Work has changed to become more personal and pressurised than ever before. There is a recognition that raw brain-power is not enough… and never has been.

Studies prove that the difference between average and outstanding performers at work lies in the ability to blend IQ with EI.

• Are you aware of your emotional strengths and how you are perceived by others?
• Can you handle situations of stress and conflict?
• Do you possess the ‘master aptitudes’ of motivation and resilience?
• Can you empathise with staff or customers? How is your social adeptness in networking scenarios?
• Is your leadership an inspiration or an impediment?
• These learnable skills – covered in this workshop – are vital and valued in the new world of work.

To book a place, contact Marc Forte at the School of Education (Short Courses Programmes) on 028 9097 5260 or email cpd@qub.ac.uk.

Image credit: eneas.

The whole ‘nature versus nurture’ debate is increasingly fought out in the field of education.  In an interesting article called Nature, nurture and exam results, Mike Baker looks at the current state of play.  Which is, that a child’s family background largely dictates their potential for academic success.

According to Professor Chris Woodhead – former controversial Chief Inspector of Schools in England – genetic inheritance plays the decisive factor.  He has a swathe of anecdotal evidence on his side.

Yet others, coming at matters form a more policy-making agenda, want to play up the part of social class as a determinant.

However kids start off, “subsequent educational success is more likely to go to those with affluent, middle-class parents” says the article.  Those nefarious suburbanites are at it again!

I have only a few points to make.

The first is that intelligence is not the same as academic skill.

The article, and most of those in the education sector, seem to equate the two.  One would think that they had never heard of Multiple Intelligence Theory, probably the best theory in the world (in a Carlsbergian sense).  Traditional academic skill in words and numbers is one way of expressing intelligence.  There are others – bodily movement, personal interactions, attunement with nature, capacity for self-reflection, spatial awareness, and musical appreciation.

So the question is not whether you are intelligent, but in what way you express it.  The education system in the UK has still not faced up to this liberating truth.

In my opinion, monkeys can be taught to pass exams.  It’s not the big deal we were told it was.

My other point is that motivation is more important than raw ability when it comes to life success.

The world seems increasingly full of academically smart people (i.e. university graduates) who aren’t making much of their lives.  They don’t know what they want, they aren’t interested in self-improvement, they work for money and nothing more.  The averagely bright person with enthusiasm will always ace the smart person who can’t be bothered trying or who fades out at the first setback.

And the twist is, this very ability to motivate yourself is in itself a form of intelligence!  (Emotional intelligence writers call motivation “the master aptitude” for a good reason.)  So perhaps that supposedly ‘average but optimistic’ kid isn’t so average after all.

The great thing is that you can learn this optimism. You can grow your own self-motivation skills.  You can teach yourself to be resilient when the chips seem down.

You can become gifted.

Image credit: Werwin15.

While you’re here, it seems an opportune moment to remind you of my 2-day EI workshop on 27-28 May, Emotional Intelligence Goes to Work.  I’m running it as part of the Queen’s Univerity CPD programme.

“Workshop description: Emotional Intelligence (EI) is more than a sign of the times or the latest management movement – although it is both. Work has changed to become more personal and pressurised than ever before.  There is a recognition that raw brain-power is not enough… and never has been.  Studies prove that the difference between average and outstanding performers at work lies in the ability to blend IQ with EI.  Are you aware of your emotional strengths and how you are perceived by others?  Can you handle situations of stress and conflict?  Do you possess the ‘master aptitudes’ of motivation and resilience?  Can you empathise with staff or customers?  How is your social adeptness in networking scenarios?  Is your leadership an inspiration or an impediment?  These learnable skills – covered in this workshop – are vital and valued in the new world of work.”

You’re probably reading this blurb and wondering where the sex went!  Well, while I do believe in mixing business with pleasure, there are limits, even for me…

To book a place, phone Marc Forte at the School of Education (Short Courses Programmes) on 028 9097 5260 or email cpd@qub.ac.uk.

So the other day I got the chance to see the film that won those eight Oscars – Slumdog Millionaire.  Here’s how the Internet Movie Database describes the plot.

“A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.”

One of the things I liked about it was the way it started, which got me thinking from the outset.  The story begins with a multiple-choice question typed on the screen. “Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees,” it reads. “How did he do it? A) He cheated. B) He’s lucky. C) He’s a genius. D) It is written.”

Here is a fair selection of the different ways people imagine success can come in life.  You can take a short-cut.  You can win a lottery (or equivalent).  You can be smarter or better than everyone else (or at least the vast majority of people).  Or you can follow your destiny.

I’m a fan of short-cuts.  I don’t mean doing things that are unethical or illegal.  I mean what is sometimes called ‘lazy intelligence’.  Getting the same reward as others for less work, or more reward for the same work.  There is a way of planning this form of ‘cheating’, commonly called the Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity.  I’m a fan.  To find out more, read the books of Richard Koch.

Then there’s luck.  Believe in it or not, but it does play a part in success if you learn to use it right.  A better name for this phenomenon is serendipity, the accidental discovery of something good while looking for something else.  This has led to many of the great scientific discoveries in the fields of chemistry, pharmacology and astronomy.  Or, for the more psychologically minded, there is synchronicity, when two seemingly unrelated events come together in a meaningful way.  (Example.  I had just learned about synchronicity and was thinking about it.  Two days later I went into a second hand book shop.  I saw a book on synchronicity on the floor, having never seen one before.  True story.)

Intelligence is still a topic for hot debate.  However the research plays out in academia, I think I’m safe in saying that intelligence is a lot borader than it used to be.  The usual ‘Emotional Intelligence’ formula is success = IQ + EQ (emotional quotient).  For others, its left brain + right brain.  Choose Goleman or Howard Gardner, Pink or Ned Hermann; it doesn’t matter too much.  These are different ways of saying the same thing.  You can develop your intelligence in every way that matters.

And as for “It is written”, I’m still thinking about it.  I like the whole destiny thing, Dawn doesn’t.  I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell‘s stuff again recently.  Here’s a good quote that perhaps sheds some light on it.

“BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of… being helped by hidden hands?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time – namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

Like the title of this blog, the presentation was called Star Wars Goes to Work.  My subtitle sheds a bit more light on the content: How to Use Jedi Mind-Tricks in Your Job to Get Your Way, Become Indispensable, and Stay Sane. In it I offered tasters on topic like assertiveness and empathy at work (“how to get your way”), creativity and concentration (“how to become indispensable”), and emotional self-care and control (“how to stay sane”).

Here’s how the talks were described in the promotional material.

The presenter, Dr Allen Baird, a well-known communications guru, runs Sensei Learning and Performance, a Training, Coaching and Consulting company based in Belfast. He also delivers the short course Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way, at Queen’s University in Belfast, which aims to teach the real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks. Dr. Baird’s presentation will cover empathy and non-verbal communication, influencing and persuasion skills, and aims to deliver a serious message behind a fun image.

And here’s what they said about me.

Allen Baird PhD is a partner of Sensei Learning and Performance, a Belfast based training and coaching consultancy.  Allen specializes the design and delivery of management training and personal development workshops.  He also consults on Emotional Intelligence, as well as issues related to business ethics issues and gender awareness.  Allen is a qualified tutor at the Queen’s University Belfast, an award-winning public speaker, and a business advisor for Young Enterprise.  He enjoys writing business blogs and making learning fun.

I thanked them for this flattering – if slightly unbelievable – introduction…  I would like to thank those who organized these events, as well as the audiences, for their invitation, welcome and enthusiastic attention.  An auditor is literally one who listens, a hearer.  What better sort of audience could any speaker ask for?