Emotional Intelligence Threads I co-hosted at KB

Emotional Intelligence of Leadership: & Cascading impacts through Organisational System I felt duty bound to buy Daniel Goleman's latest book which applies Emotional Intelligence to leadership. I came across this quote which I felt was an intriguing connection between KM&EI, leadership, and trust and system transparency: On p 93, Daniel Goleman introduces the term the “CEO Disease” which one CEO described like this. “I so often feel I’m not getting the truth. I can never put my finger on it, because no one is actually lying to me. But I can sense that people are hiding information, or camouflaging key facts so I won’t notice. They aren’t lying, but neither are they telling me everything I need to know. I am always second guessing.” Goleman concludes this is caused by an information vacuum around a leader created when people withhold important (and usually unpleasant) information. One provocative question series this raises in my mind: suppose a company does have this CEO disease. Do you think KM or Communities (CoPs etc) will work optimally in such a company? I mean if there's a lack of people transparency when it comes to conversations with the top; what's it likely to be like lower down? and what's it like to be like in virtual contexts? what's the point of computing business cases for specific executions of KM if the information-circulating health is inadequate? My intuition guided by system's theory is an info vacuum disease at the top is likely to spread everywhere round an organisation - any pros or cons to this view are most welcome. chris macrae ps more debates on system transparency at http://www.valuetrue.com
		[New] [Reply] Date: 21-Aug-02 (GMT) Subject: How you argue matters- Book :Crucial Conversations (Replies: 0, Read: 46) From: Chris Macrae http://www.pathwaylearning.com/books/cc%20chapter%20one.pdf I find this argument compelling. If its right, where does it figure in KM in the way we design , content, participate in communities etc? It’s how you argue that matters. For example, when Clifford Notarius and Howard Markman (two noted marriage scholars) examined couples in the throes of heated discussions, they learned that people fall into three categories—those who digress into threats and name-calling, thosewho revert to silent fuming, and those who speak openly, honestly, and effectively. After watching dozens of couples, the two scholars predicted relationship outcomes and tracked their research subjects’ relationships for the next ten years. Sure enough, they had predicted nearly 90 percent of the divorces that occurred.2 Over time, couples who found a way to state their opinions about high-stakes,controversial, and emotional issues honestly and respectfully remained together. Those who didn’t, split up. Now, what about you? Think of your own important relationships. Are there a few crucial conversations that you’re currently avoiding or handling poorly? Do you walk away from some issues only to come charging back into others? Do you hold in ugly opinions only to have them tumble out as sarcastic remarks or cheap shots? How about your significant other or family members? Are they constantly toggling from seething silence to subtle but costly attacks? When it matters the most (after all, these are your cherished loved ones), are you on your worst behavior? If so, you definitely have something to gain by learning more about how to handle crucial conversations. Revitalize Your Community Next, let’s look at our neighborhoods and communities. If the fate of an organization is largely determined by how pivotal conversations are habitually handled, why should the communities that surround them be any different? The truth is, they aren’t. The difference between the best communities and the good or the worst is not the number of problems they have. All communities face problems. Once again, the difference lies in how they deal with problems. In the best communities, key individuals and groups find a way to engage in healthy dialogue. They talk through important issues. In contrast, communities that fail to improve play costly games. During community meetings people insult one another, become indignant, and act as if individuals with differing views are sick or deranged. Battles ensue.
		[New] [Reply] Date: 21-Aug-02 (GMT) Subject: IQ+EQ+SQ - Edvinsson Corporate Longitude (Replies: 4, Read: 194) From: Chris Macrae On page v111, we are told: intelligent enterprising will be bound together by IQ, EQ & SQ -the original Intelligence Quotient being rational, the seecond being emotional, the third being spiritual or synapse. More detail is given on p115: IQ=rational, logical, linear intelligence used to manipulate and control EQ=thinking that gives us empathy, compassion, identifying the situation we're in and the appropriate behaviour Both IQ & EQ work within a paradigm, within the box, within the given. We use them to play a finite game. SQ is our need for access to deep meaning, purpose and values: our transformative intelligence. It helps us ask fundamental questions, rock the boat and move the boundaries- understand situations deeply or reframe them, play an infinite game The trouble is that the short-term nature of business means that IQ tends to be utilized more regularly than any other intelligence. (According to Ghoshal) KM can only be effective when much more attention is put on the social, emotional and relational context. Ghoshal is further quoted (with a slight shift of terminology) to say: Often we make the mistake of thinking of human capital as just knowledge. A second important capital is social capiteal - networks and relationships. The third dimension is emotional capital- the ability and willingness to act. There is no solution other than a trust-based culture. Any comments anyone? ( In writing this I have to say that I agree with it, but do not find the language as clear as I would hope we could make it). My own inclination is: we'll need a visual map to see this as well as verbals...) chris macrae http://www.valuetrue.com
			[New] [Reply] Date: 22-Aug-02 (GMT) Subject: Half-lives of Info: Seely-Brown & Social Life of.. (Replies: 0, Read: 50) From: Chris Macrae I'm being a bit mischievous in asking whether information has various sorts of half-life you might like to comment on. Clearly there is shelf-life that can be very short. Then there is life in an information crowd which can mean you have no life at all. Then there is context life: what context did you bring immediately before reading this mail? should I have written this differently if I'd not been making the assumption that as a knowledgeboard angel you would spare the time to add a communal insight? Back to topic. I need to do Seely-Brown's book on The Socila Life of Information more justice than one quick post, but the para I was reading that started the rumination on inf half-lives is: px11 Studies show that information production is growing at about 50 per cent a year. Yet the amount of time (that corresponding) people spend consuming (which unlike producing is not indifferent to meaning) is growing by only 1.7% (and presumably has natural limits). While people often talk about 'markets for information', here is a clear case of market failure. (Indeed, much of the "info-sphere" continues to resemble one of those open-mike poetry readings in New York bars where everyone comes to read and very few to listen). This imbalance, resembles on a larger scale, a central problem for 'knowledge management' in organsiations. Here progress is often measured (and incentive schemes devised) in terms of the amount of digital information produced or captured...As digital production and storage grow ever cheaper, a reading of the information study suggests that a critical task ahead will be to stop volume from simply overwhelming value.
			[New] [Reply] Date: 12-Sep-02 (GMT) Subject: Re: IQ+EQ+SQ - Edvinsson Corporate Longitude (Replies: 2, Read: 208) From: julian still Hi, the IQ,EQ SQ area is crucial, i agree, to understanding how different cultures behave with respect to their various knowledge elements (is there a plural term or is k always plural?). By understanding the interaction of I,E and S we will be able to adapt our approach to a situation, so as to obtain the required results more easily and efficiently, giving better return on both hard and soft investment. This means happy people, which starts the viruous circle moving to the 1+1=3 level. Its difficiult to draw here but how about imagining a string of DNA, the male or ying string is mainly determined by IQ, the female or yang mainly by EQ, the links holding the two intertwined strings together are the knowledge, which has no value without its emotional and rational (technical/financial) context. The whole string is swimming in a sea of SQ which determines the energy levels required to build new strings. So this is essentially an organic picture, with new strings growing in response to external and internal stimuli, and being a complex function of the spriritual bath which gives the sense or energy to the whole. If you stand back you can see the hot spots and cold spots, and then you have to decide if you want to or if you can do anything to encourage the hot spots or rewarm the cold bits. You can stop awhile at the human condition debate, or you can go into the picture and look at the micro interactions of the people and just watch as a string dies becuase of low I,E or S or marvel at the human magic of 1+1=n as the I,Q and S combine to generate amzing things. Does this help? Theres quite a bit more to this of course, but by carrying this picture around with me i can usually understand events . Julian
				[New] [Reply] Date: 12-Sep-02 (GMT) Subject: Re: IQ+EQ+SQ - Edvinsson Corporate Longitude (Replies: 1, Read: 185) From: Chris Macrae Thanks Julian great mail A few questions that have been going through my mind recently that I hope may add to this conversation Are Capitals and Quotients essentially the same territories? - most of these words seem to have both eg Emotional IQ and Emotional Capital I believe the reason we get 1+1=3 is that actually its better to think of these things as almost multiplicative. So if an organisation is near zero on even one of the capital its whole valuation is heading towards zero At www.valuetrue.com, we compose 4 mapping areas: organisational/knowledge connectivity relationship connectivity system/conflict resolution environmental/collaboration connectivity I am trying to work out where to trace each Quotient/Capital. eg it is fairly easy to see that Relationship Capital is anchored in the midddle stakeholder map and circles out from there but when it comes to some of the other Q's you mention- tracing how they connect all across the map to multiply win-win value is quite an adventure tour! All explorers welcome
					13-Sep-02 Re: IQ+EQ+SQ - Edvinsson Corporate Longitude julian still
		[New] [Reply] Date: 20-Apr-04 (GMT) Subject: KM & Emotional Intelligence & CEO Disease (Replies: 1, Read: 65) From: Wolfgang Miller Unfortunately, the effect of the CEO Disease increases with responsibility. The CEO disease is usually a warning sign that employees and their superiors work in an environment where the decision making process is a question rather of hierarchy than of information sharing. KM or Communities (CoPs etc) will not be able to change this from one day to another, and yet they provide a good breeding ground for a corporate culture which, in the long run, will produce a different working climate where employees are encouraged to be critical in a positive way instead of being “yes-men”. Conflicts are a natural component of our life and per se, they are neither good nor bad. It merely depends on how we deal with them. I can tell by own experience that companies where decisions are always taken “unanimously”, often have a self-awareness problem or show a tendency for undemocratic decisions. A company that manages to deal with conflicts positively is more likely to succeed in having a realistic view of itself and therefore make the necessary steps to adapt to an ever changing environment, which is a meta-competency. Many KM techniques cultivate meta-competencies and therefore are suited to tackle the underlying problems of underperforming companies. Unfortunately, we tend to focus only on the immediate cause and effect relation and don’t have the time and stamina to unearth the underlying problems. In conclusion, if we manage to solve these underlying problems, we can trigger a leverage effect which will make it easier to tackle the problems on the surface.