Emotional Intelligence: HR's New Jedi Mind Trick

Ever wondered why some leaders effortlessly command respect while others struggle despite their hard skills? Discover the hidden power of emotional intelligence (EQ) in shaping effective management and how mastering it can revolutionize your workplace dynamics. Join Warren and Kevin as they break down the crucial elements of EQ, such as understanding and managing emotions, effective communication, and empathy. Through relatable anecdotes and real-life HR scenarios, you'll gain practical insights into separating passion from emotion and maintaining professional expectations even in the most challenging situations.

Tackling tough conversations and soft skills training can be a minefield for managers, but it doesn't have to be. Our discussion sheds light on the importance of addressing issues promptly to save time and effort, and the role of cultural differences in employee recognition and motivation. We emphasize that measuring EQ and its impact on management is more than just a numbers game—it’s about personalizing your approach to fit your team’s unique needs. Whether you're a seasoned HR professional or a manager looking to refine your leadership skills, this episode offers valuable strategies for enhancing your emotional intelligence and fostering a more engaged and productive workforce.

Finally, we explore how HR pros can strategically leverage EQ to navigate workplace dramatics and manage empathy without sacrificing professional boundaries. Learn the art of emotional regulation, active listening, and persuasive communication to handle resistant individuals and sensitive situations. We wrap up with a heartfelt discussion on the significance of empathy in HR, express our gratitude to our supporters, and tease future episodes that promise a humorous twist on serious topics. Don’t miss out on these insightful conversations designed to help you thrive in the ever-evolving world of HR.

Chapters

• 0:19 Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
• 11:34 'Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
• 22:49 Manipulating With Emotional Intelligence in HR
• 29:35 Managing Empathy in the Workplace
• 39:50 Expressing Gratitude and Plans for Future

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you, unfair to me. I need you to reset my HR portal password, or can I write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to Jaded HR.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the workday by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren and I'm Kevin Alrighty, so, as you hear, we have a very special guest with us, also known as Mr CC, it is Kevin. So first, I think everybody wants to get an update and hear how everybody's doing and what's going on in y'all's new world.

Speaker 3: 1:11

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Warren Lil CC is doing fantastic. So we are at time recording at seven weeks and she's doing wonderful and everyone is doing great. Appreciate you asking?

Speaker 2: 1:24

Sweet, sweet yeah. First kids. I was just talking to Cece. I'm like my oldest is about to turn 23. My youngest is about to turn 20. It's like it feels like it was yesterday.

Speaker 3: 1:35

They were just yesterday in my hands. Yeah, these days and weeks are just blending into each other, so a lifetime ahead these days and weeks are just blending into each other.

Speaker 2: 1:47

So a lifetime ahead, all righty, so well before we get started want to go through all the fun, thank yous. We have three Patreon supporters now Hallie, the original Jaded HR Rockstar, bill and Michael. So thank you very much for your support. You can support us like they do, either continually through Patreon, you can do a one-time donation through buy us a beer and that goes to pay the bills to keep the podcast running. Let's see here.

Speaker 2: 2:13

So yeah, it's been a couple of weeks I we didn't record. I, starting at 2024, if the Monday recording was going to be a holiday, I I said we weren't going to record and didn't do that. But a couple of weeks ago I completely I didn't even write what four weeks ago on my calendar. So I get to it's time to record. I don't even have anybody on the schedule, it's just a blank in here as I'm about to record. So I just did a solo and actually it's probably the best performing solo by downloads that I've ever done. But yeah, solos my usual solos suck.

Speaker 2: 2:45

But we've got a topic today I am personally and professionally interested in because in my mind it's a valuable tool and it can definitely help HR departments of all sizes. However, it is also rife with consultants and keynote speakers who oversell and over-promise and under-deliver on the topic. So the topic is emotional intelligence in the workplace and I think I'm going to be coming to it as a total naive newbie on this, because I've done some homework on it. I like the concept, but I don't know enough to really speak authoritatively on it. So, kevin, why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about what emotional intelligence is in, or EQ, and what is in the workplace and what it isn't? I know there's a lot of people who think you can define it. Well. I guess I should say you can actually define it pretty well by what it isn't as well.

Speaker 3: 3:57

Absolutely. And when it comes down to it in the end, with anything I think in HR and employee relations related, and when stuff hits the fan and when you look back on it, I think everything always goes back to communication or lack thereof. Right? And if you don't have the ability to identify and understand someone's emotion, manage and regulate your responses, empathize with others this is really what emotional intelligence is about, and you know it can get gray and it's how do you like anything we do in HR, it's how do you operate in the gray and how do you teach? That is the big difficulty, right?

Speaker 2: 4:35

Yeah, and you brought up something I was thinking of for a question for you. There's multiple components to emotional intelligence in the workplace. It's not all one thing and one of my misconceptions when I first started hearing about it was it's people applying their common sense and that's not. I mean, that's a piece of the puzzle but that's not the whole picture. But you mentioned empathy and reactions and managing those emotions. What would be some of the key components of the overall emotional intelligence?

Speaker 3: 5:14

Well you know, I think it can be like you said. I am no pro with it, but I think in the HR world, when we teach it, especially as we teach these manager competencies within companies, I think it comes down to really understanding your passion versus emotion. I think it's a great piece to start off with and learning reactions. Sometimes, when we have these conversations, that's like well, why did you go ahead and why did you smack that employee or whatever the situation may be, and they say because I'm passionate. And it's like no, because you really got your emotions in the way of you and you forgot about what the expectations were of your job. And so when you're able to separate these passions and negative emotions and you can really focus on what the expectation is, I think your job can become a lot easier.

Speaker 2: 6:03

But it's easier said than done, right, so here's something that I was thinking of, an analogy of when I've showed poor emotional intelligence at work, and I could do episode upon episode of that. But okay, once upon a time an employee comes to me wanting to know about bereavement their grandmother just died, and yada, yada, yada. And the yada, yada, yada was like half an hour and in my mind I'm trying to be nice, I'm trying to listen, but I really don't want to about grandmother baking cookies and all the things that I. I wanted this to be a transaction of. Okay, here's our bereavement policy. You get X many days and da, da, da, da da. Here's, here's how it worked. But I, I, I succeeded, but I was struggling in my own head with the empathizing with them to a certain degree. I really wanted this to be a transactional situation versus an employee engagement situation. I guess that would be the best way to put it. And that's just one example I've thought of of where I've come up short and I don't know I get it, because when you mentioned empathy, that's sort of where my mind went straight to that situation I had.

Speaker 2: 7:31

And how do you teach things like empathy? That's really. Some of these things are not innate to people. You know, like in sports, they say you can't teach speed. I think some things in the EQ world are they can't be taught. Maybe you can sympathize, synthesize them to a certain degree. You know, act it out. I know the part I have to play right now, but there's I. You can only fake it. So so much, so long.

Speaker 3: 8:01

Yeah, and it's very hard to teach. Like I said, you know it's and the question too, and we can maybe a different, a different path, but why isn't it taught at schools? Why isn't it taught at the college education? You think about the schooling piece and we can go down that rabbit hole and we can talk about that. But going back to your question is, how do you teach it?

Speaker 3: 8:21

I think there's a couple of pieces that I've seen work successfully and one you start with communication as your base, right, it's when people, when stuff hits the fan, it's where did it break in the communication? That we weren't clear on the expectations or whatever happens, you know. But taking a step back, I think it's one the good stuff. So how do you recognize the difference between recognition and appreciation and gratitude? And I think that's something we teach with the emotional piece. Everyone wants to be appreciated as a human, but everyone wants to be recognized in a different way. You can say I want to be recognized in a group of people, some people don't want their birthday song, you know saying to them at a restaurant leave me alone, just give me one-on-one, you know. So I think one is really separating the difference between recognition and that appreciation and gratitude.

Speaker 3: 9:19

The other piece is which is a big quote that I go by is don't manage your team, manage the expectation. So when I think about that, so when I think about about that is does your team know what's expected of them? Do you know, as a leader, what's expected of you and and how well do you communicate it? Because it might you know, and really what is the bottom line is? It is a customer service, a patient experience or whatever it is that you're trying to sell. And I think, within that communication, if you can, if you can put accountability in one hand and appreciation on gratitude, your expectations get a little easier for you to have those conversations and then, especially, you can separate the passion and the negative emotion that way as well. So passion and negative emotion is easier to separate when you're clear on, I think, the expectation.

Speaker 2: 10:13

Now, taking all that I just said and teaching that is certainly a little harder to do is examining the communication flow, because that, if you know what the communication flow is, I think that's usually going to be the source of most problems. I okay the topic. The name of the podcast is Jaded HR. It's probably one of the most unjaded things I'm going to say. I don't think people come into work thinking that, hey, I'm going to go in and screw up today, I'm going to do such a terrible job at my job today, everybody's going to hate me. Nobody does that.

Speaker 2: 10:58

I think people want to come in, and even the quiet quitters and all the bare minimalists, they come in wanting to do their job at least well. And if they're not performing well, you got to look at the communication, what was communicated to them and then how did they receive it, and then figure out where the wires got crossed. I haven't been proven wrong yet, but I haven't seen anybody get to the point where, yeah, let me just completely fuck this one up and let's see what happens. This will be fun.

Speaker 2: 11:34

But I think that in my management training that's what I do. I talk about let's examine the communication, because people don't want to do wrong. And another point I bring up in my communication training is when there is an issue, address it immediately. Because if you address it immediately, point A and point B are probably not that far apart, where, if you wait six months or a year or something like that, it's just that time is gone and it's wasted time and effort on everybody's part and it may not be recoverable at that point. And as a manager, they have to, you know, grow a pair sometimes and say, hey, warren, you did A, we need you to do B, let's talk about this and get you on the right track, and too many managers don't like those type of conversations.

Speaker 3: 12:25

Yeah, and you know, having difficult conversations is such a big hot topic right now as well with leaders, because they can get the job done for the associate, but as soon as they have to manage another team, they don't know how to do that. Or maybe they weren't taught those soft skills.

Speaker 2: 12:43

Yeah, yeah. Now where do you start with somebody in terms of we have a, you know, one of those Houston, we've got a problem issues? Where do you start when you need to identify, okay, this team, this group, this needs a little more than the normal training with EQ. Because, I mentioned earlier, my first impression I thought of when I first heard about it was it's just telling people to use common sense. But there is more to it, because if it was just as simple as using your common sense, well I wouldn't say it'd be easy because we know how that goes. But I think real life would be easier if we just started there.

Speaker 2: 13:28

But unfortunately we have to train some of these and I like what you said about starting it off in the schools, even elementary schools, because these are basic relationship issues that you're going to have to deal with in the workplace, on the playground, on sports teams. It's not going to escape you. Even if you're in retirement, you're going to have to deal with this, know how to deal with difficult people or what have you. That's why I think it's an important topic, because it is something, and in colleges, let's get rid of some of the British lit and stuff that nobody wants to take anyway and start using more practical skills. And I think that's where the traditional brick and mortar universities are still going wrong, whereas some of the non-traditional and my whole last episode was ranting on places of education. But some of these non-traditional schools have a much better program when it comes to teaching people the real skills they need to succeed as a professional.

Speaker 3: 14:30

Teaching people the real skills they need to succeed as a professional Agree. I think sometimes there are limited resources, curriculum constraints, those pieces. I think there's little room for comprehensive emotional intelligence education and so I think many teachers maybe don't have the resources, they don't have the training, the awareness or the methodologies on how to teach an emotional intelligence instruction, and maybe they leave it to that, when you're out of here, for you to to figure it out that way. But maybe it's gosh, you know, been ages for probably both of us in college, and maybe they are teaching something now that's a little more modernized as far as what's coming out the door when you get your diploma.

Speaker 2: 15:12

Kevin's got much more emotional intelligence than Warren does, and, as I think that's another problem I think some people, including myself, might have with some of these things, is I like things that can be measured. I like things that can be quantified and sorted and put into nice little categories where it feels at least as someone who doesn't know a lot about the subject it feels like it's something that's more subjective and it can be prone to human error. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 15:46

on that, I think. As far as the measuring, I agree with you. I'm not sure if it can really be measured, but really it's what are you working towards as your end goal within your career development and how did you get there? So I think it's more of the how, and can you link it back to maybe the competencies of the role or the level in that you operate in, whether you're a senior manager or a director? Can you? What are the? If you were to break down and say, hey, there's, these are the top five, six competencies of this role, how do you navigate them through it? How do you do it consistently but otherwise, how do you measure emotional intelligence? I think can be a little difficult for a company to to look through. I hope I'm wrong.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Yeah, and, but I because that if I'm promoting a manager and this is pine to sky talk, which I don't if I were in a position where I'm promoting someone to a manager, especially maybe their first management role, I would weigh emotional intelligence, because someone with a strong emotional intelligence is going to be able to probably pull more out of their team and get to know. Okay, this is what motivates kevin, this is what motivates warren, this is what motivates cc. This, this and you can, someone who has the ability to. Why am I trying to spit out here to tailor, not use a one-size-fits-all approach to their, to their management style.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Hey, maybe I'm going way off and being judgmental or whatever the word is, but also individual cultures play a role in this, because you mentioned earlier people being recognized. In my understanding is that the Far Eastern cultures do not like as much as individual recognition as, say, your good old American person. Shameful thing for someone to get pulled out and say, hey, in that culture. Hey, kevin, you did a fantastic job doing X, y, z, congratulations, attaboy. All the things that a lot of Westerners would probably love to be on center stage and look at me, but in in, in a lot of cultures that, look at me, is not good and and I think that's up to you know, and of course, that's paying with a hugely broad brush.

Speaker 2: 18:16

But if you know that, going in and learn about your employees and maybe hey, maybe you have that person that's not fit to mold, or maybe you have that American who just wants to come in make the donuts and get out and they don't care anything else, and that's, that can be okay, it really can. They can be great individual contributors, but as a manager, you just need to know okay, well, hey, you know, warren, warren, you did a good job. Send them an email, say, hey, I really like what you did on this, and just send it to them and that'll give them their appreciation that they they need. I think everybody needs to be recognized or appreciated at some level, regardless of how it works best for them and I agree and really good points and I like what you said about the Eastern culture.

Speaker 3: 19:02

but you can even take that and you can even go micro, even just down to any culture within a company within the US. All have different cultures, right, and so even with that you can take one that is really about appreciation and gratitude, has that more human approach to it, and then you have more that are more of a different view and straight with a vertical corporate ladder and such, you know, and has a different view on what emotional intelligence means to them and such, you know, and has a different view on what emotional intelligence means to them.

Speaker 2: 19:39

And now, I've never worked in any of these mega-sized companies. I've been in small to mid-sized companies my entire career, but also some of these big companies. You know, the accounting department, the East Coast accounting department, has a completely different culture and vibe than the West Coast team and I think that's perfectly fine as long as it's a functional culture. If everybody in the LA office is doing their thing and getting along and the work's getting done and everybody's happy and they're the most extroverted, let's party all the time, but they get their stuff done, that can be great for them, While the New York office they're a bunch of introverts. I'm getting in here at nine o'clock, not getting here a minute earlier, and I'm leaving at five, not a minute later, and I'm just going to sit in my corner, get my crap done, and those can, with the right people, both be effective teams.

Speaker 2: 20:27

And I think that's where I sort of fall out of love with some of the keynote speakers and things I hear talking about EQ in the workplace because they want to paint with the broad brush and hey, or even closer than that. You know HR. Everywhere I've worked, HR has sit somewhere close to accounting and everywhere I've worked, the culture and environment in the HR team and say the accounting team have been very, very different. And there's nothing wrong with either of them, generally speaking. No-transcript who want to sell me some program. That's where they lose me, because I don't know, painting with broad brushes, as I've done multiple times tonight, is a dangerous thing, but you have to know that. I think if that's a starting point at least and then you dig down from there, it can be a little bit better.

Speaker 3: 21:56

And maybe you just don't even bring up the word emotional intelligence and you just teach everything around it without even mentioning it and see what happens. I don't know. Like we said in the beginning, there are different ways around communication and expectations and culture and accountability, and gratitude and appreciation and putting that all together, you know, and matching social cues, and how do you make sure that you can lead that effectively? And maybe you just don't say, hey, it's not emotional intelligence, it's just everything else.

Speaker 2: 22:24

And talk about communication, once again, broad brush here. I can see that, boomer, if you will, who's at the C-level and they hear this emotional intelligence stuff and they're oh, bullshit, that's da-da-da-da, we don't need that. But if you start talking about a more optimal communication in the higher engagement levels, hey, now they're starting to get a little bit more buy-in. And that actually that's using your emotional intelligence to say, okay, who's my target audience here, what am I trying to, what are my goals, what am I trying to get? And you can actually weaponize, if you will, emotional intelligence. Once you start thinking that way, how do I get what I need out of this person? And, dare I just say, manipulate what you do to serve your purpose.

Speaker 2: 23:17

And I think that's sort of an art form that people in HR really need to do, because forever and a day we're seen as just overhead. And they wanted everything I mentioned about being transactional. They wanted everything to be transactional about HR. And nowadays HR has such a much more prominent role, broader role, than it ever has before. But how do you get there?

Speaker 2: 23:42

Sometimes you've got to take baby steps, to do the little things, to win the win, the war with some of the, the people you need to win over and it's knowing who you're dealing with and dealing with them at their level. And if you know that saying something like emotional intelligence is going to be a trigger for someone, hey, rephrase it, work better and work harder and figure out what's going to win them over. Is it manipulative? Yeah, but I guess that's another thing. If you become a EQ Jedi, if you will, you can use it to manipulate people, including employees who have maybe strongly held opinions about something. If you know what it is, tailored it more to them so they still get the message without hearing what is going to trigger them, for whatever their trigger mark is.

Speaker 3: 24:40

So you know we call that, we call that the HR Jedi mind trick. That's a phrase I and that's a phrase I've used before. It's that thinking of two steps ahead of the person that you're working with, it's the active listening skills, whether it's the physical body language, and how do you get to that conflict resolution? And that's where all you're you're absolutely right. It's effective communication and it's the listening, the coping skills and how do you regulate, and the C and those components, and that's all emotional intelligence at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 25:12

But when you started? But those are some of the things, oh gosh, that are parts of emotional intelligence as well.

Speaker 3: 25:20

Yes, it's the emotion regulation. It's emotion regulation technique. Again, it's the emotion regulation. It's emotion regulation technique. Again, it's providing strategies on managing stress, coping with difficult emotions, regulating one's reactions. That's all. That's a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence.

Speaker 2: 25:37

When it comes to training and getting people on board with and, like I said, maybe it requires some manipulation, but I I can't help but think. Once people actually see what the progress, what the the end goal is, and what we're, what eq in the workplace, I can't help but think they're going to appreciate it. I would hope. But once again, even though I'm Mr Jaded HR, I also think that it can be appreciated even without using the term emotional intelligence. And maybe because using the term emotional intelligence, and maybe because you know it does have a little bit of a woo factor to it that I think some people, when they hear that word, will back off from it and, like I said, I was one of them until I dove a little bit deeper in it. But what would you say to manipulate that person who is and maybe not the right word, but to persuade that person who is anti-emotional intelligence to realize the benefits they're going to gain out of it, without using the buzzwords that people are going to feel triggered by?

Speaker 3: 27:03

I think it is without the trigger words. It is understanding what they do. I would probably want to listen to them and say, hey, what do you love about your role, what do you dislike about it? And really just talk about their team and how they communicate with the team, how well they're doing. Have they gotten people promoted, kind of had them up a little bit, but understand what's their ultimate end goal and what is communication like with their team and are they really able to? If I said to your team, do they know what's expected of them? How would they react to that? How do they and how do you appreciate your team and show gratitude and how do you hold accountable and how do you do all that balancing at once? I would kind of want to break it down and kind of understand where their mind is on how well they manage their team.

Speaker 2: 27:53

And you mentioned something we discussed a little bit earlier, but I think part of emotional intelligence is doing some of the more difficult things. I mean it's great for when things are going well and it's time to give out promotions and raises and things like that, because those have positive outcomes. About managers who maybe they're great, they were the great individual contributor, but they're not a great manager or they don't have the people skills to manage effectively either help them become better managers or help them move on to realize that hey, maybe the individual contributor role was better for you or maybe this isn't the best fit for you. Getting them to buy in once again the Jedi mind trick of getting them to buy into what you're trying to do that's got to be a completely different game, yeah, and are they aligned with the company values that they offer?

Speaker 3: 29:13

And if they're really not on that wave, if they're not riding that wave that the company likes, it's a little bit difficult to kind of start. I don't think anyone that's very grumpy in their role and they walk in. Like you said, I'm going to screw something up today. And if they're not, and if they're like that, I don't know if that's something that's going to be a little more difficult to teach.

Speaker 2: 29:35

And then I guess the final place I wanted to head with this is my least favorite thing is dramatics in the workplace. I'm all for bringing your whole self to work and once again, even in the beginning of this podcast, you can hear Patrick and I talking about the whole self concept and how anti-whole self I am. But is it because I was associating it with drama? I don't want to know your baby daddy issues. I don't want to know that your mother-in-law is a real work of art. I don't want to know these things. But in terms of bringing your whole self to work, I want you to be happy and communicative and engaging with your coworkers at multiple levels at work. But I don't want the drama, the 24-7 issues that people hear. How could we use EQ in this realm to help get that person who is probably a pretty good worker already but just has so much external baggage that it's weighing them down at work versus from achieving everything they can achieve?

Speaker 3: 30:49

I think it gets to the point where you have to have that direct conversation, if that's the point. If they're bringing others down, if they're affecting them either emotionally or productive, wise it has to be a conversation and letting them know where other people are coming from. Though, again, you show that empathy that if they certainly have things going on in their life. I'm sorry to hear about that, but it's where you separate empathy and sympathy, and so you know. So I think really showing the difference between empathy and sympathy can go a long way.

Speaker 3: 31:21

Someone messes something up very big or they're having. We'll keep it as simple as attendance issues, you know, and they have personal things going on in their life and it's listen, I'm going to empathize to you because you have a sick child, because your car broke down, because you have things going on, but at the same time too, we've been clear on what maybe the attendance policy is, we've been clear on what the expectation is, and you know that, and so I don't have any sympathy for you, and so because of that, I feel bad for this, but the fact that you lost your job or you're getting written up for this, I can't sympathize. You got to separate the two.

Speaker 2: 32:12

Wow, I like that. That is wow and that made that sort of brought the whole empathy, sympathy thing together. Now, one question I was going to ask as we were going into that is, like I mentioned, I'm not good at empathy is, like I mentioned, I'm not good at empathy. I'm not even great with empathy with my own wife and children or things like that, because the way I was raised is okay, that sucked, get over it, move on. But people don't, especially Gen Z, and if you haven't heard, we have the segment, the reoccurring segment on the show shooting on Gen Z. But they want that higher level of empathy and, like I said, I can fake it so much, but I'm not going to be that touchy-feely, hold your hand, singing kumbaya with you and crying with you over whatever's going on in your life. I can't get there. I can't get there, like I said with my own children. A lot of times it's like, okay, grow the fuck up and get over it. I can't say or do that at work and I've had 25 plus years of restraining myself from saying that at work. But how do? Because obviously, especially in HR, empathy and sympathy and that's going to be my big takeaway from this whole podcast is the empathy versus sympathy.

Speaker 2: 33:31

But how do you go about teaching empathy and, like I said, I used it earlier, synthesizing it when it's not, because that's not something I well, I don't think. Well, I'll say that I don't think empathy can be taught. I think you can be taught, okay, how to react, how to do things. But at a certain point, like I was mentioning with the person's grandmother, I felt bad for them, I sympathized with them, I empathized with them, I sympathize with them, I empathize with them. But I didn't need the half hour discussion, but I didn't cut it off because they were in an emotional spot right now and I can get to that emotional spot period with them and I was just doing a lot of head nodding and oh, that's sweet and things like that, the cues, if you will, but I'm hoping I'm not a sociopath or anything like that by not being able to. I mean, I do feel bad for them, but we're also not friends at that level where I can be all touchy-feely, huggy with that particular person or anything like that.

Speaker 3: 34:38

Sure, I think one important piece is you know, whether you're HR or a parent or whatever role it is, painting the picture that if you were in their shoes, how bad it would feel. So, calling that, communicating that out loud, Wow, you know, I can only imagine you're going through all this and you know, I can't imagine what that's like. You know, and putting that to now, if it was a situation where you, kind of you, had a timeline and you had to go out. You know, and you can listen the example you were using earlier. It's just like an interview, when you're talking to someone and maybe they, maybe they're going in a different direction and they keep talking and you're trying and you're trying to get them to land the plane. You know it's wait until they take a deep wait until they breathe. They're human and they got gotta breathe at some point, right, so as soon as they breathe in, you gotta jump in there and whether it's a time constraint, or to say, hey, listen, you know here's, here's what you need.

Speaker 3: 35:30

Here are some resources to help you out in this time. But thanks for letting me know. I wish you the best I gotta. I gotta get going, whatever the situation may be. It's it's a song and dance and, like you said, it's a little it's a song and dance and, like you said, it's a little it's harder to, harder to do when you're in the moment. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2: 35:46

It is. Well, like I said, this is is probably the least jaded episode I think we've done, but I I really am intrigued by the topic and when Cece mentioned you'd done some presentations on this and this was an interest area for yours I was like this is really cool because I think there's more HR people than we don't have to be the touchy-feely HR department it's all sunshine and roses and party committees and things like that to really do a deeper dive in EQ in the workplace. If you want to call it something else, call it something else, because I think that the name especially with, like I said, boomers or even some experts like myself it can sound a little woo-ish to them. A little woo-ish to them, but if you take a look at it, I think having those type of resources and management training and even your employee training if you get to employees about conflict resolution, sometimes you don't even need to resolve a conflict. You can just say, okay, let's just stop and move on. It doesn't have to be, you win, I win. It's like okay, especially here we are.

Speaker 2: 37:02

We're about to enter a political season and just the other day I went through my Facebook feed and I was what do you call it putting snoozes or whatever on friends' notifications because I don't want to see their political crap and we're talking to some of my closest friends ever. I just I don't want to see your political crap. I don't want to do that. And it's in every big election cycle. It enters the workplace and somebody gets butthurt over it and it's at a point where you can say, okay, we can, we don't have to vote the same way and it's okay, that's fine, let's choose other topics to discuss versus holding a grudge You're a MAGA person, oh, you're a Libby or whatever it is. Just let things go and see them for the whole person and not who they are, even if they are annoying the hell out of you. That's right. So, yeah, let's go ahead and start landing this plane. And do you have any final words about EQ in the workplace that you'd like to share?

Speaker 3: 38:10

You know, I would say it's really just a balance of how do you hold people accountable and be a good human being at the same time, and while it's certainly a big important trait of how do you hold people accountable and be a good human being at the same time, and while it's certainly a big important trait in the workplace, I think at the end of the day it all comes down to really the mix of what you learn when you grow up from your parents, what you learn within schools, and combining all that and then within the workplace and finding that effective way that really works and have people following you as a good human.

Speaker 2: 38:44

Yeah, and I think just being a good human leads people to want to perform better for you. If you're a curmudgeon, you may be a subject matter expert in whatever field or whatever you're doing, but if you are a good human, you can inspire others and get more out of them just by your general personality, or even, once again, fake it, synthesize it, whatever you want to call it, to get your team on with you, and sometimes you have to wear that mask of who you are just to get through and then while you're dealing with them, and then they're gone or what have you. You move on. But that's important for all members in a group, whether it's a work group, a society, a neighborhood, a community, and, like you mentioned earlier, it has so much further implications and should be taught at the school level early on and going forward from there, because I think we lost a lot of civility, absolutely. So I do want to thank you for coming in and pinch hitting with us. We will definitely want to have you back. Maybe we can have a more jaded, raucous type of episode in the future. Just make some fun of people. I don't think we properly mentioned earlier, but you two are an HR professional, so you've got a whole HR family there. Empathy versus sympathy.

Speaker 2: 40:15

Go back and listen to Kevin's thoughts on that. That was sort of like the the eye-opening wow moment for me. So, uh, want to thank the underscore orchestra for use of the theme song devil at the devil, and then our voice artist, who does the intro, is andrew colpa. I want to thank him very much as well. And, kevin, thanks for joining us. I'm I'm absolutely sure we'll have you back at a later date as well, and, as always, I'm Warren, I'm Kevin, and we're here helping you survive. Hr one what the fuck. Moment at a time, thank you.