What to do when lions are loose in the office

Good Morning. For the next 5 minutes, your career is the most important thing.

In today’s email:

• Beat the robots with emotional intelligence

• Good empathy v excellent empathy

• Match high-value tasks to when your energy peaks

• 5-3-7 deep breathing to lower stress in 1-minute

• What to do when lions are loose in the office

ON YOUR CAREER

Beat the robots with EQ

We don’t know how many current services jobs will be replaced by AI. It could be a high percentage. So, how do we stay competitive?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) will become even more important as a differentiator of high performers. People with high EQ are typically paid more, promoted faster, and keep their jobs in redundancy rounds.

A useful definition of EQ is the capacity to understand:

• what you are feeling and useful responses to your feelings

• what others are likely feeling and useful responses to their feelings

EQ enables us to display empathy to our colleagues, suppliers, and customers. Empathy helps us understand their opportunities and threats. And celebrate victories together. EQ helps us to add value beyond what our chatbot and robo-buddies can authentically deliver. EQ helps us win in our careers.

COMMUNICATION

Good empathy v excellent empathy

Empathy is often described as ‘walking in the shoes of another person.’ This is where we try to imagine the joys and concerns of others. Empathy can exist at a cognitive level. It can also exist at a deeper level where we feel the emotions that others are feeling. Accurate empathy always requires noticing. There is a key distinction between good empathy and excellent empathy:

Good empathy: treat others how you would like to be treated.

Excellent empathy: treat others how they would like to be treated.

PRODUCTIVITY

Peak times

There are peak times each workday when we are at our most productive. For many people, early in their day is when they are best at solving complex problems. Other people are slower starters. If you have reduced energy after lunch, focus on administrative tasks or have walk and talk meetings. You may have more than one peak time each day – many executives have a burst of productivity in the evening following a break. The above graph represents my peak times. Some people also have peak days. Tuesdays may be more productive than Fridays. Match high-value tasks to when your energy peaks.

1 MINUTE TO LOWER STRESS

5-3-7 deep breathing

Deep breathing lowers your heart rate and cortisol levels. It quickly reduces stress. A one-minute, deep breathing technique is 5-3-7:

• Inhale deeply through your nose for 5 seconds

• Hold your breath for 3 seconds

• Exhale through your mouth for 7 seconds

• Perform 5-3-7 another 3 times

You can use this one-minute technique at your desk.  Or in an Uber on the way to pitch to a client.

GET SMARTER

SCARF

Two hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors roamed the African savanna. Imagine them being hungry and thirsty and finding juicy berries. Then a lion closes in. If our ancestors ignore lions, there is a high probability they will be eaten and not pass on their genes. Instead, a fight or flight response is triggered. Human beings have approximately five times the brain resources dedicated to perceiving threat versus perceiving reward. This is an evolutionary adaptation to escaping lions.

Social threat, not physical threat, is more likely to trigger our flight or fight response in the modern office. This means our heart rate increases, our memory and executive thinking are impaired, and our potential for collaboration is reduced. David Rock, an expert in the neuroscience of leadership, identified five major sources of social threat at work: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness (SCARF).

• Status – we like to know that we matter to our tribe or team. We like to maintain face. We feel vulnerable if we are not highly rated by our employer.

• Certainty – our brains are constant prediction machines. We like some novelty, but not too much. Job uncertainty is stressful.

• Autonomy – we want agency and choice in how we complete our tasks. Being micro-managed is frustrating and discouraging.

• Relatedness – we like to be liked. Conflict with customers, suppliers, and peers is stressful.  Conflict with our boss can give us sleepless nights.

• Fairness – we hope to be treated with respect at work and have our agreements honoured.  Unfair treatment triggers many negative emotions.

Before a significant work meeting, it’s worth considering if you might have SCARF threats triggered. Or if you could trigger SCARF threats in others. One way you can lower the probability of negative emotions in a meeting is to fully listen to the interests of others before responding. Listening is within your control.

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