0:10

Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out.

0:22

I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tons more success for everyone.

0:39

This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.

0:47

Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.

1:03

So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.

1:10

Okay then, we talk a lot about emotional intelligence in the workplace and how important it is.

1:19

Some of it is though, I think, informed, misinterpreted and on occasions absolute guff, but more on that later.

1:28

Though today, leaders are told to be more empathetic, to create psychological safety and to make their teams feel comfortable.

1:37

But what if in trying to make work nicer like that, we've actually made it worse?

1:44

What if emotional intelligence has been hijacked, turned into something performative rather than real?

1:53

What if some leaders are using it to avoid hard decisions rather than build true trust and resilience?

2:01

And in our efforts to create safe, inclusive workplaces, have we accidentally stripped people of the very challenges and discomforts that actually helped them grow?

2:12

That's what we're going to unpack today with my guest, Dr. Robin Hills.

2:16

Robin is a business psychologist and director of EI4Change, specializing in emotional intelligence, resilience and leadership.

2:25

He's worked with over half a million people across 195 countries.

2:30

And if anyone can cut through the noise on this topic, it's got to be him.

2:35

So think about your own workplace.

2:37

Do the leaders around you, maybe even yourself, truly use emotional intelligence to build trust?

2:44

Or does it sometimes just feel like an act?

2:48

Are difficult conversations happening or being avoided in the name of psychological safety?

2:54

And what about your own experiences? Have efforts to make work more comfortable actually helped you thrive?

3:01

Or have they left you feeling stuck?

3:04

Well, stick with us for what I think is going to be a fascinating conversation.

3:08

Robin, welcome to the show. Andy, it is a pleasure to be on your show.

3:13

Thank you for having me on here. I am thoroughly looking forward to this conversation.

3:18

I mean, just some of those stats, half a million people across 195 countries.

3:23

We are in the presence of greatness, Robin, and I am looking forward to diving into that wisdom on this topic that I do think can get a bit of a bad rap from time to time.

3:35

It can, but where's this greatness? Is it in that plant behind me?

3:41

It's certainly not what I set out to do or be, but that's just the way things happen, isn't it?

3:47

Hey, listen, we'll take the serendipity of all this stuff and we will wallow in it, my friend.

3:52

Now, before I get all excited and start trying to pick your brains on this EI topic, let's just take a pause and why don't you share a little bit more of your background with us and how you've come to do what you do today?

4:07

Sure, sure, sure. I graduated at the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s.

4:14

It was that long ago. It was a century.

4:17

And I graduated with a degree in biology from Durham University, and I wanted to do something that built upon what I've been studying, but go and do something completely different.

4:31

I had had enough of academia. And so I went to become a medical representative down in London, which involves medical selling, selling to GPs and hospital doctors.

4:46

And I had a love hate relationship with it.

4:49

I eventually got promoted to becoming a hospital rep just to specialize in hospital medicine, which takes a lot of courage because hospital doctors are not the easiest people to see.

5:05

And certainly they're not the easiest people to sell to.

5:08

But I did it and I managed to do it for well over a decade.

5:13

I moved up to the Northwest to take up a leadership and management role still within the pharmaceutical industry.

5:21

And then the role was made redundant.

5:24

And I took up another role and that was made redundant.

5:28

And eventually I found myself having gone through a number of changes within the pharmaceutical industry, having been made redundant about three or four times.

5:39

And I thought, you know, I can make myself redundant here.

5:42

So I looked at what it was that I'm good at doing.

5:48

And that is influencing, persuading and working with people to help them make good choices.

5:56

And so I set myself up in business well over 15 years ago to really specialize in people development.

6:04

And after a year or two, decided to specialize in the area of emotional intelligence.

6:11

It was very much a buzzword at the time.

6:15

Not so well known and not so well respected as it is now.

6:20

But I had a bit of an uphill struggle trying to convince people what emotional intelligence was about even then.

6:28

But it was a lot harder than it is now because a lot of people hadn't heard of it.

6:32

And that's the thing, isn't it? I think it comes with all sorts of different connotations to it.

6:39

I mean, I mentioned in the intro about there being a fair amount of guff around the topic.

6:46

And I want to see today whether in shining a light on this topic, maybe you can expose some of that, some of that guff and get people to think about this sort of stuff on the right track rather than some of the misleading or misconceived comments around AI that's out there today.

7:07

Yeah, sure. I think we could knock quite a few of these misconceptions on the head, Andy, because there is a lot of guff around emotional intelligence.

7:16

And I think one of the key bits of guff is that we should suppress our emotions and we should be nice and kind to everybody.

7:28

And whilst there is some truth in that, I think what we've got to do is to work with our emotions more positively.

7:36

Be kind, be nice to people, but make hard decisions.

7:42

So I think the best thing to do, let's define emotional intelligence so that we know what we're talking about.

7:48

Well, that's a great place to start. So who better to ask for a definition of emotional intelligence than you yourself, Robin?

7:56

So what is your definition of it?

7:58

My definition of emotional intelligence is very simple.

8:02

It's being smart with your feelings. It's the way in which you combine your intelligence, your intellect, with your emotions, your feelings, in order to make good, authentic decisions, and build up quality relationships, and then to take appropriate action.

8:24

So effectively, it's being cruel to be kind when that's appropriate, but to do so with kindness, and to ensure that you are doing the right thing with the right person at the right time and in the right way.

8:45

And from a neuroscience perspective, is this about trying to make, I guess, stronger connections between the sort of limbic system and the prefrontal cortex system, the emotion and the logic stuff?

9:02

Is this what we're really trying to get to with emotional intelligence?

9:05

Is a blend and better, stronger connections of the two?

9:08

Or is that another sort of misconception? No, no, no, that is not a misconception at all.

9:14

And I think when I work in the field of neuroscience, a lot of trainers will talk a lot of guff around neuroscience, because they heard that it's a hot topic at the moment.

9:27

And quite honestly, the morphology of the brain beyond what you've described, Andy, is irrelevant when we're talking to people in business.

9:36

So what we've got to do is to have an understanding that the limbic system is a filter for emotions.

9:44

And it's a very important filter, but there is a small gap, as it as it works, in order that we can then make the decisions, make the choices around the decisions that we need to make, underpinned by the emotions.

10:03

I think if we had a tally of the word emotion today on this podcast, it's gonna hit a high number.

10:09

But when we're thinking about emotions specifically, there's quite a bit sort of said about positive emotions and negative emotions.

10:16

Again, does your guff meter go off at that point?

10:20

Or is there some some real interesting and important things to understand about that?

10:27

Yes, my guff meter goes into overdrive at that point, because even psychologists will use the term positive and negative emotions, and people in the field of emotional intelligence.

10:40

But look, emotions contain data.

10:44

Data is neither positive nor negative.

10:47

It's what you do with the data.

10:50

It's how you react and how you respond, how you behave that can take the label positive and negative emotions.

10:58

Yeah, some of the emotions that we experience are not not particularly pleasant.

11:04

And if there's a high intensity of those emotions, yes, it can feel like they have a negative effect on us.

11:13

But the important thing is those emotions, that data is telling us something.

11:20

And what we've got to do is to work with those emotions, in order that we can engage with our environment more appropriately.

11:29

People with under high levels of stress are going to feel that their environment is not conducive to positive outcomes.

11:39

And when we are under intense stress, both you and I and all of your listeners will know that it is incredibly difficult to make these decisions.

11:51

But what we've got to do is we've got to actually say, look, things are not going the way in which I want them to at the moment.

11:59

I'm just going to have to ride with it, knowing there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

12:05

But let's speed towards that light as quickly as we possibly can.

12:09

Absolutely. Within all of that stuff, there must be some personal interpretation that's going on in when we're feeling these things.

12:19

And again, I don't know whether this is the right or the wrong thing to say, but I often liken it myself to feel the feeling of nervousness or excitement.

12:30

I mean, I think they're the same source.

12:33

It's just how we have interpret them or the state that we currently find ourself in that then interprets that feeling as either excitement or nervousness.

12:43

I mean, is that again, yes, that's true, or is that another misconception?

12:49

No, I think there's an element of truth in it.

12:53

There's also an element of misconception in there.

12:56

What I would want to do is to take it back a little bit more basically to what is the physiological state that is going on in your body?

13:07

What is driving this emotion, be it nervousness or excitement?

13:14

And to do some interpretation around it.

13:18

Is this conducive to me behaving in a constructive way?

13:25

Excitement? Or is it conducive to me behaving in a destructive way?

13:32

Nervousness. And that's the way in which I would look at it.

13:36

I'd also ask you to consider your psychology in this situation.

13:42

What is driving the excitement?

13:44

What is driving the nervousness? How are you labeling it?

13:48

Because your nervousness, Andy, might be my anxiety.

13:52

Your excitement might be my anticipation.

13:56

So what we've got to do is we've got to look at what our labels for these emotions mean, and look at it very much at a personal level to make the decisions that we need to make as individuals and so become more emotionally intelligent.

14:14

What a wonderful, wonderful kind of summary of all that rubbish I've just talked at the start and the questions I've asked.

14:21

That is wonderful. And I really love that whole point about constructive or destructive outcomes as a result of use of ER.

14:31

I think that is brilliant. What I would like to get into is this thing around work and emotional intelligence at work.

14:41

Now, I recently read a really interesting paper by a guy called Dean Leak, who wrote something on LinkedIn around the question, have we made work too comfortable?

14:53

And I thought it was a cracking read.

14:56

I forwarded it out on LinkedIn. I did a video around that question itself, have we made it too comfortable?

15:03

And I have to say, the response was not what I expected at all.

15:09

Maybe it's just me. Whenever I post on LinkedIn, I kind of expect a few haters to come out and start saying, what are you talking about?

15:15

But it was really split. There were definitely people who thought, yeah, do you know what?

15:20

We've gone too far. We've made everything feel very nice and comfy.

15:25

And whenever we avoid conversations, everybody's got to feel very good.

15:28

And the minute you start challenging somebody, you're drawn to HR because you've upset somebody.

15:34

And on the other side of it was, no, no, no, no, no.

15:38

We haven't gone too far. We need to do more of this.

15:42

We need to make this work even harder.

15:46

And then there's people who are in the middle, I guess, living their lived experience right now.

15:50

But I do worry that with terms or buzzwords, whatever you want to call it, like emotional intelligence and work-life balance and niceness, that we are shying away from some of the things I think, whether in life or in work, that actually help us grow.

16:09

No one ever grew from being comfortable, in my experience.

16:13

It's the tough stuff that makes us a bit harder.

16:16

So in all of the work you do with the many, many clients you have, what's your view on this whole thing?

16:22

Have we made work too comfy?

16:25

And where does EI fit in with that? Well, I think to answer the question that you posed on LinkedIn, for me, the answer is, it depends.

16:34

And it depends upon the culture that you're working within.

16:38

Because some organizations will have gone a step too far, and some won't.

16:44

It depends upon the leadership team.

16:46

Some of them are incredibly tough, to the point where they bully people.

16:53

And they really could take a step back and actually say, we need to be a little bit nicer and a bit kinder.

17:00

And then there are some cultures where people have gone the other way, and they are being too nice, too kind.

17:08

And if I can pull in a guff word myself, we're into the realms of wokeism, where nobody can say anything or do anything without the point that they might upset somebody.

17:25

Well, you know, people who are offended, that's their problem.

17:30

They've got to look at why they're offended.

17:33

And they've got to look at whether the person has deliberately set out to be obnoxious.

17:40

Now, in those sort of situations, that needs to be dealt with.

17:44

But if somebody is not setting out to be obnoxious, and actually, quite unintentionally says the wrong thing, or does the wrong thing, then you don't come down on them like a ton of bricks, you actually take them to one side and say, were you aware of the impact of your behavior, what you've said in this circumstance?

18:10

Can you be a little bit more mindful in the future?

18:13

Because it can be perceived as being racist, homophobic, whatever it might be.

18:22

But I think we've just got to accept that people out there in the world are going to be different from us.

18:32

Look at you and I, Andy, here we are, two white men from England, who are middle aged, if I can give you that label.

18:46

Oh, you're so kind. There is nothing we can do about that, Andy, we've just got to accept it.

18:54

And there are going to be people out in the world who are black, female, and 20 years younger than us.

19:04

Now, what we've got to do is we've got to embrace that difference.

19:08

We've got to recognize that they are different.

19:11

What is it that we can learn through that difference that will help us grow?

19:17

And how can we help and support them in order to help them grow?

19:23

And okay, we might say the wrong thing unintentionally.

19:29

I suppose the best way to say it is be emotionally intelligent.

19:35

Yeah, I definitely say things wrong at times, judging by the looks that my kids give me around the dinner table.

19:43

It's, it's rarely intentional.

19:46

And but I do think this perspective is really, really important.

19:49

And also, I think your answer to the question, I mean, I never thought for one second there would be a one size fits all answer to the question of, have we made work too comfy?

20:00

Of course, it depends on where you are in your lived experience and who you're working with.

20:05

But I just wonder whether generally, there's this feeling that we've got the balance wrong.

20:12

And it's, it's, I don't know, I don't know whether it's journalism, or whether it's zeitgeist, or whatever it is, the mood music would would tend to sort of be on the black or white of that question.

20:24

I think nowadays, it's very hard to sort of explore the grey in the middle, because the algorithm doesn't give you grey, it gives you things you agree with, or things that are going to absolutely trigger.

20:34

So trying to understand where we are in the middle.

20:37

Yeah, well, it's not as exciting. No, but that's where I think the truth lies.

20:40

In a lot of the cases, somewhere in somewhere in the middle.

20:44

I think you're absolutely right. And I'm all for shades of grey, if I could use that word.

20:52

Well, let's get ourselves out of hot water.

20:56

And think about, well, maybe I don't know whether this will get us out of hot water or not.

21:01

I made this comment in the introduction about, in some cases, emotional intelligence becoming more performative than, if you like real, and that people are putting on some sort of act, or that they I've been on the day course of for emotional intelligence, and therefore I am now emotionally intelligent, but then the behaviour doesn't change.

21:29

And if I know anything about emotional intelligence, that's a lot of time and practice that's required to sort of like, I don't know, re-engineer your neural pathways to get away from the instant automatic reaction that my emotions will tell me to do.

21:43

But what do you see in all your work?

21:46

I mean, why are clients hiring you to talk to them about this sort of stuff?

21:50

What is going on in the workplace, that means you have to help people understand this topic in such great detail, that they can actually do something positive with it?

22:03

Well, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, Andy, when I'm going out and talking to clients around the difference that I could make in terms of my training, I don't talk to them about emotional intelligence.

22:16

I talk to them about what it can do.

22:18

It's leadership, it's team working, it's collaboration, it's equality and diversity, it's conflict.

22:26

So what I will do is talk around that. Yes, I will bring in emotions as being a major component of all of those facets of working within the workplace.

22:40

But I try to get away from this idea of emotional intelligence as being the be-all and end-all of the training, because as you rightly say, people will go on half a day to learn about emotional intelligence, and are they going to be emotionally intelligent at the end?

22:59

No, they're not. They will know more about emotional intelligence, but as you rightly say, they've got to go away and practice it.

23:07

They've got to go away and be it. They've got to go away and change their behavior and set up new neural pathways.

23:16

And it leads me to pose a very, very important question.

23:21

Am I emotionally intelligent?

23:24

Because if I answer yes, it's rather arrogant and self-conceited and suggests there's no room for improvement.

23:32

But if I answer no, what on earth am I doing in this field of emotional intelligence?

23:40

It depends.

23:44

The question's wrong. Really, there are situations where I'll go into and I will engage with people at a really deep emotional level and I'll come out of that situation and I'll feel good about the interaction and I'll feel good about myself.

24:03

And there are other times when I go into a situation and I misread it and I completely screw up.

24:10

Why? Because I'm human like you are, Andy, so we are going to make these mistakes.

24:15

I think we've just got to live and grow through them.

24:18

I don't know about you. Maybe it's my own experience, but if anybody claims that they are or have high levels of emotional intelligence, to me, that's normally a signal that they don't have any.

24:31

Yes, I've got good emotional intelligence.

24:34

And I often get people saying that to me because I work in the field of emotional intelligence.

24:42

So I've got to be very careful as to how I manage my emotions.

24:48

And I've got to be very careful as to how I respond.

24:51

I bet. I mean, do you see this claiming to be emotionally intelligent on the rise with the leaders that you work with?

25:02

I mean, again, it's a very generalist question, but I'm just wondering whether there is this because it's become such a thing, such a word, such a phrase that may be overused phrase.

25:14

Are people sort of looking at it as a plus or minus on their CV?

25:20

I'm good at it. I'm not good at it. I therefore need to say that I am.

25:25

I am good at emotional intelligence. Yes, I think you're right.

25:29

And I think that's down to the fact that they've been on a one or a two day training course and they feel that they have ticked all the boxes.

25:38

I would not use the fact that I'm emotionally intelligent on my CV.

25:43

That will be the last thing I will put on.

25:46

And what I would do is a tip, perhaps for some of your listeners, if you've been profiled through a very, very, very good profiling tool like Myers-Briggs type indicator or disk, or I know you're qualified in luminous spark.

26:07

I would, I would actually take the output of that and use that in a friendly language and put that on, on my curriculum beta.

26:19

So I would put that in my profile at the beginning because that is a piece of robust information that can be proved.

26:30

So a lot of people will put on their CV or good team player and good communicator.

26:35

Yeah, yeah, everybody does that. So, you know, what makes you different?

26:40

Go and have a look at those reports and distill out the key words that defines you as an individual and put that on your CV.

26:49

That's great. Absolutely great advice.

26:52

And that comes back to your point from before as well, that that's hard data, right?

26:55

That's real, real concrete data.

26:59

I'm interested in your opinion as well, again, because you come across such a wide variety of of people in the work that you do.

27:06

And I, again, I worry that the either misinterpretation of or the poor deliberate delivery of emotional intelligence or even the social background that we're dealing with is putting people off being, I guess, challenging and making life a little bit too easy and maybe too accommodating.

27:35

And maybe avoiding some of those really necessary confrontations that we need to have from time to time to work things through or to to be shown a different perspective or to just just literally think better.

27:51

Do you think there is a trend that we're starting to use emotional intelligence as a as a block for getting into those more challenging situations?

28:02

Or again, is that is that a guff myth that you've not really seen a lot of?

28:06

Well, I think it is a lot of guff, not what you've said.

28:15

I think there is a lot of guff around how people interpret what you've said there, Andy.

28:23

I think what a lot of people will be doing is thinking, oh, if I go on an emotional intelligence training course, I will become more emotionally intelligent.

28:33

This is something that I need to be a lot more focused on.

28:37

It's one of the core skills of the 2020s as defined by by Forbes.

28:43

Therefore, I've got to look at being more emotionally intelligent.

28:47

Yes, it might be in the top five, but the other four in the top five, things like collaboration and creativity and communication skills.

28:56

And I can't remember the last one.

28:58

They're all underpinned by emotional intelligence.

29:01

So if you get the emotional intelligence right and don't say you're emotionally intelligent, then all of those other skills will be will be dealt with and you'll become more proficient at everything.

29:16

What really, really concerns me is that last week, by way of example, I was doing some research myself through LinkedIn posts, and I came across an organization that does emotional intelligence training for the government, and I was able to download one of the workbooks.

29:37

Well, there was nothing inherently wrong within the workbook.

29:43

They were just focusing on inappropriate elements of emotional intelligence.

29:48

Let's have a look at being nice.

29:50

Let's have a look at doing the right thing.

29:53

Let's have a look at trying to do emotional intelligence in the right way.

30:02

Unfortunately, doing a bit of further research and having a look at the trainers, they're not specialists in emotional intelligence.

30:10

They just happen to be leaders. Sorry, they just happen to be trainers that have jumped onto a bandwagon and have thought, oh, well, let's put today together a day's training course.

30:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, but do it properly.

30:25

And unfortunately, you're not going to do it properly unless you really study emotional intelligence and you really take to heart what it is and what it means, both the good sides and the bad sides.

30:41

And I really do want to stress that because there are a lot of people out there.

30:47

We talked about them. They think that emotional intelligence is a fad.

30:52

It's not. It's been around for easily almost half a century, and it was certainly bought into the public consciousness about 30 years ago, and we've been building and expanding on it ever since.

31:09

And the other thing that we've just got to bear in mind here, Andy, is that there is a downside to emotional intelligence in that if you can utilize emotional intelligence, you can utilize it to your advantage and you can manipulate people's emotions without mentioning anybody's name, although it will be inherently obvious when I talk about this.

31:40

Politicians are very, very good at manipulating people's emotions.

31:46

They are masters at it.

31:49

They will get them to vote for them when really the person hasn't given due consideration to what they're voting for.

31:57

And if I can take back to the 1930s, we saw it with Adolf Hitler.

32:03

I mean, I've said I think this is the thing about and maybe not the thing, but I think the manipulation is such an interesting topic because I think there's two sides of it as well.

32:18

This is my worry about you challenging someone at work and immediately someone plays the emotion card and that's not fair and that you're picking on me, blah, blah, blah, blah.

32:30

Even that's manipulative in that sense, right?

32:34

And on the other side that you're talking about, yeah, that is Machiavellian.

32:38

That is right. I understand you.

32:41

I understand all your triggers. I'm now going to use them for my goodness, your downfall.

32:49

And if I had a mustache, I'd be twirling it at this point, I'm sure.

32:54

But it is that dark art element of it that I think is really very interesting.

33:01

And many of us have worked for manipulative people.

33:07

And you know what that feels like because it does feel like a very emotional relationship.

33:13

They seem to put you in situations that either deprive you of your confidence or your self-esteem or all these things and make you act in a way that isn't conducive to your personal great welfare or performance.

33:28

Having experienced that myself, it's a tricky old thing to kind of deal with.

33:33

It's a really tricky thing to get out of. It's quite a toxic relationship.

33:37

It is. It is. And indeed, I'm working with some younger people who are going through exactly what you've described.

33:45

I've gone through it myself. And what I am trying to do is to get them to take control of the situation and make appropriate choices.

33:57

If it is that bad, you've got the choice to exercise around getting out of it and going and finding yourself another job.

34:05

It's very easy for me to say it is incredibly difficult to do because you might be tied to that particular role because of the salary or the benefits that come with it.

34:18

It might be incredibly difficult to find another job.

34:22

They're not that easy to come by. You have to take time out of work.

34:27

You have to go along for interviews.

34:31

You might be accepted for the role.

34:33

You might not be. It's quite an emotional rollercoaster going through it.

34:37

But what I do say to people is that you will be a better person because of it, not despite it.

34:46

So learn through this process.

34:49

Learn more about yourself so that in five years time, you can look back and say, yeah, I'm in a better position to be able to do something positive with it.

35:00

I've been through it. You've been through it.

35:04

We wouldn't be here talking today if it wasn't for those experiences.

35:09

A hundred percent, my friend.

35:11

I think the great thing about what you say, and it is incredibly hard to see it while you're dealing with it.

35:18

And I find myself at times treading a fine line if I'm facilitating a group and we get into a conversation about tough managers or bosses because process and going through that process is the answer.

35:32

But in the room, people want the actual answer to to solve that problem.

35:41

And you have to go through the process.

35:45

That is that is where the answer will be. I can't give you the definitive.

35:48

Oh, you must say this, this and this to this person, and it will go away.

35:51

That that's not true. That doesn't that doesn't work.

35:53

It is going through that process that you sort of said.

35:56

And that is where the resilience then comes from, I think, going going forward to me is almost the bigger part of coming through that emotional intelligence process.

36:06

It is. So I think what people have got to do is to determine, are they just working for a tough manager who's got your best interests at heart or are you or are you working for a bully?

36:20

Now, the answer that you get to that question will determine what you do next.

36:25

And you and I have talked earlier in the podcast interview around running off to HR when you say the wrong thing.

36:34

You've got every right as an employee to run off to HR and to instigate your own grievance process with a bully or a Machiavellian manager or somebody who hasn't got your best interests at heart.

36:51

It's a decision. It's a choice that you need to make.

36:55

And each of these choices, whether you do it or whether you don't do it, will have consequences.

37:01

And you actually, as an individual, have to work through what those consequences are going to be positive or negative.

37:08

Now, whatever choice you make, you're going to feel that you've made the wrong choice.

37:14

And it's going to be tough and it's going to be hard.

37:18

So you've got to take it, work with it, live and grow through it and learn through that to become more resilient.

37:28

Yeah, I think it's really interesting.

37:30

Is someone a bully or are they just tough?

37:33

And I wonder whether the answer is somewhere in the manipulation of emotions in there.

37:38

If someone is tough, it's not that they're going to be necessarily intentionally manipulating your emotions.

37:44

They may ask you to face into some tough stuff or be very demanding about timelines or whatever it might be.

37:51

Whereas the bully, I would suspect, is actively, intentionally, consciously tweaking on those emotions and making you feel unstable.

38:01

Yeah, I think this is it.

38:03

And this is down to you really working through the situation yourself, asking yourself these tough questions, going and talking to other people.

38:15

Now, talking to other people will actually help you to come up with the right solutions for you, for your environment.

38:23

How about other people in the team? How are they responding?

38:26

How are they feeling? Are they feeling bullied as well?

38:31

Because if they are, then perhaps there's safety in numbers.

38:35

Talk to your partner, talk to your friends, talk to your family, people outside of work.

38:40

And just say, look, I'm facing this issue. I just like your thoughts.

38:44

You're not asking for advice. You're asking for a bit of guidance from them as to what you're thinking is.

38:51

And I think all of these things add up to you making a decision that you need to make around whether you stay, whether you go, whether you push, whether you go to HR, what you do.

39:02

Put up and shut up again, you know, the consequences with that.

39:07

That's another choice, right? That is, that is another choice.

39:10

I think this all comes down to the piece of advice that comes back to that word perspective again.

39:16

You know, am I living and feeling what other people are living and feeling?

39:22

What could I learn from how they're thinking about this, feeling about it, handling it, just to try and get under the skin of how it really is affecting you before you make any emotional choices about whether you're going to stay.

39:37

And some people will make the decision that they're going to put up, shut up, stay.

39:43

They like the work. They like what they're doing.

39:46

It's convenient. They get a good salary.

39:49

Everything else works for them.

39:52

And they take their, they work nine to five or whatever hours they work and then go and do something completely different outside of work to emotionally engage within society.

40:07

In a way, which is a lot more positive.

40:09

So they may play sport, they may coach and train young people.

40:14

They may run a scout group or a guide group, whatever it is, they're doing something that gives them purpose, purpose outside of work.

40:24

Yeah, because we need that, that source of motivation, right.

40:29

To align to, to have as that, if you like, tractor beam that pulls you towards something or the anchor point that keeps you on, on track with whatever daft metaphor you need that works for you to sort of help you go forward.

40:42

I think these things are all entwined and they're all really important for not this work-life balance thing, but for just feeling like work is more important.

40:53

More than a paycheck, um, which you spend so much time at work, hopefully for more and more people, we need to make it feel a little bit more than just that.

41:02

Yeah. And can I knock that guff on the head?

41:04

Work-life balance is a hideous expression, which causes more problems than people realize because people will look at work and try and offset it against life.

41:17

And it's not, I mean, at our stage in life, Andy, work is an integrated part of life.

41:23

So how do we, uh, work emotionally with the, the life that we've been given at the moment?

41:32

Uh, you know, if we have to go to the optician, if we have to go to the dentist, if we have to go to the doctor, if we have to go to the hospital, more often than not, we have to do that in work time.

41:42

And then there are going to be times when we have to work late, uh, when we have to work weekends, when we have to do things where we would rather be with our families, we've got to get the balance, right?

41:55

But we don't call it work-life balance. Work is an integrated part of life.

41:59

And we just got to make it work for us based around our, um, uh, our situation, our circumstances and our emotional intelligence.

42:11

And that's a wonderful summary. It really is.

42:14

And talking of summaries, whilst I feel like we have barely scratched the surface of all the things we could have talked about today, I've come to the part in the show, Robin, I call sticky notes, right?

42:26

Which is my lazy attempt to summarize. It's so lazy.

42:29

I get you to do it. Um, uh, on all the things that we've talked about today.

42:33

And I think if we were thinking about, I think you mentioned something similar at the start of the show.

42:40

This is about taking control of your emotions, right?

42:43

And maybe what three pieces of advice could you leave people with today to help them take a bit more control?

42:51

If they're leaners, maybe not be so performative in this EI thing and really make it work for them at work.

42:57

Maybe bring a bit more happiness into work.

43:00

What would you say? Well, I, um, I have a quote from Daniel Goldman who bought emotional intelligence to the public consciousness in the mid nineties.

43:11

Now, whether he said this or not, I don't know, but it is a brilliant quote that is often assigned to him.

43:19

There is intelligence in emotion and intelligence can be brought to emotion.

43:27

So I, that for me sums up emotional intelligence.

43:32

Uh, and then another note that I would offer your listeners is most people do not listen with the intent to understand.

43:43

They listen with the intent to reply.

43:47

And I think that that has been attributed to, um, uh, Stephen Covey, the seven, uh, highly effective people.

43:58

That's it. You've taken the words right out of my mouth and then it's summarizing it all for you, for me, for your listeners.

44:09

What is it to be the best human being you can be?

44:15

What a wonderfully deep question to finish this episode off on Robin, you're one of those people that I feel so calm when I'm in the presence of, and I could listen to you talk about this topic all day.

44:31

And undoubtedly, I know whatever daft question or guff I come up with, you'd have a, a very calm response and a very, very interesting response and helpful response to that question.

44:42

So it's been fantastic to meet you before I let you go.

44:45

Where can people find out a little bit more about you and the things that you, you help people with Robin?

44:51

Well, we both talked about LinkedIn during the podcast.

44:55

Please come and find me on LinkedIn.

44:58

I've been on LinkedIn ever since it's early days.

45:01

So I've got Robin Hills as being the URL.

45:05

So I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn.

45:08

If you want to find me through the website, it's ei4change.com.

45:15

And then if you want to have a look at my courses, https://emotional.intelligence.courses. Beautiful.

45:28

Even that's nice and simple and directive too.

45:30

Wonderful. Absolutely brilliant. And we'll put all those links in the show notes as well to make sure people can get easy access to them.

45:37

Robin, just wonderful conversation.

45:41

Have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you. And I desperately hope this isn't our last chat.

45:46

Thanks so much for coming on. I hope it's not our last chat too, Andy.

45:49

Thank you. Brilliant. You take care, my friend.

45:53

You too. Okay, everybody.

45:56

That was Dr. Robin Hills. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about him or any of the topics we've talked about today, please check out the show notes.

46:06

So that concludes today's episode.

46:09

I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward.

46:20

If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe.

46:24

It really helps. I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast.