GILBERT and GEORGE – Inner, 1992 – Divers matériaux, en 9 parties, 253 x 213cm
Cultiver l’empathie est une façon d’optimiser notre rapport aux autres, en particulier avec les personnes vis-à-vis desquelles nous n’éprouvons pas d’affinité mais avec lesquelles nous sommes obligés de travailler.
Rebecca Knight suggère un approche en plusieurs étapes lorsque quelqu’un nous horripile :
Tout d’abord dépersonnaliser la situation et se demander ce qui nous dérange à ce point. Peut-être notre interlocuteur évoque-t-il en nous une autre personne et les souvenirs que nous avons avec celle-ci.
Ensuite, détecter nos signaux d’alarme, ces indices physiologiques témoignant de notre énervement : accélération de notre rythme respiratoire, augmentation de la température. Prendre quelques respirations profondes pour réguler notre production d’hormones, non pour capituler mais pour rester maître de nos réactions.
Puis, soyez curieux : demandez-vous ce qui fait que cette personne se comporte de la sorte. Ce qui la motive et l’inspire, comme la pression qui s’exerce peut-être sur elle. L’objectif est ici de ressentir la situation selon la perspective de l’autre. Pas forcément de l’accepter ou de l’adopter, juste la percevoir.
Focalisez-vous sur vos points communs, parfois de simples détails qui peuvent exprimer un objectif commun.
Cultivez votre générosité. Accordez lui le bénéfice du doute, ce qui est bien entendu plus facile à faire avec les gens que l’on apprécie. Complimentez tout en restant authentique.
Si tout ceci ne suffit pas, ayez une conversation portant sur votre collaboration. Faire ceci sous l’angle de l’empathie vous déchargera des émotions perturbantes. Et souvenez-vous que votre collègue ressent peut-être à votre égard ce que vous ressentez pour lui.
Alexei Mikhailovich GRITSAI – Evening in the birch grove, 1989-1994 – Huile sur papier maroufllé sur carton, 64.5 x 90.5 cm
Des études montrent que l’intelligence émotionnelle (c’est-à-dire la capacité de comprendre vos émotions – et celles des autres – pour guider votre réflexion et votre comportement) et l’agilité expliquent 58% de la performance des leaders. Ces études montrent également que 90% des personnes les plus performantes ont une intelligence émotionnelle particulièrement élevée.
Lâchez prise et élargissez le champ des possibles.
Intensifiez le rapport avec vous-même, construisez des « muscles mentaux » et apaisez votre esprit.
Trouvez, donnez du sens et choisissez l’histoire que vous voulez raconter.
Ancrez le résultat souhaité et rendez le succès inévitable pour vous-même ainsi que pour les autres.
Engagez-vous, participez, intensifiez vos relations avec les autres : vous apporterez ainsi l’agilité émotionnelle à votre tribu.
Développez cette agilité tribale afin de maintenir le changement.
Étendez ce pouvoir tribal : votre tribu surmontera n’importe quel obstacle, prospérera grâce à la rétroaction et redéfinira ce qu’il y a de mieux pour elle.
Günther FÖRG – Untitled, 1987 – Acrylique et plomb sur panneaux de bois, 40.6 x 25.4 cm chaque panneau
A good introduction to what emotional intelligence is as developed by Harvard Business Review in a 7 minute video slide deck.
What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones? It isn’t IQ or technical ability. It’s emotional intelligence: the ability to monitor your feelings – and those of others – to guide your thinking and behaviour. Technical skills and smarts do matter of course, but emotional intelligence is twice as important for jobs at all levels. And in the top tier, it accounts for nearly 90% of the difference between average and star performers. Studies also show a strong link between emotional intelligence and bottom-lines results. At one company, divisions whose senior managers scored high in emotional intelligence beat their yearly earning goals by 20%. Divisions without such leaders underperformed by almost as much.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman identified five components of emotional intelligence. The first is self-awareness. This means thoroughly understanding yourself and your effect on others. For example, a self-aware person who struggles with deadlines plans ahead. Self-aware employees welcome feedback. Another sign is a self-deprecating sense of humour: people who admit to failure easily and with a smile. Self-aware people know their abilities and play to their strengths, but they don’t overreach and aren’t afraid to ask for help. Leaders who see themselves clearly also see their companies clearly. But it’s easy to overlook self-awareness when sizing up potential leaders. You might assume that someone who admits to shortcomings isn’t « though enough » to lead, when in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders must constantly judge capabilities – in themselves and in others. Here’s how one manager showed her self-awareness. She was skeptical about a new service at the store where she worked, but realised that her skepticism was fueled by disapointment because she hadn’t been tapped to lead the rollout. Instead of sulking, she explained this to her boss and her team, asking them to bear with her while she processed the feelings. They did so – and she threw her support behind the project.
The second component of emotional intelligence is self-regulation – controlling disruptive impulses, and thinking before acting. For example, a manager whose team has botched a big presentation might want to pound the table with anger. But if he has a gift for self-regulation, he’ll consider the reasons for the failure, share his thoughts with the team, and propose a solution. Leaders who control their feelings create an atmosphere of fairness and trust. This reduces politics and infighting, so productivity is higher. It also draws talented people in, and curbs unethical behaviour.
If there is one trait that virtually all great leaders have, it’s motivation – the third component of emotional intelligence. Motivated people are driven to achieve beyond expectations – not for money or status, but because they’re passionate about their work. Motivated people also want to be « stretched » and are always raising the performance bar. And they’re optimistic – even when the going gets tough. One portfolio manager whose fund took a dive lost three large institutional clients. Some people would have blamed external circumstances; others might have taken it as a personal failure. Instead, this manager saw a chance to prove she could lead a turnaround and that optimism paid off. It’s not hard to see why motivation makes great leadership. Someobe who sets the bar high for himself will do the same for his company and the drive to exceed goals is often contagious.
We’ve all seen th efourth component, empathy, in a sensitive teacher or friend. Empathetic people read between th elines of what’s said, and this makes them especially good at understanding and supporting group dynamics. Empathy doesn’t mean trying to please everybody – that’s impossible. But it does mean considering other people’s feelings when making decisions. Empathy is more crucial now than ever, for three reasons: The prevalence of teams, the rapid pace of globalisation, and the growing need to attract and retain talent. Teams are cauldrons bubbling with emotions, and a leader has to make sense of all of them, if the team is going to collaborate well. Empathy is also paramount in the global economy. Misunderstandings can flare up quickly when people’s basic assumptions differ, and empathy provides and an antidote. Empathetic people have a good feel for cultural differences, and gain understanding from body language and other cues. Empathy is also crucial to retaining talent. Studies show that coaching and mentoring pay off, not just in performance but also in increased satisfaction and decreaesd turnover. Consider what happpened when two brokerage firms mmerged. The manager of one division gave a gloomy speech to his team, fretting thatlots of jobs were sure to be cut. Not surprisingly, many people were demoralised and quit. A more empathetic manager expressed his concerns calmly, and he promised to keep people informed and treat everyone fairly. His division remained productive – and the best people stayed.
The last component of emotional intelligence is social skill. This isn’t simmply friendliness – it’s friendliness with a purpose, and it draws on all of the other four components. Socially skilled people are great at building and leading teams – that’s their empathy at work. They’re also expert persuaders, because their self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy tell them when to make an emotional plea, for instance, and when to appeal to reason. And they’s excellent collaborators: Their passion for the work spreads to others, and their motivation drives them to find solutions. Remember that social skills can be tricky to spot. You might think an employee chatting in the hall is wasting time – maybe he’s talking to someone who isn’t even connected to his job. But socially skilled people don’t arbitrarily limit their relationships. They know they might need help tomorrow from someone they are just meeting today.
You probably know people who are strong in some of the five areas of emotional intelligence, but sadling lacking in others. This raises the question: is emotional intelligence a fixed quality, or can it be learned? Fortunately, although science reveals a strong genetic component, that’s not the whole story. In one case, an executive named Ed was dismayed to realise that his employees were terrified of him – to the point of withholding bad news. So he made a concerted effort to change his behaviour. First, he travelled to a country where he did not speak the language and monitored his openness to people different from him. Back at the office, Ed had a coach shadow him and critique his interactions. He had himself videotaped in meetings and asked employees for feedback about his reponses to others. After several months, Ed’s emotional intelligence was noticeably higher, and this was reflected in his overall performance.
It takes enormous commitment and work to cultivate emotional intelligence, but the benefits of more than repay the effort. For today’s leaders, this quality is not a « nice to have ». It’s a « need to have ».
Leonor FINI – Stryges amaouri, 1947 – Huile sur toile, 40 x 50 cm
Le 3 novembre en France – et le 13 novembre dans les autres pays – est la Journée mondiale de la gentillesse.
« Gentillesse », ce terme apparaît pour la première fois en 1176 sous la plume du poète Chrétien de Troyes. Et comme l’évoque le philosophe et écrivain, Emmanuel Jaffelin, auteur d’un Eloge de la gentillesse en entreprise (First, 2015), « Etymologiquement, le mot gentillesse ne rime pas avec faiblesse mais bel et bien avec noblesse [du latin, gentilis, “le noble, celui qui est bien né”]. » Une similitude avec l’étymologie du terme anglais kindness, le mot « kyndnes » signifiant en vieil anglais « nation » et aussi « augmentation ».
Alors, quelle place la gentillesse a-t-elle au sein de l’entreprise? Voyons-y une expression de l’empathie, une façon de démontrer son intelligence émotionelle.
« Tenir la porte à celui qui vous emboîte le pas, est appréhendé comme gentil, car il y a une noblesse morale dans cet acte. (…) La gentillesse est une morale du pouvoir et non du devoir. Je ne dois pas être gentil, je peux l’être. Vous êtes un fort en entreprise, parce que vous pouvez être gentil, mais surtout pas parce que vous devez l’être ! Il n’y a pas de devoir de gentillesse. (…) Celui qui est fort est celui qui est dans l’empathie. »
