Introduction to Social Intelligence

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Introduction toSocial Intelligence
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Your Pet Peeves

• Pet peeves are things that bother you and can
  lead to extreme frustration.
• Write down your top three pet peeves, one per
  sheet.
• Do not include your name.

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Social Intelligence

• Social Intelligence can be defined asThe
  ability to get along well with others and to get
  them to cooperate with you.

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Annoying People

• Think of one person (at least one) whose company
  you do not enjoy. What about these people annoys
  you?
• Do they belch or fart in public?
• Do they say things inappropriately or at
  inappropriate times?
• Are they rude or crude?
• Do they have dissimilar interests?
• Write down as many characteristics as you can
  remember, no matter how trivial.

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Agreeable People

• Think of one person (at least one) whose company
  you enjoyone of those special people. What about
  these people do you like?
• Are they supportive?
• Do they share similar interests?
• Do they behave appropriately in public?
• Do they not embarrass you?
• Write down as many characteristics as you can
  remember, no matter how trivial.

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Compare

• Place the characteristics of these two types of
  people side by side on your paper.
• What do you avoid?
• What do you seek out?
• Most people see positive behaviors to be more
  attractive than negative behaviors.

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Toxic vs. Nourishing

• Karl Albrecht introduced the terms toxic and
  nourishing to show the contrast between the two
  types of behavior.
• Toxic behaviors cause others to feel devalued,
  inadequate, angry, frustrated, or guilty.
• Nourishing behaviors cause others to feel valued,
  capable, loved, respected, and appreciated.

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• People with high social intelligence, those with
  nourishing behaviors, become magnetic to other
  people.
• People with low social intelligence, those with
  toxic behaviors, become anti-magnetic and repel
  people.

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• Karl Albrecht also identified these terms
• Social Halitosis
• Social Flatulence
• Social Dandruff

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Social Halitosis

• Inauthentic, inconsiderate behaviorconversational
  bad breath.
• This is someone who invades your space and keeps
  talking with you even though youve tried to end
  the discussion.
• People such as these are completely incapable of
  seeing how they are disregarding the social
  rights of others.
• They treat others as things, entities,
  non-beings, and they see others only there for
  their own selfish purposes.
• We have no obligation to listen to these people.

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Social Flatulence

• Insensitivity and lack of situational awareness
  (or, possibly worse, lack of respect for the
  accepted norms of behavior).
• This would be someone who would shout out a loud,
  inappropriate remark
• It might be the one who asks the heavy set woman
  when she is due.
• It is ignorance of appropriate social behavior.
• It is the equivalent of a social fart.

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Social Dandruff

• Behavior that selfishly imposes ones interests
  on others.
• This would include music blaring from the next
  house, car, or cubicle.
• It may be the coworker who comes in every day,
  sits down, and talks with your as though that is
  all you have to do.
• Another example would be those who ask favors
  inappropriate to the relationship, or the one who
  always decides where to go for lunch.
• These people spray everyone in sight or within
  hearing of their views.

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These behaviors come from

• Lack of insight or concern for ones impact on
  others.
• These behaviors represent self-centered, selfish,
  and self-serving behaviorsthose lacking in
  consideration for others.

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Categories of Competence

• Situational Awareness The type of social radar
  where you can read situations and interpret the
  behaviors of people in these situations.
  Interpreting people includes their intentions,
  emotional states, and anticipated actions.
• Presence Also called bearing, presence
  includes verbal and non-verbal patterns,
  appearance, posture, voice quality, and
  movements. This is what others process to
  evaluate their impression of you.

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Categories of Competence

• Authority The radar of others to pick up signals
  from us that lead them to judge us as
  trustworthy, honest, ethical, open, or the
  oppositeunauthentic.
• Clarity The ability to explain yourself,
  illuminate ideas, transfer data and information
  accurately and clearly, and articulate your
  views.
• Empathy Having a feeling for someone else or
  sympathizing with them. Empathy is a shared
  feeling between two people.

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Working on Yourself

• Karl Albrecht suggests focusing on one element
  each day per week.
• First you need to be aware of how others see you.

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Adjective Pairs

• Assess yourself
• Try to get others to assess you as well.
• However, most people will be hesitant to give you
  candid feedback.
• Ask yourself if you are prepared to take it.
• Value of the results depends on how honest you
  were AND how honest others were.

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Adjective Pairs

• For each pair of adjectives, circle the number
  between them to indicate where you are on the
  scale.
• When done, stand back and see if there is a
  pattern.
• Are your numbers on one side or another?
• Do your answers tell a story?
• Do you go out of your way to make yourself look
  good?
• Do the highest ones suggest your particular
  strengths?
• Are there aspects you would like to develop, even
  if they are not low?

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Adjective Pairs

• Focus on one or two adjectives to which you will
  devote special attention.
• Experiment over the next few weeks with behaviors
  that might modify that behavior.

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Improving Your Social Intelligence

• Work on one area ONLY each day.
• Build Situational Awareness
• Build Presence
• Build Skills of Authenticity
• Build Skills of Clarity
• Build Skills of Empathy

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Building Situational Awareness

• Sit in a public place and watch groups of people.
  Try to figure out their relationships. How do
  they signal their relationships?
• Study the work contexts you are in throughout the
  day. How does the physical space influence how
  people behave? Who sits where in a meeting and
  what does that say about that persons status or
  attitude?
• Study the different social status levels you see
  interacting throughout the day. How do they react
  by their language, slang, figures of speech, use
  of profanity (or avoidance), or specialized
  vocabularies.
• Study the nonverbal signals people use to define
  and reinforce their relationships. How does a
  boss convey authority as opposed to a coworker?
  How do others show respect towards others in
  authority?
• Watch a TV show or movie with the sound off. How
  do the actors move and arrange themselves in
  relation to each other? How do they communicate
  their roles without sound? Do the nonverbal
  behaviors contribute to and reinforce the scene,
  or do they seem artificial?

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Building Presence

• Find your most natural way of telling who you are
  by the way you stand, walk, talk, dress, and
  interact. Express your own voice. Think about
  meeting you for the first time, what would that
  be like? How would you like it to be?
• Leave a long message on your voice-mail system
  and play it back a few days later. This will let
  you know how you sound to strangers. Note any
  changes.
• Record a lengthy conversation with friends (audio
  or video). Study yourself and others noting any
  behaviors or habits that show empathy or
  authenticity.
• Ask one or more close friends to share with you
  the impressions they got when meeting you for the
  first time. This might help learn aspects to
  improve.

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Building the Skills of Authenticity

• Keep track of situations where others try to get
  you to contradict your personal values? How did
  you react? How did you assert your rights?
• Keep track of situations in which you acted a
  certain way and later felt uneasy about the
  choice you made. Did you give in? Did you take
  the easy route? Did you avoid disagreeing with
  someone?
• Make a list of your emotional inputsthe
  signals or behaviors you need from others to help
  you feel loved, worthy, or capable. Do some of
  these draw you into behaving in inauthentic
  waysseeking approval, avoiding conflict,
  manipulating others, or being hones with your
  values or motives?
• Think about your primary values and things you
  hold most dear. Are you behaving in ways that
  actualize your values?
• Write a personal mission states that explains to
  yourself why you think you are on the planet,
  what you priorities are, and what you can do to
  make your life meaningful. Keep revising it until
  it expresses your life. Then display it.

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Building the Skills of Clarity

• Watch the way articulate people present ideas.
  Review interviews and listen to conversations to
  identify the methods they use the flow of ideas,
  sequencing ideas, helicopter language, elevator
  messages, use of facts and figures, metaphors,
  word pictures, and use of humor.
• Take a vocabulary test to assess the size and
  breadth of your vocabulary. If desired, seek to
  expand it.
• Collect powerful metaphors and use them as
  appropriate.
• Learn to illustrate your ideas with sketches or
  stories.

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Building the Skills of Empathy

• Watch someone who seems unable to connect with
  others easily, and note which behaviors seem to
  alienate others. Think of behaviors that could be
  incorporated that would enable him or her to be
  more skillful.
• Watch someone who connects easily with others.
  Make a list of behaviors that seem to attract
  others.
• Imagine you meet someone new at a social event.
  Write five things you can say or do to loosen
  him up. These should be things that allow the
  person to share freely.
• The next time there is an argument between
  people, make a list (afterwards, of course) of
  the toxic, empathy-destroying things any of the
  participants said or did that aggravated the
  situation. What could have been done differently?

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