“Motivation is not a thinking word,” say John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen, in their book, “The Heart of Change.”They go on to say:
“Analysis has three major limitations. First, in a remarkable number of cases, you don’t need it to find
big truths. Second, analytical tools have their limitations in a turbulent world. These tools work best when parameters are known, assumptions are minimal, and future is not fuzzy. Third, good analysis rarely motivates people in a big way. It changes thought, but how often does it send people running out door to act in significantly new ways?”
More every day, we see need for emotional intelligence in business world. Our thinking can only take us so far. We can gather data to rationalize our decisions, but often we’re better off using our intuition.
Yes, you must be analytical about choosing your new computer or phone system, but when it comes to trying to figure out why Allen’s team is failing, when you know in your gut, it’s Allen, isn’t productive. It doesn’t provide any more information that you already know.
And no amount of intellectual arguing is going to change someone at their core and motivate action or change. You have to reach in and touch their emotions. You have to find out what’s important to someone, and you have to model what’s important to you – at feelings level.
EMOTIONS IN YOUR FACE CHANGE PEOPLE’S MINDS
Kotter and Cohen give a marvelous example of this. A CEO takes a client out for dinner and listens to him talk about his disappointment with a product that, supposedly built to specifications, keeps being delivered defectively. “We ask again and again for things to be changed,” says unhappy customer, “and person we talk to nods his head but he doesn’t seem to listen.”
What CEO does is send a video team over to customer’s office next day and ask him to speak candidly, which he does, and then he shows video to his employees, many of whom had never interfaced with customers, and never experienced this sort of “strong, negative feedback.”
THE ‘ARM CHAIR LIBERAL’ MOVES INTO THE WORK PLACE
I saw this happen repeatedly in my days in non-profits when I raised money for homeless. I spoke all over town on homelessness and encountered all sorts of reactions, including “Why don’t they just get a job?”
If I could convince person to actually come down to shelter and meet “the homeless,” things changed. It changes your mind to sit in same room, face-to-face with someone who was previously just a statistic. It’s impossible to retort, “Why don’t you just get a job?” when you listen to a mother with 3 children tell how she can’t make as much money at her minimum-wage job as she can on welfare, and while she’d rather have ‘a decent job like everyone else,’ numbers don’t add up.
