t feel comfortable in groups.) So he wrote another influential book in 2006 called Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to know, understand, manage and express your own emotions effectively. It’s internally focused. Social intelligence is externally focused, and it’s the capacity to understand, manage and express yourself among others. Here are a couple of other definitions. Edward Thorndike called it (in 1920—so the term is actually much older than EI), “the ability to understand and mange men and women”; he also described it as “acting wisely in human relationships.” Karl Albrecht, who also wrote a book called Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success in 2006 (I wonder who came first?), defines SI as “the ability to get along well with others and to get them to cooperate with you.”

That’s the general definition, and if you don’t buy in to the idea that it’s quite at the level of intelligence, like IQ, we can just go with the broad term, people skills.

Is it just common sense, or something you need to work on?

The simple answer is yes and yes. People skills are common sense in the sense that everyone can generally agree whether someone has them or doesn’t, and in the sense that you pick up a lot of it as you make your way through life and learn to fit in with whatever group you’re a part of. Some you learn by watching others, some by hard experience; some by taking advice from parents, peers, then maybe bosses and maybe even from trainers like myself.

But they are also skills that you need to work on. The word “skills” is important because it’s the only way to but it won’t be useful unless we look under the hood and break out the various components and skills that go into it. Skills are useful, measurable and learnable.

Goleman lists seven component skills, under two general headings: social awareness and relationship management.

Social awareness

• Empathy
• Organizational awareness

Relationship management

• Influencing skills
• Coach and mentor
• Conflict management
• Inspirational leadership
• Teamwork

Albrecht’s model is a bit simpler, and has the added advantage of forming the acronym SPACE.

• Situational awareness
• Presence
• Authenticity
• Clarity
• Empathy

As you can see, there’s a lot of overlap among the different models, but they both make sense. What’s my point? If you laid out each skills on the left hand side of a page, and then honestly scored yourself on a 1-10 scale of your effectiveness, you would find plenty of opportunities to improve your own skill and thus your social outcomes. That brings us to the third question:

If you do need it, is it something you can learn?

Obviously, you know my answer is going to be yes, but you have to take it with a grain of salt because I make a living by teaching these skills. I don’t think you need much convincing, thought, because just by listening to this podcast you’ve proven yourself to be someone who cares about self-improvement, personal effectiveness, and growth. So that’s the good news.

But the bad news is that it’s not easy. You don’t get better at social skills just by listening to a podcast, or even reading a book or taking a course, no more than you get better at golf or tennis by taking a lesson. The information helps, but you have to get out into the field and actually practice these skills. Here’s a useful process to improve your skills.

Mindset and Attitude

First, adjust your attitude and mindset. You probably already feel it’s important, but it always helps to remind yourself, at least until you turn it into a habit. There is one mindset you must have and two attitudes. The mindset is a growth mindset: you can’t think of social intelligence as a trait that you’re born with, but as something that you can change and improve if you set your mind to it.

The first attitude you need to have in the front of your mind at all times is that’s it’s important to pay as much attention to the relationship as to the task at hand. Because if you work with people or they’re clients, there will be many more times beyond just this transaction to get things done with them, and everything you do or say is cumulative—it either adds or subtracts. The second attitude is to care about adding value to the other person: if you go into every encounter with the sincere intent to leave the other person better off for having spoken with you, a lot of the techniques will take care of themselves. And even if they don’t come off perfectly, the other person will detect your sincerity and genuineness and respond very positively.

Awareness

Take honest stock of your skill in each of these areas. Try to see yourself through the eyes of a disinterested observer, which is harder than it looks. The thing is, most of us think we know how others see us, but according to psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, we’re mostly wrong. So, painful as it may be, you need to ask someone you trust, to be honest and helpful at the same time.

Knowledge

This is the easiest thing to pick up. Some of the skills have excellent articles, podcasts, books and courses which address The knowledge is out there. Pick up a book on speaking, or join Toastmasters. Google Active Listening and jot down some tips you’re going to try in your next conversation, and so on.

Practice

Get out of your office and tear your eyes off your device, and just talk to people. Don’t try to do too much at once. Pick one skill at a time and concentrate on it for the next few weeks.

Reflect

Try to set time aside after every important meeting or conversation and do a quick after-action review, specifically thinking about the skill you wanted to work on. Did you remember to work on it? How did it feel? How do you think it felt to the other person? What can you do better next time?

Is SQ more important than IQ in your career success? Maybe, maybe not. But look at it this way: IQ gets you on the ladder, but SQ can help you rise. At the very least, it will make the climb much more pleasant.

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When you fly, do you ever talk to the person in the seat next to you? If you’re like me, you probably don’t. I would prefer to put on my headphones and read a book or do something on my computer. In my work, when I travel, I have to make nice to perfect strangers all day, and the last thing I want to do when I fly home is to expend energy getting acquainted with the person next to me. And I’m sure most of them feel the same way.

But that’s kind of stupid and short-sighted, considering that my largest client of my career resulted from a chance encounter on an airplane.

Let me tell you another story about a master networker who literally changed the course of history. The story comes from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point. I’m sure you’ve heard of Paul Revere, who in 1775 rode out of Boston in his midnight ride to warn people that the British were planning a raid on Lexington and Concord the next day. But you may not have heard about William Dawes, who rode out on the same mission as Revere did, to warn other towns further to the south. They both rode about the same distance among the same number of people, but almost nobody on Dawes’ route either heard or spread his message, while Revere’s news spread like a virus, as hundreds of minutemen poured out of their homes to resist the British, and fired the shot heard around the world.

According to Gladwell, the difference was that Revere knew a lot of people, so he knew which doors to pound on in the middle of the night to warn the important people. He was also a more outgoing personality, so he most likely talked to the folks he encountered along the way. He was a born networker before anyone knew the term.

You probably don’t need a whole lot of convincing that networking is important, but you also probably don’t do it as much or as well as you should. If you’re like me, you probably find it awkward to approach a stranger and start a conversation. It may feel fake, or forced, and even potentially a bit creepy.

Just remember, everyone you know (except for immediate family) was a stranger once. Somehow you had to break the ice and get to know them. It might have been the first day of school, or a party you didn’t want to go to, or even someone sitting next to you on a plane.

Besides, some people—and I’m one of them—need networking advice/encouragement more than others, because they either don’t want to do it, or don’t know how, or both. So let me start with a little motivation:

• There is no such thing as job security anymore. You could be the most valued employee at your firm today, and tomorrow your boss may go somewhere else, your company may be sold, or your position could be “rationalized” by some pimple-faced consultant fresh out of business school.
• If you work for yourself, then it’s a no-brainer. You may have the best mousetrap in the world, but no one’s going to beat a path to your door if they don’t know you exist, and even if they do know, they’re much more likely to talk to you if others know you and recommend you.
• You don’t have all the answers. Everything you produce depends on input from others, and the quality of input is related to the depth and breadth of your contacts. Networks give you inside information that’s not available to the whole world (which is why we have laws against insider trading).
• One of the most valuable resources you can accumulate in life is the goodwill of others. Social capital can be just as critical to your success in life as financial capital.
• Let’s look at networking from an unselfish standpoint for a minute: maybe you have something that can help others, either to do their job better or to find a better job…

The ideas that I’m going to talk about are especially targeted towards toward introverts and technical professionals, but they actually apply to all networkers, regardless of who you are.

Some general principles

Give before you get. It’s not about what others can do for you, but about what you can do for others. If you bring that mindset to your networking, you will develop a reputation for selflessness and you will earn gratitude and reciprocity. You will also feel good about yourself.

Start early and be consistent. As the old saying goes, dig your well before you’re thirsty. How many times have you received a phone call or email out of the blue from someone you haven’t heard from in a long time. What’s your reaction? Yup, you’re suspicious and your guard goes up immediately. That’s because most people only reach out when they need something. The problem is, all of us get so busy and wrapped in our daily lives that we often go long stretches without talking to even some of our closest friends. That’s why we need to schedule time and make it a consistent part of our day or our week. Or, there’s the opposite problem: someone connects with you and then instantly tries to move in for the kill. We all hate that, so that’s another reason it’s important to start early and be patient.

Find the right balance of quantity, quality and diversity. Quantity is important; all things being equal, the more people you know the better off you are. But networking is not about just collecting business cards at an event of accumulating LinkedIn connections. You also need to pay attention to the quality of your contacts. In fact, contacts is the wrong word. There’s a big difference between a contact and a friend, and between a friend and a trusted advisor. So quality is measured by the strength and closeness of your relationship times the power of the person you have a relationship with.

Networking for introverts

Those principles I just mentioned apply to anyone who networks, but I promised to gear this toward introverts and technical professionals…

First, networking is not a dirty word. Getting to know someone—even if it’s for your own advantage, is not wrong. Remember, almost everyone wants to improve their network (especially when you’re at a networking event!), so you are actually be doing them a favor by reaching out to them. If you think you’re bothering them, what does that say about your own self-image?

Second, introverts may find it harder to reach out to strangers, but they also have some advantages which can make them better networkers.

• They can be more methodical. If you see networking as a regular process, you may be more apt to do it.
• They can be better listeners. As I said in my previous podcast, one of the ways to get trust quickly is to suspend your ego, and introverts find that easier to do than extroverts.

Here are some actionable suggestions to improve your networking overall and for specific events:

Have a plan

For networking overall, this means knowing whom you want to target and expand your connections; being consistent; One of the best ways to expand the quality and diversity of your connections is to get involved in something meaningful, such as an industry group, a task force, or a volunteer organization.

For specific events, having a plan means doing a little research if possible to anticipate who will be there and whom you might want to meet. It also means having a conversational plan (I know, extroverts are laughing right now). For example, have an interesting and non-cliché response for the stock questions you know you’ll get, such as “What do you do?” and “Where are you from?” It also means having a few questions of your own—better than the two I just mentioned.

Be easy to talk to

Be approachable. Look people in the eyes, nod and smile. Say hello to people walking by. Stand near the bar or the food.

Try to be interested, not interesting. In other words, don’t try to show others how important or accomplished you are, but try to give them an opportunity to brag about themselves. When they do, compliment them sincerely. If people ask you questions about yourself, answer them but then volley the ball back into their court by tacking on a question of your own at the end.

Look for ways to help the other person. (See above: give before you get…)

If you consistently and persistently follow these suggestions, you can vastly expand your circle of influence and your personal success—and best of all, you won’t need to bother the person sitting next to you on the plane!

Further reading

There are many more useful ideas about networking for people who hate to network than I can cover in this brief podcast. Let me recommend two—one that I read several years ago, and one which is just out.

Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrrazzi. (Just don’t make the mistake I made. I was in Chicago, reading the book by myself at dinner, when my client walked in and burst out laughing when he saw me!)

Networking for A/E/C Professionals, by Scott Butcher. Don’t let the specificity of the title scare you off. Butcher provides step-by-step specific suggestions that any technical professional can apply to their benefit.