Empowering Your Teams

It is a fact that leaders play a very important role in making great organizations. Mr Sridharan is considered as one of the greatest Indian leader in the field of management of great infrastructure projects. Konkan Railways and Delhi Metro are two examples that are quoted everywhere as the gift by Mr Sridharan to our country. But let us not forget that no organization can move ahead without energized, enthused and empowered employees. Many times it happens that despite having the best of the individuals in the organizations, they fail to achieve greater heights. This happens due to the lack of team effort and team bonding.

Good individuals are important for any organization. But the outcome from the combined effort of the team results in a level of performance that is greater than the input of each individual. So organizations achieve greater heights by creating workgroups/teams of individuals with diverse capabilities. These broad-based cross-functional teams consisting of members from different departments can be given various time bound projects from time to time. In such cases, Project Managers ensure that the skills of group members complement each other. These teams with specialists of different disciplines give rise to innovative ideas and creativity in the organizations.

The word team can be defined as follows:

• "A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

In simple words, the word Team means ‘Together Each one Achieves More’. This explanation itself tells a lot about the importance of Team Building and Empowering your Teams.

There are a few factors that are responsible for the success of any team. The first and foremost is the Effective Leadership. We have seen the excellent performance of Indian Cricket Team under the effective leadership of Dhoni. Some exceptions will always be there and if one goes into a bit of details about the Indian Cricket team when they performed miserably under the same captain, there were some reasons.

Every team will have a goal to achieve and should have a strategy to reach that target. Having decided the goal and strategy, three things are very important in order to succeed as a team: Clears Roles and Responsibilities of all team members, Open Communication within the teammates and a great speed of execution in modern times. Based on the roles and responsibilities of the team members, it is the duty of the leader to ensure that all members excel in their area and for that proper training and practice opportunities are provided to them.

All team members in a team should be self starters. They should own the overall goal of the team and specifically their part of the project. This happens when all team members feel that that they have been empowered to play their role with full freedom and responsibility. This happens only when the teams have achieved a certain level of maturity. When the new teams come into existence they pass through various stages of team formation.

They are:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming and
4. Performing

And the last stage can be called Adjourning when the team goal has been achieved. In the Forming stage, the role of the leader is a directing type, where he just gives precise instructions to the team members based on their skills and competency. In the storming stage, team members at times collide with each other when they perceive a threat to their own position in the team, may be based on some unfounded fears. During this phase, the leader has to behave like a coach and should try to sort out the differences between the team members. Next stage is the norming stage where the leadership is supposed to play a supporting role. By this time, it is expected that the team members know each other very well. They would have normalized their mutual problems and differences. They start accepting others despite some differences that still exist and even the minor idiosyncrasies of team members. The last stage of a team formation is the performing stage where team starts producing results. By this time the team is considered to have achieved maturity and is empowered and therefore the leader is expected to get into the delegation mode and focus on more important things in the organization.

Being a good teammate doesn’t mean that one has to be a ‘Yes man’. One should have the courage to differ but also the humility to accept the others’ view with an open mind. Your opinion should be totally devoid of selflessness and focused on the good of the team and the organization. Once a final decision has been taken by the leadership after a discussion or brain storming session, just go ahead with final decision in toto even if your personal views were different. Here we do assume that the team leader has no vested interest and is working in the interest of the organization.

The last point that I would like to mention is that a leader should try to create a culture of appreciation in his organization. Whenever, a leader has to praise his men, he should do so in public and if there is a requirement of reprimanding someone, it should be done in private, within the confines of the four walls of the cabin of the boss and never in front of the juniors and colleagues of the employee who is being admonished. We must realize the importance of establishing a strong and mutually beneficial bond between the manager / leader and the team and this will lead to PDC (Performance Driven Culture) in the organization through empowered employees.

Importance of EQ vs IQ

Intelligence Quotient is normally referred to establish how intelligent we are. The moment someone is said to have high IQ, it is assumed that he/she is a person blessed with high intellectual prowess and so the person is supposed to have higher ability to reason and tackle logic. But how helpful is a high IQ in order to succeed in life? If we know what to do in a particular situation but can’t do it because of fear, uncertainty, lack of conviction, commitment or any other reason? Many times you see that someone has a superior intellect but he/she can’t get along with people in his/her office or not even with their family members.  Management Gurus quote the example of chess master Bobby Fisher, who had an extremely high IQ of the level of 187 compared to the 160 of Albert Einstein. Yet, if you look at the personal and social life of Bob Fisher, he can’t be considered as a happy man as he had a lot many troubles with a lot many people and even the governments because of his inferior social skills.

Just like IQ (Intelligence Quotient), there is another very important aspect of a human being, and that is his/her EQ (Emotional Quotient), which measures the ability to use, comprehend, and control our emotions in positive and productive ways. EQ has mainly five dimensions:

1.     Self Awareness: It implies the ability to be aware of what you feel and how you feel about various things in life.   

2.     Self Management: It is the ability to manage one’s emotions and impulses. How we respond to different type of triggers in our day to day life.

3.     Self Motivation: It is the ability to motivate yourself and persist in the face of failures, obstacles and setbacks.

4.     Empathy: It is the ability to sense the feelings of others. It is the ability to put yourself in the others’ shoes and then see things from their perspective.

5.     Social Skills: It is the ability to understand the emotions of others and handle them in a socially acceptable, decent manner.

Although Bobby Fisher may be considered a giant as far as the IQ part is concerned and as a great chess player the world ever produced, yet he was a dwarf, he was a failure among the emotionally and socially well-adjusted people of his times.

There is a saying,

“A high IQ guarantees your success in school while a high EQ guarantees your success in life.”

Another difference between EQ and IQ is that we can always increase our EQ, but our IQ, more or less, remains constant as we mature.

“Anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy.”

- Aristotle 384 BC-322 BC

What a great understanding about ‘Anger’? Eliminating Anger totally is very rare. The Indian history is full of references where the highest level of sages and ‘Rishis’ used to get fits of anger. At times, you have to just demonstrate ‘Anger’ to a person at office or at home, though at heart you may be actually ‘Cool’. Aristotle says that ‘This is not easy’ but it is not very difficult also if practiced with patience and resolve over a period of time.

One should be able to set your internal thermostat of anger as per your will and completely switch it off as per your will. The best is to avoid anger all together. Be cheerful, keep smiling. Controlled anger is not that bad but uncontrolled anger is the worst enemy of man.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence is very old but Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ published in 1995, popularized the concept of Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is very Important

Daniel Goleman wrote “Emotional-intelligence-based capabilities are twice as important for star performance as IQ and technical skills combined.”  He further wrote, “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

Today, in the net connected world, people are armed with smart phones, tablets and phablets and therefore are virtually on duty almost 24hrs. Pay packets have increased and so are the danger of losing a job and that has caused insurmountable anxiety, stress and uncertainty in our lives. The philosophy of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in the corporate world at times creates unhealthy competition and makes people irritable and introduces friction among colleagues in the same organization/department. So, it is expected that in addition to coping with their heavy workload, employees in an organization must try to win the cooperation of their team mates also to lead a balanced and happy life. They should try to cultivate a culture of mutual appreciation and collaboration rather than criticism and collision. And this will be possible by the employees with higher EQ and not necessarily with high IQ.

Benefits of emotional intelligence, lead to achievement of excellence too and thus lead to increasing productivity and therefore profitability and also harmony in the workplace. It is believed that salespeople with higher emotional intelligence become better sales persons. Managers with higher EQ are comparatively better managers and the turnover of their staff is comparatively much less in their departments. Here are seven skills considered to be most essential for the emotionally intelligent people and each one of them has been explained a bit in the following paragraphs:

1.     Ability to be flexible.

2.     Ability to be optimistic.

3.     Ability to be empathetic.

4.     Ability to resolve conflicts.

5.     Ability to use humour to lessen stress.

6.     Ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions.

7.     Ability to connect with others using non verbal communications.

1. Ability to be flexible:  During tough negotiations, many times you don’t want to break the deal yet you don’t want to yield too much also. In such conditions one must remain flexible to avoid stalemates. Those with low emotional intelligence are bound to panic in the face of the unexpected and likely to take wrong decisions. Those with higher EQ are mentally prepared for the unexpected and continue to be calm and composed and use the challenge of the unexpected and come out with creative solutions acceptable to both the parties.

2. Ability to be optimistic: People with high EQ are optimistic even when faced with relentless pressure and very little chance for success while the average person may give up in despair. Just try to observe a few great leaders, great statesmen, great negotiators or great corporate leaders, you will find that they never give up. Because of their optimistic attitude, emotionally intelligent people are always hopeful and are willing to face any type of challenges in their life.

3. Ability to be empathetic: Empathy is the ability to place oneself in the shoes of the other person. Whenever, there is a huge gap in the understanding of any situation between two warring factions, just put yourself in the place of other party and then try to feel what you would have done or felt in that condition, you will realize that the gap in understanding immediately starts diminishing.  This is a major component of emotional intelligence.

4. Ability to resolve conflicts: The emotionally intelligent person believes in win-win situations and not “I win, you lose” philosophy. Therefore he acquires the ability to resolve conflicts in most of the situations in his personal as well as professional life. Many times you may not like the stand taken by the opposing party but your high EQ will ensure that you treat the other party with dignity and give him or her a face saving exit out of the complicated situation.  

5. Ability to use humour to lessen stress: The last two months of the financial year for the sales team are full of stress if you are lagging behind in your targets or when your progress is slow in a project and the deadline is approaching fast. The stress under such conditions wears heavily on our bodies, reducing clarity of mind and alertness and even leading to high blood pressure and breakdown of health. Here a person with a sense of humour will use his skills to lower stress, uplift emotions and rejuvenate the spirit of his/her team and make sure that they continue to give their best.

6. Ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions: Sometimes the situations take turn in such a way that you explode with anger. But later on you realize that things would have been better if you were able to control your anger at that critical juncture of dialogue/negotiations. Emotionally intelligent people understand the ramifications of such behaviour. They know that hostility breeds hostility and anger was always counterproductive. People with high EQ will generally be more successful in whatever they take up as they are able to manage or control their emotions under such highly pressurised situations.

7. Ability to connect with others using non verbal communications: It is said that 55% of your communication is through your body language, 38% of communication is through your tone, pitch and volume etc and only 7% is the verbal part. That means most of our communication is nonverbal during our negotiations or presentations. Exact meanings of the words become secondary and how we convey the message becomes more important. Emotionally intelligent people are aware of their own emotions and they are also aware of the emotions of those they are dealing with. They should have the ability to read others by their body language and so if you detect anger, confusion, or doubt in the mind of opposing party, wait until those unspoken issues indicated by their body language were resolved.  They also take full care that their own body language is in synch with what they want to convey.

If we are able to cultivate the above mentioned skills, our EQ will definitely improve that means our ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions will go up. It is strongly believed that we can win people, we can win their hearts, we can win their confidence without being aggressive or intimidating through emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence can become our key to success whatever we want to do in our life. I am of the strong opinion that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while there are some who claim that it is an inborn characteristic. A number of testing instruments have been developed to measure emotional intelligence, although the content and approach of each test varies. You can go to Google and try some of the tests to check your EQ and take appropriate actions thereafter.