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Influencing people, negotiating and emotional intelligence (EQ)

 Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Influencing people is...

Winning respect and persuading people to do things for you.

This is closely related to emotional intelligence (often abbreviated as EQ)

i.e. how good people are in their relationships with others (particularly helping them to do the right thing).

Academic intelligence (IQ) only accounts for (at most) 20% of career success – the rest comes from other factors, particularly EQ and luck.

 

How to influence people and be emotionally intelligent

 

1. Be kind and take responsibility for others

 

How?

 

a) do something for others, however small 

– don’t always put yourself first.

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

 

b) be empathetic 

Put yourself in other people’s shoes and listen and respond to their needs, views and feelings (like Princess Diana, pictured right).

Concentrate on solutions to their problems and explain your decisions.

 

c) help others to help themselves 

(by encouraging them to make their own decisions).

 

d) be patient and keep calm 

(particularly when people are stressed and angry).

 

e) always say sorry, thank you and well done 

(when it’s required and unexpected).

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

 

f) forgive and forget 

Don’t harbour resentment.

 

g) return good for evil 

Revenge leads to hatred.

 

h) treat everyone the same 

(don’t stereotype people).

 

 

2. Follow your values (e.g. kindness, honesty, fairness and humility)

Self-respect is important, so look after yourself as well as other people. Influencing people and emotional intelligence

You need to like yourself before you can like and respect others.

Humility is particularly important i.e. don’t be arrogant and think you know it all. So:

  • be aware of your own ignorance.
  • be prepared to accept other people’s good ideas.

 

 

3. Be assertive

Defend your rights (particularly fair treatment) and learn to say ‘no’ to others.

They will respect you more for it, if there is a good reason.

 Influencing people and emotional intelligence

 

4. Knowledge

Knowledge gives you power and confidence with others, but it should be given with compassion and humility.

 

 

5. Trust

People must trust you, so keep your promises and be sincere, honest and loyal in bad times as well as good.

 

 

6. Self-control

Keep your head when others around you are losing theirs – how?

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

 

a) reduce stress

Keep relaxed by:

  • reflecting and meditating
  • keeping fit.
  • slowly breathing in and out at times of anxiety (counting to ten each time).

 

b) don’t dive in 

Reflect upon the problem and then act quickly with calm decisiveness.

 

c) perspective

Don’t give greater importance to something than it deserves.

 

d) keep your sense of humour 

Self-deprecating humour is particularly endearing.

 

 

7. Self-knowledge

 

a) know your strengths

(so you can use them to help others).

 

b) know your weaknesses

(so you don’t hurt anyone with them).

Ask other people how they see you – this may be different to how you see yourself!

 Influencing people and emotional intelligence

 

8. Be positive, enthusiastic and self-motivated

Helping other people is fun and rewarding – so do it!

 

 

9. Discussion

Use debate and constructive disagreement to

  • learn what other people want,
  • constructively criticize them.
  • be prepared to give something up to help others (i.e. compromise and negotiate – see point 10).

Two-way communication is vital – always listen and respond to what people say.

 

 

10. Negotiate well

How? See the 10 tips below.

 

Tips on negotiation

 

1. Before you start, work out where the other side would like to end up 

Identify three positions:

  • ideal (what you would really like to have).
  • realistic (what you think you’ll get).
  • fallback (the minimum you’ll accept).

 

2. Focus on the problem not the people you are negotiating with

Look for alternatives providing solutions to both sides.

 Influencing people and emotional intelligence

3. Find common ground 

  • create a win-win situation where both sides achieve their objectives.
  • focus on common interests, not entrenched positions.
  • invent options for mutual gain.

 

4. Seek and give all necessary information (but hold some back to use later)

Remember knowledge is power.

 

5. Empathize 

  • put yourself in the other side’s position.
  • anticipate their views.
  • take a break when the going gets tough.

 

6. Exploit your power 

But remember agreement is better for negotiation than coercion.

 

7. Be prepared to compromise

Identify your BATNA (the best alternative negotiated agreement) .

 

8. Use occasional summaries to gain agreement 

For example, say ‘are we agreed on this, so we can move on to the next point?’

 

9. Ask lots of questions

But remember listening carefully, silences and responses are just as important - if you say ‘no’ try to make it look positive!

 

10. Evaluate any deal

Both sides must be clear about what they're going to gain and lose. So objective criteria must be used to evaluate the results of a deal.

 

 

Key quotes explained

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

“Be, know, do”

- American army slogan (African American soldiers in World War Two are pictured right).

Be a good person, know all you need to know and do everything with maximum effort.

You will do these better, if you continually question yourself to understand yourself better and find the right way to live

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

- Socrates, Greek philosopher (pictured right)

The person you are and your attitudes have a big effect on your negotiations.

“Until I changed myself, I could not change others”, the South African leader, Nelson Mandela, said.

Mandela also said:

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare and compete, everybody will respect you”.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

“Kindness will attract kindness”

- Sophocles (the Greek playwright, pictured right)

Follow Jesus’s advice of giving wholeheartedly with humility and loving your enemies.

As Abraham Lincoln asked: “Am I not destroying my enemies, when I make friends of them?”

Love and friendship will destroy fear, suspicion and hatred.

Love is a self-disciplined, conscientious effort to help others.

So the American psychiatrist, Scott Peck, said: “Laziness is love’s opposite”, because “Love is as love does”.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

“The person who influences me most is not he who does great deeds but he who makes me feel I can do great deeds”

- Mary Parker Follett , American management writer (pictured right)

Great people inspire others by example and doing things for them.

Elie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference”. 

Turning a blind eye to evil is just as bad as the evil itself.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Let us never negotiate out of fear but let us never fear to negotiate”

- John F. Kennedy(American president, pictured right)

Negotiate with courage, compromise and an understanding of the other side’s position.

“Understanding is a two-way street”, said Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt).

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better”

- Abraham Lincoln, American president (pictured right)

Bad relationships come from inadequate knowledge and understanding of the other person’s position.

 

 

Best books

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Daniel Goleman (pictured right), Emotional Intelligence (1996)

Popularized the idea of EQ and its importance over IQ.

Success is a mixture of heart (caring for others) and head (tough minded logic).

(For more detail see Emotional Intelligence in the Business Books section)

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall (pictured right), Spiritual Intelligence (2000)

Spiritual intelligence (SQ) is closely related to EQ and comes from:

  • values and principles (from reflection).
  • vision (wanting to make a difference).
  • lifelong learning (from openness to new ideas).

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Dale Carnegie (pictured right), How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

Successful relationships come from empathy, sensitivity and motivating people (by letting them think your idea is theirs and always keeping them positive and enthusiastic).

(For more detail see How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Business Books section)

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Thomas Harris (pictured right), I’m OK – You’re OK (1973)

Popularized Eric Berne’s idea of transactional analysis (TA) that says we communicate and interact with other people through different roles. For example:

  • Parent-child – someone (the parent role) tells another (the child) to do something.
  • Adult – the role for working something out with logical and creative analysis.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

Desmond Morris (pictured right), Manwatching (1977)

There are five ways we behave in our relationships:

  • Self-assertive (helps me, harms you).
  • Self-indulgent (helps me, no effect on you).
  • Co-operative (helps me, helps you) – also called enlightened self-interest.
  • Courteous (no effect on me, helps you).
  • Altruistic (harms me, helps you) – compassionate self-sacrifice.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

M. Scott Peck (pictured right), The Road Less Travelled (1985)

Love is working very hard at being kind to people, so laziness is the opposite of love.

 

 

Influencing people and emotional intelligence

John Gray (pictured right), Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1993)

Men and women are different, and they have to accept and respect these differences to get on well together.

Men like power and achieving things, so they don’t like to be corrected or told what to do and need to be accepted, admired and encouraged.

Women value love and relationships and need caring, understanding, devotion and re-assurance.
 
 

 Roger Fisher (pictured top right) and William Ury (pictured bottom right, Getting To Yes (1981)

Influencing people, negotiating and emotional intelligence (EQ)

“Principled negotiation” is best where you don't concentrate on the people involved but:

  • mutually beneficial solutions

  • the problems.

  • the merits of your case.Influencing people, negotiating and emotional intelligence (EQ)

  • principles of fairness (for disputes)

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