11 things Not to Do on Your New Job

We are intensely territorial at heart. Our reptilian brains are keyed to be suspicious of "intruders," and to fear what we don't know. Your first few days in a new job, you're being scrutinized under a microscope and are only tentatively welcome. Use your Emotional Intelligence to survive the first 100 hours! Here are 11 things NOT to do.

1. Don't FORGET PEOPLE'S NAMES.

If you do nothing else, remember people's names. When introduced, wait expectantly for a cue. If they stick out their hand, shake it. if they don't, just smile and say the usual.

2. Don't MOVE IN TOO FAST.

Take it easy bringing your "things" to the office. Save the photos and personal items for a while. Place your yogurt discretely at the back of the refrigerator. Don't grab any old cup from the coffee room, or start making the coffee until you see how it's done. It's a reptilian, territorial thing. You're moving into THEIR turf.

3. Don't TALK TOO MUCH, REVEAL TOO MUCH, OR EXPRESS UNNECESSARY FEELINGS OR OPINIONS.

Keep your conversation light, neutral, and just enough to be friendly. Sure as you get loose, you'll step on someone's toes. You don't know yet who just got divorced, who's married to an Italian, and who's opposed to daycare. As soon as you say, "Well personally I hate..." the next person who comes in will have that, do that, like that, or live there.

Use "neutral" language and tone of voice, like the anchor people do. Avoid any slang or colloquialisms in this new country. The King's English: what you learned in school.

4. Don't ASSUME ANYTHING.

Maybe everyone leaves at 5:31 on the dot; maybe they don't. Keep a low profile and pay attention to what others are doing. You're moving into an established culture and they have a set way of doings things whether they're mindful of it or not. You want to fit in, not stand out. Remember the saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

5. Don't OVERDO IT. THAT THREATENS PEOPLE.

Save the designer stuff and status symbols. Appearing "better than," in any way, will backfire on you later. If you drive a brand new expensive something or other, park at the back of the lot, and don't advertise it. If you just got back from a barefoot cruise, or just bought a new home, save it for later. You don't know the circumstances of those around you. The person you're telling may have just filed bankruptcy.

And speaking of parking ... one first day on a job, with uncanny bad form, I actually managed to park in the boss' unmarked, but definitely claimed, parking place. "How lucky," I thought. "I can park right in front of the door."

6. Don't VOLUNTEER.

They don't trust you yet. "Get" that. Don't volunteer to make the coffee or make the nightly run to FedEx. You could poison them. You might never make it to the FedEx office. (I am not kidding.)

7. Don't MAKE IT TOO HARD, OR TOO EASY.

Pace your initial tasks. If you start out blazing, you'll be held to that pace forever, or you may threaten others who do what you do. If you go too slow, you might not be there long. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

8. Don't SAY 'NO'.

If you're asked to join them for lunch, pitch in for a baby shower gift, "grab the phone," or do a task for someone, say "yes." If something goes against the grain (and there's always one person in an office who tries to make life hell for the new guy it seems), file it for later. First you need to find out how disputes are handled.

The good manager, the one with the high EQ who knows people, and knows HER people, will tell you, "If so-and-so gives you any trouble, just be nice. Then come tell me and I'll take care of it." The inept manager won't know, or isn't willing to deal with it, and you'll have to figure it out for yourself. How do you do this? By having your antennae out. Observe and process.

EXCEPTION: Occasionally in an office you're ignored for the first few weeks, except by the loser, who will ask you to join him or her for lunch, trying to build an alliance. In that case, you come up with an excuse ("Sorry, gotta run to the bank at noon.")

9. Don't CRITIQUE, CRITICIZE, or APPEAR TO BE COMPLAINING.

You'll notice things that could be done differently and better, but if you speak at this point it will sound like complaining or criticizing. If it's too hot or too cold, for instance, wait it out. The "new kid on the block" isn't entitled to anything. You can straighten the place out later.

10. Don't VIOLATE PACK BEHAVIOR.

You watch the Discovery Channel, don’t you? Well, picture the troop of monkeys, i.e., if you’re not the alpha male, you’re just one of the pack, so start grinning and grooming the others.

11. Don’t UNDERESTIMATE THE EFFECT OF INITIAL CONDITIONS.

In physics it’s called “sensitive initial conditions." It means the way “it" (any system) begins makes a huge and permanent difference. Think of what you say and do as being broadcast with a loudspeaker into a cavern which will reverberate and echo for months. There’s not such thing as an “innocent comment" when you’re new, and if you show up in a bright print dress when everyone else is in neutral and pants, you’ll reinvent the term “sticking out like a sore thumb."
The onus (hard work) is on you. They will be ADJUSTING to you. You must ADAPT to them (a far stronger concept). When in doubt, get coaching! You want to get off to a good start.

How to Retain Top Employees

"Because I said so," isn't going to cut it, writes Bob Furniss of Touchpoint Associates.

In his article, Furniss discusses the vital difference a relational boss makes to the success of the organization.

From the article:

Almost everyone has had a bad relationship with a boss drive us away from what was otherwise a good job or company. But consider how many times you have hung on to a bad job when the relationship with your boss was strong!

If you'd like to improve your relational skills and emotional intelligence, contact me for coaching. I coach professionals, lawyers, doctors, and bosses.

The costs of employee turnover are expensive, and cross many categories. If you'd like to learn more about how to hang on to good empkoyees, take the EQ program, or email me for coaching. sdunn@susandunn.cc .

See the full article HERE.

Definition of Low Emotional Intelligence

BAD BOSS BEHAVIOR
Meet the Bosses Who Could Win the ‘Awful"
By Alan L. Rupe
When bad boss behavior occurs, it generally happens in an atmosphere in which the law is ignored, company policy is ignored and the line separating good business practices from boorish conduct—and often unlawful conduct—is crossed. A dose of stupidity, mixed with a larger dose of arrogance—that’s the formula for winning an Awful Award.

To read the article, go to www.workplace.com .

A good working definition of low emotional intelligence is "a dose of stupidity mixed with a larger dose of arrogance." It's the arrogance that keeps the person from realizing they're acting stupid, i.e., doing things that don't work, that alienate other people, and that eventually can sabotage one's career.

If you'd like to learn more, email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for my various effective, efficient and outstanding Emotional Intelligence programs - there's one to fit your needs. Just ask me.

sdunn@susandunn.cc

Handle a Coworker Who is Sabotaging You

From "Handle a Sabotaging Coworker," by Beverly West, Career Advice on Monster.
To read the full article, go here.

Look at the toss between emotions and logic (thinking) in the recommendations.

It is wise to have some good measures in place to protect yourself if you ever fall under a colleague's attack....Always have backup for everything you've done ... (THINK AHEAD)

Rise Above the Drama of Coworker Sabotage
If you can, don't let your coworker's anger or frustration get to you.... "My first instincts are to resort to a voodoo doll, a stapler or a tube of Super Glue, but I fight those urges and try to remain calm and peaceful," says Richard Ogawa.....

"I just avoid the situation," he says. "I don't give the person the time of day. I don't get upset.

Try to find the humor, if any, in the situation.

There are times, though, when avoidance and humor won't work, and you have no choice but to address the situation. "If it comes down to having to confront the coworker, try and approach the situation with logic, not emotion...."

For coaching, email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc .

Want to Succeed: Have a Strategy

And more than that, stick to it.

The article ACT FAST AND KISS YOUR RETURNS GOODBYE by Brian Richards, featured on The Motley Fool talks about what's called "the action bias." Acting fast and losing applies to the stock market ... and also to life. In fact, here's an analogy they give from the soccer world, about how to succeed.

Unless something has fundamentally changed, they say, "The most dangerous thing you can do in those cases is to lose your sense of perspective. Because once you do that, you'll convince yourself that you need to do something...[and] doing something is trouble, pure and simple."

From the article:

Soccer really does explain the world
The next time you experience a down day or portfolio gyration, think about those words of wisdom before jumping from one strategy to another. Or even better: Don't do anything at all. (One good way to handle volatility is to simply not quote your stocks so much.)

In a 2005 study, "Action Bias Among Elite Soccer Goalkeepers: The Case of Penalty Kicks," five Israeli professors found that while "the utility-maximizing behavior for goalkeepers is to stay in the goal's center during the kick, in 93.7% of the kicks the goalkeepers chose to jump to their right or left."

In other words, in a high-stress situation, the most efficient decision -- inactivity -- was taken but 6% of the time. The researchers hypothesized that the reason for the discrepancy was "action bias":

According to the norm theory, people have stronger feelings associated with outcomes when they come from abnormal causes. Consequently, because the norm is that goalkeepers jump to one of the sides, the disutility associated with missing a ball might be greater following a non-common behavior (staying in the center) than following normal behavior (jumping to the side).

Next time you find yourself with an itchy trigger finger on a tough market day [or just a tough day], remember the plight of the elite soccer goalkeeper.

And keep this in mind about emotions. It's necessary and good to have them, and to know them, but that doesn't mean you have to take your emotional temperature or pulse 20 times a day.

Let me help you learn more about emotional intelligence. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for programs, courses, and personal coaching.

Read the full article here.

In the article, they quote Tim Hanson's stock advice:

1. A consistent philosophy.
2. A sense of perspective.
3. Daily discipline.

Not a bad game plan.
Let me help you strategize for success.

The Boss' Mood Affects Productivity

New Vision Online : How a boss’ mood affects productivity

It doesn't take an "expert" to tell us that some bosses are wonderful to work for and therefore get the best out of us, and also have high retention rates of excellent employees ... while others are not. The emotional intelligence of the boss is critical. If you'd like to increase yours, take THE EQ COURSE . Sign up everyone in the office -- it really works!

I was at a workplace the other day that had had nearly 100% turnover in the past 18 months. One of the workers there told me, "How can you work in a place that makes you feel this way about yourself? I'm good at what I do. One week at this place and I felt like a loser. That's never happened before."

If vested self-interest is the only thing that works, this boss puts himself in the position of having to interview, hire, and then train, continually. He is constantly having to work with someone new, which adds to his frustration. Who needs that? It is annoying, costly, and highly ineffective. It is hard to get good systems in place when the faces keep changing.

From the article (and BTW, it's from Uganda - if you think emotional intelligence isn't sweeping the world and giving us a common language for dealing with problems):

A BOSS’ mood and behaviour drive the moods and behaviour of everyone else. The environment an inspirational boss creates is different from the one a cranky and insensitive one would. High levels of emotional intelligence promote information-sharing, trust, healthy risk-taking and learning flourish. Low levels create fear and anxiety.

According to experts, the most effective leaders display moods and behaviour that match the situation at hand, with a healthy dose of optimism. They respect how other people feel. This behaviour, which in management parlance is called resonance, has four components of emotional intelligence in action.

Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for personal coaching, business programs, Internet courses and ebooks to improve the quality of your life, success and happiness. Visit http://www.susandunn.cc/ for ideas! Emotional Intelligence really works.

IT Strategy at Genentech Includes Emotional Intelligence

Model IT Department at Genentech Focuses on Using Emotional Intelligence
According to the ITStrategy Blog, Genetech, a San Francisco based biotech firm has a model IT department: "Todd Pierce who is the VP of Corporate IT of Genentech is instrumental in changing the way the IT department functions. I think, they have a model that every company’s IT department should study and try to emulate." It includes building emotional intelligence into the model.

From the article:

With no incentives to focus on customer needs, most of the time the IT department is not in alignment with the business needs of the organization. To focus on the needs of the customers, Genentech’s IT department is training its IT workers with ‘soft skills’ like emotional intelligence. They have identified their core competence and differentiation which Mr. Pierce calls ‘empathy-driven’. By aligning their IT department with the core competencies and their corporate culture, IT department is going to play an important role in Genentech’s Business Strategy.

To read the rest of the article go here: IT Strategy

Get Emotional Intelligence on your resume. Take THE EQ COURSE . Individual coaching and business programs also available. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc for more information.

10 Barriers to Clear Perception and Smart Choices (which EQ can remedy)

10 Barriers to Clear Perception and Smart Choices (which EQ can remedy)

"Everything is self-evident," said Rene Descartes, mathematician and philosopher.

Everything is self-evident if you have high emotional intelligence and are good at reality-testing. If you're clouded with emotions, stuck in the past, inflexible, inauthentic, or inept at verbal and nonverbal communication, alas, everything is not self-evident.

When you develop your emotional intelligence, and the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others, you see things clearly. You can avoid the following pitfalls to accurate perception and smart choices:

1. How you WISH things were.
2. How you think things SHOULD be.
3. Believing that how things have always been in the past is the way they are now, and ever will be.
4. Assumptions about situations in-the-moment which seem at the surface level to be similar to experiences and people in the past. Assumptions always need to be checked out.
5. Your persona or inauthentic, unintegrated self, which shifts according to mood, emotion, person and situation leaving you without compass or anchor.
6. Your ability to delude yourself because of lack of self-knowledge.
7. Self-sabotaging because of lack of self-knowledge, self-management and low EQ.
8. Fear, anger, jealousy and other strong emotions which distort thinking.
9. Hearing what you WANT to hear or NEED to hear instead of what's actually being said. Failing to take into account the other person's nonverbal behavior.
10. Distortion from relying on other people's perceptions of reality and/or "catching" their emotions.

IN SUM: We are our emotions. They influence our perception of reality. The more you understand yourself and your own emotions, the better you can understand their effect upon your perceptions of reality and manage them so you can make smart choices.

Emotional Intelligence, being able to process your emotions, means understanding which of your three brains is operating (reptilian, limbic or neocortex), and which brain[s] you need to be in. Emotions guide us and give us information, but sometimes we need to get to the neocortex to make the decision. For instance, you may be angry and feel like hitting someone, but your "thinking brain" will tell you this isn't a wise course of action. By the same token, you may love someone (limbic) while your neocortex keeps giving you reasons not to.

The most important decisions generally need to be made with both the heart and the mind. Here are some examples.

DELUDING YOURSELF
If you strongly desire to like the person you're dealing with, or if you have a need to like them, you may miss what's actually going on. This is what's happened when you hear someone repeat an anecdote, saying, "He did [something mean] BUT HE'S REALLY A NICE PERSON." It's clear to you the person mentioned is NOT "a nice person," because nice people don't do things like that, and you wonder how the person telling you the anecdote can be so mislead.

Another good example is one I read on a Russian bride website. It was giving advice to the male suitors re: such important factors as wanting or not wanting to have children. They cautioned that because the need of the Russian woman to come to the US might be so strong, she would delude the man, because she had truly deluded herself. She would say what the man wanted to hear even if she didn't mean it.

How do you guard yourself against such disillusionment? High EQ, time, reflection, feedback, intuition, and understanding people and their emotions.

HEARING WHAT YOU NEED OR WANT TO HEAR
This can happen when the outcome is very important to you. If it's with a loved one, you may fear rejection or loss and therefore your emotions interfere with what you're hearing. Someone who's been rejected a lot, for instance, will read things into what they're hearing, finding rejection in places where it doesn't exist.

Because of their emotional state, they may jump to conclusions that aren't warranted, or over-react. For instance, if their partner tells them "I don't like it when you talk that way to my mother (which is a behavior which can be changed)," they may hear, "I don't love you" (which is a condemnation of you as a person). This sort of distortion is why it's good to repeat back what you think you've heard in heated discussions where the outcome is important. If you say, "Let me make sure I understood what you said. You said you're angry because I..." this gives the other person the opportunity to clarify what they said or meant, and to correct your misperceptions. This is vital to good communication.

It's common with couples for each person to correct the other saying, "But that's not what you meant" or "That's not what you said." There's never a place for this. By checking it out with the person you give them a chance to self-correct, to correct you, and to establish clear communication about important things.

SELF-SABOTAGE
If you aren't clear about what brain is working, i.e., reptilian, limbic or neocortex, you can do yourself in. One reason coaching is helpful is because it can help you clarify what you're really after, and what fears and obstacles you're throwing in your own path. If you want something but never seem to be able to attain it, it could be that you fear success, or fear failure, or aren't clear about what you want. An example would be wanting to marry someone because you love them (limbic) but talking yourself out of it (neocortex) because your best friend doesn't like him. Your best friend may or may not be perceiving correctly, and is certainly entitled to their opinion, but they aren't the person who will be marrying this man, you are. Therefore you need to get centered in your own feelings and perceptions.

DISTORTION FROM "CATCHING" EMOTIONS
Emotions are contagious. We vary in our ability to protect ourselves from "catching" them, and in our ability to stay centered in our own emotions.

An example of this happened to me the other day. I told a friend I was planning to drive from San Antonio to Houston to pick up my sister at the Houston airport for us to continue on to a vacation in Alabama. Her flight would arrive at Houston International and we both had cell phones. I planned to pick her up out front. It seemed simple enough to me, but the person I related this to said it was "very difficult" and not to try it.

I checked it out with a third person who travels through the Houston airport all the time to find out what on earth the first friend was getting at. The third person said "Just be sure and bring at least $4 worth of quarters for the tollway, and aside from that, there should be no problem."
It turned out I had no trouble whatsoever. When I checked back in with the first person, he was incredulous. If I had listened to his perception of reality, I wouldn't have done something that was actual quite easy to do. I'm sure you can think of many examples in your own life.

This is another situation coaching is good for. People tend to bring their own fears into advice-giving, and think about what they would do and how they would feel instead of being able to see if from your point of view. Whatever your goal, whatever you have in mind, there is someone out there who would be afraid of it.

Whether you want to be an entrepreneur, or marry someone from another culture, move to a Caribbean Island, or write a novel, or bungee jump, there is someone to whom this is a frightening thing who will do their best to discourage you because of their own feelings about it.

Developing your Emotional Intelligence has many benefits. Give it a try! Most people get immediate results and realize immediate improvements in their lives.

Take The EQ Course to learn more, and sign up coaching. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc .
Find out why emotional intelligence is so popular. (It's not just a passing fad.)

Employee Loyalty: It's all about Emotional Intelligence

You know your employees' points of pain and you know what makes them happy ... begins this article by a true visionary. "If you use this information to meet the special needs of your employees," Ty Freyvogel says, "and even surprise them with a few extra perks, you will be able to build strong relationships with them -- and they, in turn, will be willing to go the extra mile for you."

What's the #1 thing employees want? All studies say "acknowledgement and appreciation."

This article "Operation Employee Loyalty: 12 Ways Small Business Owners Can Ensure Their Best Employees Never Want to Leave" is so full of emotional intelligence.

Here are a few of Freyvogel's gems:

Every entrepreneur knows the hectic lifestyle that comes along with starting and running a company. (Heck, most of us live for the craziness!) But have you ever considered how this work schedule affects your employees?

If too many such days come and go without any acknowledgement from you, you can bet they’ll be handing out their resumes all over town. And since your employees make or break your business, you must keep your best ones around.

Small business owners may feel that they are at a disadvantage compared to CEOs of large corporations precisely because of the lack of deep pockets. Nothing is further from the truth. Because they work so closely with their employees, rather than being separated by layers of bureaucracy, it is easy for them to get to know their employees well.

Provide them with much-deserved time off.

Another option is to set up a compressed work week for your staff so that they get time off at the end of the week.

Give them bonuses at critical times. Presumably, you work closely with your employees and know a lot about their lives outside of the work. Act on this knowledge in ways that benefit them exactly when they need it most. If one of your employees has a new baby or a sick spouse or child, a bonus will help ease the financial burden during these times. She will appreciate your concern for her and her family’s well being.

Constantly recognize a job well done. Everyone likes to be told they've done a good job on something.

Read the full article here: Operation Employee Loyalty: Twelve Ways Small Business Owners Can Ensure Their Best Employees Never Want To Leave CustomerThink

Learn more about emotional intelligence with The EQ Course.

Customer Relations Work and Emotional Intelligence

I'll be doing a series of customer service stress management and emotional intelligence training for a major organization in September. This is stressful work and to succeed, even to survive, you have to have high EQ, or emotional intelligence.

As this article Customer Experience Podcast #5: Intrapersonal QBC points out, customer relations and sales, by phone particularly, is a very stress job that requires good emotional intelligence skills. "The emotional rollercoaster of sales and customer service presents a constant challenge to the individual to respond appropriately in all cases," says the article.

They sign intrapersonal skills such as self-regard, emotional self-awareness, assertiveness and so forth.

For instance:

Self Regard. People with higher levels of self-regard have a track record of success, and they attribute that success to themselves. That confidence rubs off on the customer, who gets the feeling that they are in good hands. By contrast, someone with poor self-regard presents both themselves, and the brand they represent, in a poor light.

Self Awareness. The ability to recognise one’s own emotional state is critical in enabling the indivudual [sic] to moderate that state as circumstances demand.

That means not just recognizing emotions, but being able to tell when you are reaching your tipping point, and knowing why. It may be that you aren't really listening to the customer, or it could be that you're too tired or too hot. When you're uncomfortable physically, it can set your emotional states higher. Like when you come home from a hard day at work and are tired, and something comes up with the kids.

This may seem obvious but you might say, "Well anyone would get mad at something like this." With The EQ course you can learn to modulate the states, hopefully getting angry more slowly, staying thess a shorter time and having it be less intense, getting out of it quicker, and recovering faster. It's about modulating your emotions.

Emotional intelligence is very important in customer relations work. In fact it accounts for about 80% of your success in an endeavor. The EQ COURSE raises your emotional intelligence, your EQ. It's interactive, on the Internet and self-paced, with feedback. It is consistently rated #1. Check it out -- www.susandunn.cc/EQcourse.htm .

What price your future success?

Teamwork and Emotional Intelligence

Tom Heck's TeachMeTeamwork

To Heck's TeachMe Teamwork talks about emotional intelligence and leadership, featuring an interview Dr. Haydn Hasty.

"Leaders in the field of team and leadership development know the difference between a marginal leader and a great leader is often boiled down to one thing: Emotional Intelligence (EQ)," he writes.

Isn't it wonderful that the value of emotional intelligence is becoming validated. When I first read about the term, nearly 7 years ago, we jumped on it as "the missing piece," and "the wave of the future." I've been coaching and training emotional intelligence all over the world since that date.

It continues:

"Most have heard of IQ and too many people believe that a leader with a high IQ is what's going to save your team. Not even close. IQ won't save you. EQ will."

In the interview, he talks about the difference between IQ and EQ.

Important to remember however, that the two are not antithetical. It's not either/or. You need both. A low EQ can render a high IQ nearly worthless. I bet you can think of some examples all by yourself!!

If you'd like to improve your emotional intelligence, register for my EQ program. It's on the internet, self-paced, and highly effective.

Former student comment: "It changed my life."

Winning at Work

Charlotte Business Journal: Winning at Work

"Work hard," writes Connie Glaser. "Do your best. Know what’s expected. Create value.

Isn't this what we were taught? And since we are smart, capable and doing all the right things, we will get ahead -- right? Well, in today's complex workplace and competitive global marketplace, here is a startling piece of news: it is not enough."

Through coaching, she advises, many are learning the essential ingredients of success.

"The traditional ingredients for a successful career," she writes, "require combining technical and interpersonal skills, along with emotional intelligence. Mix in cultural astuteness, and you've got a recipe for success in today's workplace."

Benjack Glatzer defines culture astuteness as "the ability to get out of your office and your comfort zone, and navigate smoothly through the cultural nuances of your specific company."

And this requires a great deal of emotional intelligence.

The good news is that emotional intelligence (EQ) can be learned. Contact me for more information - sdunn@susandunn.cc .

Everyone's Talking about Emotional Intelligence

A SAFER PLACE by fernety (with permission)

Posts - Discussions of a BlondeVixen

Her friends are bouncing from one work drama to another, so she's reading Goleman to learn more about emotional intelligence. It's the BUZZ WORD in MANAGEMENT she says. Emotional intelligence ... the buzz word in management.

What took them so long?

Of course it's best to actively learn emotional intelligence, which you can through my Internet course, with or without coaching to accompany. The more, the better, though. You can really accelerate your learning curve.

We spend 8, 10, 12 hours a day at work ... 5, 6 days a week.

Won't it be nice when everyone knows EQ??

Take THE COURSE.

EQ at WORK: Rotten to the core: How workplace 'bad apples' spoil barrels of good employees | University of Washington News and Information

uwnews.org | Rotten to the core: How workplace 'bad apples' spoil barrels of good employees | University of Washington News and Information

According to the article, one apple can spoil the whole bunch. It really is amazing how much trouble one person can cause in an office (family, group, etc.)

What's especially bad is that I've found, from coaching people, that 'one bad apple' in terms of a workplace that's caustic thanks to one person (yes, it can happen), will spoil a person's attitude and conception of work in general. It's especially bad for "newbies" -- it you're just out of law school and land in a place like this, or have just changed career fields and your first taste of "marketing" is like this. Also, if you've just moved to a new town, you may generalize that that's what work is like in Dallas/New York City/Hope, Alabama.

This study reiterates how difficult it can be when the "bad apple" is established, has tenure or power, or (I would add) is related to the boss

ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLE:

1. Negative people are those who don't do their fair share of the work, who are chronically unhappy and emotionally unstable, or who bully or attack others.
2. One "toxic" or negative team member can be the catalyst for a complete downward spiral in an organization.
3. Vast majority of people surveyed could identify at least one "bad apple" that had produced organizational dysfunction.
4. Teams with one member who is disagreeable or irresponsible are much more likely to have conflict, have poor communication within the team and to refuse to cooperate with one another. Consequently, they perform poorly.
5. One bad apple can ruin it, but one good person (or 2 or 3) can't turn it around.
Negative outweighs positive exponentially.

WHAT DO YOU DO? SCREEN FOR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

Say the authors: "Managers at companies, particularly those in which employees often work in teams, should take special care when hiring new employees," Felps said. "This would include checking references and administering personality tests so that those who are really low on agreeableness, emotional stability or conscientiousness are screened out."

Administering The EQ Map would be a good idea. Also train your managers, HR, hirers and interviewers with my EQ Certification Program so they will know what they're looking at.

If you're stuck working with or for a negative person, I recommend you take my Difficult People course to learn temporary coping strategies. EMAIL for course - on the Internet, $39.00

Only alternatives these authors give are (1) isolate the person and let him/her work alone, or (2) fire them.

Learn emotional intelligence yourself and avoid being one of these powerful negative catalysts. The more savvy managers become, and the tighter the job market, the more you will sabotage your own career. EQ just helps!

Malaysian CEOs Lack Emotional Intelligence

MALAYSIAN CEOs LACK EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
by Hamisah Hamid, Times

"Malaysian chief executive officers (CEOs) are highly driven but lack emotional intelligence and coaching, according to a leadership consultant.

Linkage Asia president, Samuel M. Lam, said the study by Linkage Asia showed that Malaysian CEOs do not differ from global CEOs in terms of leadership ability.

"Global executives and Malaysian executives share the same high drive, and there is also no difference in terms of profile.

"But on closer examination, emotional intelligence and coaching/nurture are the lowest in Malaysia," he said at a breakfast forum in Kuala Lumpur last week

Lam said global CEOs are also weak in coaching but they have high emotional intelligence.

"What makes Malaysian companies successful is their leaders' drive. But what needs to be improved is emotional intelligence and coaching," he said.

To read the rest of the article, go HERE.

WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE? Take the EQ course and/or EQ coaching. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc

Emotional Intelligence - THE training topic

Emotional Intelligence ... making the rounds in the business world.

Why? Because it works.

NHCG consulting writes that they are "evolving due to the changing business climate. The latest training topic is emotional intelligence (EI)" -- what took them so long??

EQ, they say, "describes a person's ability to identify, utilize, understand and manage emotions in the workplace...research indicates that people who have a high competency in emotional intelligence are more likely to succeed that those whose strengths rely on previous experience." For full article go here: "Navigating the Learning Curve," from New Haven, CT

Actually people with high emotional intelligence are more likely to succeed than people with LOW emotional intelligence. It's as simple as that.

We've been at this a long time ... come learn with the best.

Can Money Buy Happiness?

CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?

In studying resilience and the sweet uses of adversity, and listening to coaching clients, I discover the same things over and over again. After a given point in time, the person acknowledges that a lot of good things have come from their adversities.

Mind you it isnt a guarantee that youll reach this resolution, but many people do end up being not only what they call better people, but also happier by their self-report and by my observations.

There's an interesting study done by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts. He compares the well-being of lottery winners versus people who had become suddenly paralyzed.

The results of the study were that after the initial high was over for the lottery winners, they were no happier than the accident victims.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

______________________Low energy?

DEPRESSION ALERT

We are approaching "the most depressing day of the year." January 20th. It's the culmination of a number of things, including grey skies, bad weather, no vacation in site, budget problems, holiday aftermath ...

Be prepared. Take THE EQ COURSE. Call 817-734-1471 for coaching.

_________________

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Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Not a Laughing Matter

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace.
No, it's not touchy-feeling, group-hug stuff, it's serious business when emotions take over. If you aren't in touch with your feelings, when they 're driving you (and that includes pride, pig-headedness, one-upping, and so forth), your life is out-of-control.



You'll laugh when you see this. People observing this sort of male rutting always laugh, but the results aren't always funny.