“I thought we had a call scheduled for 10 a.m. today,”
client was telling me, with irritation in her voice. A client working on emotional intelligence, she was truly “showing her stuff.”She was making me feel like an idiot, and also making me mad. “I had it down for 9 a.m.,” I said, “but I could’ve been wrong. Anyway, I’m glad we’ve connected. I have time now, do you? We can get to work.”
Wrong!
“It was at 10 a.m.,” client replied, digging in for long haul. I was about to start earning my money. I train people in Emotional Intelligence, so this was both an “ah hah” moment for me, and an “ug.” “Ah hah” as coach – I was experiencing in real time one of things that’s holding this client back. And “ug” as a person, because I was experiencing in real time what’s holding this client back.
No matter how far we move toward mastering EQ, we never get rid of those negative emotions, BTW. (The “ug”.) It’s a matter of getting information from them. So I note them, and consider what my response will be, if any. EQ is about choices.
What’s “ug” about? I knew we’d be wasting time and energy while this client attempted to (1) figure out whose fault it was, and I had a feeling (intuition) she needed it to be MINE; and (2) get her feelings affirmed that she had been wronged. And I had feeling (confirmed), that she was going to be a bulldog about it. Nothing short of someone’s head on a platter would do!
The “ah hah” was that she was inducing in me same feelings she induced in people she worked with, so I had one explanation as to why she got passed over for raises and promotions, and why she had been called “difficult.” Now “difficult” had a face. Areas of low EQ had shown up on her assessment, EQ Map (http:/ inyurl.com/z94t ), but I was glad to see her playing them out, because then I could help her get unstuck.
Fast forward 5-10 minutes; it seemed like an eternity to me! She has gone over details, using practically same words each time, beginning to hammer at me that I admit it’s my fault.
I’m sorry to say I have her email stating time I had written down, so there it is in black and white, and ultimately I produce it as we discuss her rigidity and need to “shame and blame” that’s part of her problem at work (and at home, too, I suspect, because we don’t leave ourselves either at office, or at home … we go with us!).
Nor does she handle that well. Constructive discontent, an EQ competency, is decidedly lacking.
Her office environment is team-oriented, as many are today. The more work becomes team-oriented, more tempting it is to start “blame and shame” game, and there is hardly anything more destructive to team work. Some people who are excellent working on their own, fall completely flat in group environment. She’s bright and good in her field, and has previously worked independently. She refers to her team-mates as “holding me back,” and finds working with a team to be a strain. I imagine it is for her team as well, because her interpersonal skills are so low, and when she feels pressured, she becomes rigid and they get worse.
“Just getting rid of someone whose behavior is bugging you is way teams get destroyed,” says David Schmaltz, author of “The Blind man and Elephant, Mastering Project Work.” “On really high-performing teams, people don’t waste time obsessing over who did what. For better or worse, whole team did it.”
