Practice Notes

  Fresh Thinking

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Emotional intelligence – thoughts on reality testing

 

Check out http://downloads.mhs.com/icei/2008/Reality-Testing.pdf   It’s a recent presentation on reality testing, an element of emotional intelligence.  Kelley Marko presented this paper at the recent International Conference on Emotional Intelligence in Chicago.  He uses the standard definition of reality testing: To objectively validate one’s feelings and thinking with external reality, but then adds to it.  His revised definition of reality testing is the ability to frame and reframe our perspectives to get a better sense of the bigger picture and to identify key points of leverage for moving forward in more strategic and informed ways in highly complex and ambiguous situations. 

 

How do you do this?  He recommends we look at situations through four frames:

 

The structural frame: how do we make things more efficient, use resources better etc

The political frame: who are our stakeholders, the people with power, who gets what and who can we influence?

The human performance framework: how can we work together better, tap into people’s energies etc?

The symbolic frame: what we do is not as important as what is means and what it means to people will vary considerably.

 

This approach is well worth trying out.   Also check out the rest of the conference papers on http://www.mhs.com/icei/proceedings.aspx?id=2008

 

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A motivating model for motivation

 

A recent article in Harvard Business Review presented an interesting model for motivation. The model is uses four drivers that we strive to satisfy. In life, and in work, when these four drives are satisfied we are left motivated. Check it out.

 

The drive to acquire – getting hold of scarce goods to boost our sense of well being is, as always, a key driver of motivation. In an organisation this is leveraged by the reward system. The key to this model is that each of the drivers must be met. You can’t just have a great reward system and neglect the other three drivers.

 

The drive to bond – when met this is associated with strong positive emotions and relates to having friends at work, and having an organisation that you can relate to.

 

The drive to comprehend – employees are motivated by jobs that challenge them and allow them to make sense of the world

 

The drive to defend – this drive manifests itself as a quest to create institutions that promote justice  or community that people can be a part of.

 

There are of course a few things to look out for. I found it most interesting that you can’t focus on one in the hope for an easy motivation fix; the drives must all be considered part of a greater whole. An example used in the article is of an over zealous reward structure that consistently pits co-workers against each other. When this is the only measure of performance, the drive to bond is neglected.

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