Learning Tips

Here are two Learning Tips to help you be more productive, thoughtful, respectful or just a better person.

Tip #1: “Would you want someone to act this way toward my spouse, significant other, daughter or son, or best friend?”

This is a practical and honest question to ask ourselves to determine if my behavior is appropriate and respectful in the workplace. It is also a question that is most personal. We have to visualize someone dear to us being the recipient of our behavior done by someone else in the workplace. Once we do that, we realize very quickly how offensive our conduct can be.

A story that illustrates this point happened in a sexual harassment training seminar I did over 20 years ago.

Several female highway maintenance workers had experienced harassing behavior from a number of the male employees. Early in the session, a number of the men refused to participate and became unruly. Since there was no secret as to why the training was held, I was upfront with the men about the behavior some of them engaged in with the female employees. I asked for a show of hands of how many had daughters. A number of hands went up. That's when I posed this question, "If your daughter was working here and she told you the men were doing the stuff to her that you've been doing to the women in this shop, how would you respond?" There was silence. Finally, one man raised his hand and said he would be very upset, and even though he believed operating a jack hammer is men's work, if his daughter wanted to do that work she should without being badgered by men. Then, several other men began sharing similar opinions.

As a result, I was able to hold their attention and help the men understand how their conduct was harmful. When the harassing conduct becomes personal, people see it and feel it very differently.

This is a question I pose in my sexual harassment training sessions to help people evaluate their behavior BEFORE they do it.

Tip #2: “Can you sense how others are feeling when walking into a room or starting a meeting?”

If you do, you are using Social Awareness, one of several competencies of Emotional Intelligence. Social Awareness is recognizing and responding appropriately to the actions, needs and emotions of others. One skill of this competency is your ability to understand and support the spoken and unspoken thoughts, feelings and concerns of others. As Daniel Goleman, author of several books on Emotional Intelligence, said:

“By being attuned to how others feel in the moment,

a leader can say and do what’s appropriate,

whether that means calming fears,

assuaging (appeasing) anger,

or joining in good spirits."

I offer an Emotional Intelligence seminar that helps people start the journey of increasing their skill level of Emotional Intelligence.