“I don’t consider your blog a business blog,” he said.
“Why not?” she inquired.
“Because you write about behaviors, relationships, feelings, and understanding yourself. Those aren’t business topics,” he explained.
Goodness!
Yet most insightful!
And how true, given how men and women approach the world from different perspective.
These differences are thoughtfully explored in The Female Vision by Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson.
Their book opens with a story describing how Jim and Jill respond to a meeting in which the sales reps receive information about new sales quotas:
- Jim goes right into action, assessing how the targets can be met.
- Jill shares her observation that a key team member appeared disconnected, even depressed, by the topic. She’s concerned by his reaction since his support is vital to meeting the new targets.
- Jim thinks Jill’s comment is irrelevant. Jill senses his disinterest and backs off.
Dr. Mary O’Malley, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who works with executive women, notes “women often have difficulty defending the value of what they see in part because the traditional workplace is not necessarily structured to recognize subjective observation.”
In both my corporate career and current entrepreneurial role, I’ve seen many business situations and/or business careers go awry because feelings weren’t factored in or due to a supreme lack of EQ (with both men and women being the culprits).
I’m betting you’ve seen it, too.
It takes two to tango: logic and emotion, quantitative and qualitative, masculine and feminine power, head and heart, subjective and objective, chocolate and peanut butter.
So, I’ll continue to write (and teach and coach and speak) about relationships, behaviors and self-awareness…and maybe, some day, the traditional workplace will have become a little non-traditional.
What’s your view?
Image source before quote: morgueFile.com
Jane, I’m in your corner on this one. In fact, I would say that most business situations and/or careers go awry for the reasons you’ve written about. For instance, it’s rare to see a leader fail because he is smart. It’s common to see a leader fail because he doesn’t create and sustain good relationships.
Mary Jo — one of things that makes me the saddest is seeing a “business smart” executive who can’t embrace the results/relationship paradigm and learn that all work gets done by and through people. Until business results and measurements factor in relationships, there’s little motivation for some to change. Thanks for stopping by!
So much of the “industrial revolution” of the last century was about making workers part of the mechanism of industry. As such, there was no place for feelings. If all the other machines didn’t have feelings, why should we allow the human worker to have them.
Now, that century has gone out with a crash. Now we need to be about “Betterness” ( http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/05/the_betterness_manifesto.html ). We’re learning how to do this – and recognizing that humans have feelings is one part.
In the “old order” Jim would excel and Jill and the employee who was depressed by the sales quotas would languish or be fired. Today, we know that we can’t succeed on the excellent work of one sales person – we need all three.
We can’t always get past the “old order” ideas that pervade the workplace but we have to keep trying.
Paul – I’m in the corner with you that says each one of us has to own making change happen. We must be accountable for how we present ourselves and for how that presentation ripples outward. I love the phrase “tectonic structural shifts” that was in the Betterness post (thanks for sharing). It paints a vivid picture of what’s involved in making the workplace less traditionally objective focused. Thanks for sharing!
All the while I’m reading this post my head is behaving like a nodding dog in the back window of a car!
I relate so well to the scenario you describe Jane, having experienced that glazed over look whenever I alluded to the emotional aspects of a given business situation.
I think too, that in the 21st century we can no longer ignore or discount our emotions at work. They matter. And, when they are given short shrift, they find ways to impede progress anyway. So, move over…I’m in the corner with you, Paul and Mary Jo!
Wow, am I ever loving this corner…you, Mary Jo and Paul..what talent to start eating away at the 800# feelings gorilla!
The next evolution in EQ needs to be polarity management – embracing the paradox of subjective and objective to diagnose and solve 21st century business issues.
p.s. love your dog head nodding visual!
Emotions and feelings are the engine behind human motivation. To ignore these leaves the emotional management of the workforce stripped bare.
Then leaders wonder why no one is engaged, committed and fire-up over goals and initiatives.
One of the components of effective cooperation and collaboration that I spent 5 years researching is empathy.
I certainly agree with your comments.
Dianne Crampton, Author
TIGERS Among Us – Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thrive
http://www.TeamBuildingSuccessNow.com
Dianne — having the ability, and the desire, to put yourself in the shoes of another, strengthens the ties of connection. When that’s absent in the workplace, engagement is low…and typically so is productivity. Your research sounds fascinating! Thanks for stopping by and sharing.