HR Seminar New York: Growing Your Emotional Intelligence

On the 6th of December, Elliott Scott HR New York brought together over sixty HR Professionals at LinkedIn’s offices in the Empire State Building. In partnership with Arcadia Consulting we held our inaugural event “Growing Your Emotional Intelligence”.

Emotions impact the way we think, learn, teach, lead and collaborate. Emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) focuses on skills to help us understand and manage emotions, both within ourselves and with others. Our session targeted the importance of EQ within the workplace but also into all areas of our lives.

The combination of a diverse group of HR minds, a pertinent HR and leadership topic, and an amazing location, set the scene for an insightful and special evening.

Following an introduction from Stuart Elliott, CEO of Elliott Scott HR, Dan Spira, Arcadia Consulting’s Regional Director delivered an informative, amusing presentation including some lively audience participation and activities.

These were the key EQ points explored:

Self-awareness:

What “shape” are we in emotionally, how do we view ourselves and want to be viewed? As an example, Dan showed us four shapes - a circle, square, triangle or “Z”. Participants were asked which shape we most identified with. Associations ranged from travel, appearance, initial of a name, the way it may drop, or “just because”. (Many identified with a circle – revealed to mean approachable, ‘well-rounded’ ‘warm’ – all the attributes of a good HR professional!). Are we approaching life with a Fixed or a Growth mind-set i.e. the belief that core qualities are predetermined rather than developed over time? Language is a great example – closed statements vs. sentences that are open to self-growth. “I don’t have enough time to do this” vs. “Time management has been challenging for me; if I prioritise my time, moving forward I will be able to do this”

Self-management:

Keeping calm under pressure and responding resourcefully to adversity, rather than knee-jerk reactions (it might be as simple as a facial expression!). Consider “the Elephant and the Rider” which reflects the two areas of our brain. The elephant is closest to the action and acts quickly with unexpected obstacles - often with unconscious bias. Whereas the Rider is more considered, forward thinking, aware and co-incidentally a lot smaller. We need to take the time where possible to focus on “thinking before we act”- more productive “self-talk” before responding - more “riding”, less “elephant walking” “How can I learn from this?”, “What do I respect about them?”

Social awareness & Relationship management:

Everyone communicates differently and has alternate motivators. You have to constantly make the effort to concentrate on this and adapt your style to suit. Use the SCARF concept. Designed to summarise points to take stock of before collaborating with your colleagues or friends:

Status - a sense of worth and a big driver of behaviour

Certainty - clarity is important for stress-levels and balanced decisions

Autonomy - a sense of control over events

Relatedness - being included and a natural sense of safety with others

Fairness - the perception of fair exchanges between people.

During the hour long session we were encouraged to reflect on how we see ourselves, others and how best to integrate the two and navigate. Through our group discussions, one thing was clear, no matter what level, discipline or industry “growing your EQ” is crucial to workplace and personal success. At Elliott Scott HR we recognise the need to explore EQ with our candidates from the start, to create a better fit with a new opportunity.

There are some great ways to assess self and social awareness. Please reach out to any of our US consultants if you would like to discuss this further.

The evening closed with further networking over drinks and canapés where our guests mingled with the Arcadia, LinkedIn and Elliott Scott HR teams.

Our 2019 event series will include a range of thought provoking and insightful HR seminars.

If you would be interested in attending, follow us on LinkedIn and keep an eye on our events page.