Developing Social Awareness
SUMMARY
Do you find that you're always in conflict with other people and that getting along with others is a little bit of a challenge?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you develop the social skills that will allow you to have fantastic relationships with anyone.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer and today I want to continue our conversation around all things Social and Emotional Intelligence by moving into the third quadrant of Social Awareness.
I want to do today is give you an overview - some key principles that you need to understand and grasp to become more socially aware:
1. Take A Wide-Angled View.
2. Walk A Mile In Their Shoes.
3. Regularly Check the Temperature.
4. Model Service Behaviour.
5. Detox Regularly.
When you do this, you reduce conflict and stress, increase your productivity and profitability, and it's a lot more fun to be around the environment you're in.
Well, that's it for me for another week.
Join me again next week as we go deeper into the competencies of Social Awareness by talking about Empathy.
I'll see you then.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that you're always in conflict with other people and that getting along with others is a little bit of a challenge?
I know for a lot of my career, that was my problem.
Or have you done a lot of work on yourself and developed the skills you need to play well with others?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you develop the social skills that will allow you to have fantastic relationships with anyone.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer and today I want to continue our conversation around all things Social and Emotional Intelligence by moving into the third quadrant of Social Awareness.
Here's what I know, the critical key to overcoming toxic emotions in your world and your environment is developing a high level of Social Awareness.
You see, a lot of times, people are self-focused, where they've got their blinkers on, and they're just doing what it is that they need to do, and they're not concerned about what's going on around them.
I know myself in my career that I got criticized several times for that; I was constantly focusing on what I needed to get done, and I was oblivious to the emotions, concerns, and feelings of the people around me. It created a lot of issues.
There's also a big emotional disconnect where people are either fearful of showing their emotions or they've been taught to leave their emotions out of it. With the technology that we use today, everything is about typing in words, so there's a disconnect there - where people don't understand what's going on for each other. And these can sometimes create a toxic emotions zone where people just dump all their emotional waste on each other because of the things they're going through. The result is that you can have relationships that break down.
That can be like a revolving turnstile in the workplace, where the talent keeps turning over because people don't leave jobs, but leave relationships. Because people don't leave jobs and careers, they leave toxic relationships.
But it doesn't have to be that way. When you go from being singular "self-focused" to an "others-focused"…
You realize that it's not just about us, and there are people around us that you need to consider in this world.
When you change from that environment that's toxic to one of compassion.
Where you think about others and try and understand what they're going through as well.
When you have a clean environment in terms of the emotional energy that's around you…
People become loyal, raving fans.
People want to be around you, and they want to work with you.
They want to stay with you.
They want to collaborate with you, and they want that relationship to grow.
For you to do this, it takes a different set of skills. It takes skills of Social Awareness.
Social Awareness is being aware of the needs and concerns of others.
Social and Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of your own emotions and what might be going on in the emotions of others in that particular moment.
In the past few weeks, you've worked on your Self-Awareness and your Self-Management skills. So what you need to do now is move into this area of how you navigate the emotional environment created by somebody else you're connected with.
In the work that I do in Social and Emotional Intelligence, I work with clients in three competencies:
The first is Empathy.
Empathy is where you are concerned about what the other person could be going through. It's not apathy where you don't care, and it's not sympathy where you feel sorry for them. It's having a genuine concern.
The second is Situational Awareness.
It's being able to read the current of what's going on and understand the situation beyond just our thoughts and our own needs.
The third competency is Service Orientation.
Service Orientation is about leading with a servant's heart and thinking of what others need, and giving them that so they can give us what you need as well.
Over the next few weeks, I will unpack these competencies.
But what I want to do today is give you an overview - some key principles that you need to understand and grasp to become more socially aware.
Number one is to Take A Wide-Angled View.
It's just like having one of those cameras that has a lens on it that doesn't just see exactly what's in front of it but sees a panoramic view of what's going on. And that's what you need to do when you're working with other people.
Yes, you still need to focus on yourself, exercise self-care, and all those things that I've talked to you about before. But, you also need to look at the world beyond yourself.
You need to realise and have an understanding of what's going on around you.
So the first thing to do is to balance what you're doing and be able to pop up and have a look around.
It's like being a meerkat. If you have seen a meerkat, you will notice that as they scurry around doing the stuff that they need to do, they, from time to time, look up and have a look around their environment. And they do that for safety. They also work in groups to keep each member of the pack safe.
In our case, just popping up and looking around now and then helps us understand what is going on around us.
The second is to Walk A Mile In Their Shoes.
Often, when you have an opinion or when you're having a conversation with someone else, and you're only considering your own view, understanding, and level of experience in whatever that subject is, you may miss how the other person is going through it.
When you take the time to put yourself in their shoes and think of what they're going through and see it through their lens, it enables an open dialogue.
The communication (the conversation) is a lot cleaner, and it avoids conflict.
To do that, you first need to have an open mind around the fact that it's okay for other people to have an opinion that might be different from yours.
You also need to have empathy around their situation.
You've all heard the saying, "walk a mile in their moccasins."
See what it feels like to be in their situation.
Doing that will make you more aware of how you could interact with that person moving forward.
The third principle is to Regularly Check the Temperature.
It's like when you're cooking a nice big piece of lamb.
You could put it in the barbecue, pull down the hood, and it could look nice on the outside. However, unless you look at the temperature on the inside, you won't know whether it's overcooked, under-cooked, or just right.
So you use a probe that goes deep into the center of the meat to measure the temperature.
That's what you need to do when you're working with people; you need to check in regularly and test the temperature - see how people are feeling, see what things are going on, read the room (so to speak).
So, just like that piece of lamb, it could look so good on the outside but, if you get a little bit more interested, a little bit more curious, you can find out that some different things were going on internally.
Number four is to Model Service Behaviour.
Can you imagine a world where every one of us thought about serving other people around us?
Wouldn't it be a fantastic world?
Now I'm not talking about serving people to the detriment of our self-care; it's a balance of helping others with the self-taken care of.
I am talking about having a mindset that says, "what is it that I can do to help you (the other person)?" When in turn, the result for that is you're going to get what you need as well.
So, this is a key area in Social Awareness where you look at how you can become more service-oriented to work and collaborate with people, and together it's a lot more fun, and you get greater output.
Number five is to Detox Regularly.
I don't know about you, but I see people that have these fantastic green drinks. They do these detoxes where they get all the toxins out of their bodies and build it up. And although it's, sometimes doesn't taste nice, it has a very healthy effect on the body.
So in your relationships, when you are socially aware, you will be able to detox regularly – you can have conversations that sometimes need to be had, check in with people, apologize, or have a mutually beneficial conversation about how you could improve. You can also find out what you need to remove out of that relationship to thrive, flourish, be healthy, and produce a positive energy.
So there you have it, the five key principles that you need to consider as you're moving into this quadrant of Social Awareness.
Social Awareness allows you to look beyond yourself and understand what could be going on in the emotions of others.
When you do this, you reduce conflict and stress, increase your productivity and profitability, and it's a lot more fun to be around the environment you're in.
Well, that's it for me for another week.
Join me again next week as we go deeper into the competencies of Social Awareness by talking about Empathy.
I'll see you then.
