What is emotional intelligence, and why is it vital in a leader? Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and regulate one’s emotions and understand the emotions of others. A high EQ, emotional quotient, as it can be referred to, helps build relationships, reduce team stress, defuse conflict, and improve job satisfaction.
Researchers Van Rooy & Viswesvaran conducted a meta-analysis of 69 studies in 2004. (Meta-analysis is like a buffet of different studies.) Drawing on a vast amount of data, they concluded that, compared with average performers, strong cognitive ability was 27% more prevalent in top performers. However, high EI was prevalent in DOUBLE that amount (53%).
Ultimately, a high EI means having the potential to increase team productivity and staff retention. That’s why when it comes to recruiting management roles, employers look to hire and promote candidates with a high ‘EQ’ (emotional quotient) – rather than IQ (intelligence quotient).
Our guest today is alumni Erin Wojkiewicz from Green Bay, WI. Erin is the Assistant Vice President in Learning and Development at Capital Credit Union. She has worked there for 14 years.
Erin calls herself a lifelong learner and facilitator, so she was excited to take the Our Community Listens course in October 2022. She explained that the class changed her and that she thinks these concepts are great and can help people personally and professionally.
Her passion for that belief inspired her to enter the facilitator training program for Our Community Listens. When the trainees came together this July in Midland, MI, I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss the impact the class has had on the team she leads. Listens as she discusses her hope to bring the class to the entire Capital Credit Union staff and the community of Green Bay. Key in on her the use of her own EI when she shares how she recognizes DISC profiles, when it is best to sit quiet, and how her team has been able to stay productive because they are beginning to better understand acceptance vs. agreement.
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0:00-3:35 – Introduction to Emotional Intelligence
3:45 – Conversation begins w/Erin Wojkiewicz
23:55 – Skill Snippet on the link between feelings and needs
AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio
Please note that this transcription was completed using AI software. Occasionally, unanticipated grammatical, syntax, homophones, and other interpretive errors are inadvertently transcribed by the software. Please excuse any errors that have escaped final proofreading.
Speaker 1 0:11
On the listen first podcast, you’ll join us as we connect with an array of fascinating guests from varying backgrounds and perspectives to explore how we can build and become leaders that transform their families, workplaces and communities. Tune in for insight on mastering skills like active listening, verbal and nonverbal communication, understanding behavioral tendencies and appreciating individuality.
Adam Salgat 0:47
Hello, and welcome to the listen first podcast. My name is Adam Salgat. A credit union in Green Bay, Wisconsin has high hopes to bring their community even closer together. Stay tuned to find out how.
What is emotional intelligence? And why is it vital and a leader motional intelligence is the ability to identify and regulate one’s emotions and understand the emotions of others. A high EQ emotional quotient as it can be referred to helps build relationships, reduce team stress, defuse conflict and improve job satisfaction. Researchers van ROI and vis West Berlin conducted a meta analysis of 69 studies in 2004. A meta analysis is like a buffet of multiple studies. Drawing on a vast amount of data. They concluded that when compared with average performers, strong cognitive ability was 27% more prevalent in top performers. However, having a high EQ was prevalent in double that amount 53%. Ultimately, a high EQ means having the potential to increase team productivity and staff retention. That’s why when it comes to recruiting management roles, employers look to hire and promote candidate with a high EQ rather than a high IQ. Our guest today is Aaron Boyd KOVITCH from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Erin is currently the assistant vice president in learning and development at Capitol credit union. She has worked there for 14 years, Aaron calls herself a lifelong learner and facilitator, which is why she was excited to take the our community lessons course in October 2022. She explained to me that she was changed by the class and thinks that these concepts are great and can help people personally and professionally, her passion and belief and that inspired her to enter the facilitator training program for our community listens. And when the trainees came together in July, in Midland, Michigan, I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss the impact it has had on her and the team she leads. Listen as she discusses her hope to bring the class to the entire capital credit union staff and the community of Green Bay key in on her use of her own EQ when she shares how she recognizes disc profiles when it is best to sit quiet and how your team has been able to stay productive because they are beginning to better understand acceptance versus agreement.
When you took the course in October 2022, you were leading seven employees at the time, how did the course change the way that you viewed or approached those relationships,
Erin Wojkiewicz 3:54
it really did change it, I think the most noticeable change was the disc for me, just really being able to pinpoint the different behavioral styles and know what to do about it when I saw it, and know how to like adjust my attitude and my behavioral styles to complement those made a huge difference. We do a lot of personality and behavioral type indexing at work and we have a lot of different models. But to me disc is the easiest one to understand because it just makes sense when you break it down into the four pieces. And I love the way that it combines the different styles. And so it’s really neat to see the strengths and maybe the opportunities of some of our staff. When we look at okay, this person is a CISO they’re very detailed. It helps me determine Okay, I’m gonna put this person on a project or if they’re an AI, they might be the first person that I have go in front of a training room with a brand new class or something like that, because I know they’re off the cuff, they can kind of wing that sort of conversation And so it really helped in conversations in that way. Also, I gotta say reflective listening is a huge thing, I tend to talk a lot, I almost sit with my hand on my mouth, when we’re having a conversation is like a physical reminder to just be quiet and listen. And I’ve really noticed that since I’ve started doing that they’ve opened up more, they’re sharing more, and we’re having, like, more meaningful conversations, really. So it’s, it’s really been great.
Adam Salgat 5:28
That’s awesome. So it sounds like you’ve really taken this to heart. We sure have, that’s awesome. While you were in class, or maybe the days after, did you have any, you know, like, Aha moments, you know, those those opportunities when it just clicks, like the lip flick? clicks on?
Erin Wojkiewicz 5:44
It sure did. And most recently, for me, because I just sat through another class, the difference and the I should say, the impact of, of emotion and logic, for me, was huge. I didn’t really think about it much before until, for whatever reason, this last class, I sat, and it just clicked for me that you cannot have a logical conversation when emotion is very high. And so there are times where I have a lot of conversations that our emotions are high, either because maybe I’m delivering a confrontation message, or I’m listening to a story or something like that, or it’s good emotions, like really excitement, emotions, and just knowing that need to take a minute to let that like, equate, and have that emotion come down just a bit so that the logic can go up. It’s huge for me. So that’s made a big difference, just that pause to stop, reflect and let the emotion settle. It’s really been great.
Adam Salgat 6:45
So you mentioned there that you just went through another class. Explain that?
Erin Wojkiewicz 6:50
Sure. So at the credit union, we have a goal of holding four classes in a year. And this is a new thing for us in 2023. And our we’re going to continue that in the coming years. But I am learning to become a facilitator. So for me, it’s been very helpful as we hold classes at the credit union with Chapman organization facilitators coming in, it’s been very helpful for me and my cohorts who are also learning how to facilitate to sit in on those classes and just take it in. From an observer perspective. It’s a whole different angle when you’re not the one participating. But you’re the one watching, you can see everyone’s faces, you can see the highs and the lows of each discussion topic. It’s it’s amazing to see and it really helps me connect more with material.
Adam Salgat 7:37
Do you think you’ve witnessed a couple of aha moments?
Erin Wojkiewicz 7:40
Yes, I definitely have. I definitely have. It’s funny, because as you can hear, like, at after class or on breaks, I can just hear the chatter of the room. And I don’t necessarily know I’m listening, but I’m taking it all in. And I’m like, Yes. Like, these are little hit rewards. You know, every single time I hear one of those conversations, and I hear people using the words, it’s, it’s huge.
Adam Salgat 8:02
That’s great. I know, in our pre discussion, you talked about acceptance versus agreement. And that’s something that’s made an impact on your team. Why do you think that is? And how does it potentially help with productivity?
Erin Wojkiewicz 8:13
Sure. On my team, we’re in learning and development, we pride ourselves and hold ourselves to a really high standard. And agreement is very important to us, because we’re facilitators, we want everyone in the class or in our workspace to agree with us. And you know, I use the term. Does that make sense? Do you understand a lot because I’m seeking that agreement. But thinking about acceptance versus agreement for us has, for me, particularly in working with my team has been big, because it’s helped us move conversations forward more quickly, before we would get stuck on the agreement piece. Now, if we can understand and learn how to accept, it helps us move to that very next step of whatever it may be the next conversation or the next topic or whatever it might be. It’s a way for us to say, okay, we can move on now.
Adam Salgat 9:04
So you end up in a way of being potentially more productive or continuing productivity, because you’re not really stuck in a certain argument or conversation. Yeah, that’d be an argument. But
Erin Wojkiewicz 9:15
yes, definitely. And it helps us identify those moments where we are stuck, because now that we understand the differences between acceptance and agreement, it’s like, okay, I can, I can see that we’re at an impasse here. We’re probably stuck on agreement. Let’s move let’s talk about acceptance. And it’s like, okay, yep. That’s not a foreign term to anyone. No.
Adam Salgat 9:35
Well, that’s great. That’s great. How many staff are you currently,
Erin Wojkiewicz 9:39
right now I oversee two employees. But we have a team and learning and development of seven employees and then my two employees.
Adam Salgat 9:47
So how many of those that you work with? Closely have already been through our community? Listen,
Erin Wojkiewicz 9:52
the people that I work with very closely, I would say three right now, but we’ve got a waiting list of people for the upcoming classes. We have One coming up, or two actually coming up towards the end of the year. And so I’ve got a few that I’d like to have attend, because they want to attend. So
Adam Salgat 10:08
you alluded to this a little bit where acceptance is not necessarily foreign term, but with some of your employees that you’re working more closely with having been through the course. You know, what have you noticed, having that common language has that been a benefit, when you’re talking about potential conflicts or, or even just sharing stories between between people,
Erin Wojkiewicz 10:26
it has been a huge benefit. We are being a credit union, we are very much we speak our own language at the credit union, we use a lot of acronyms for things. So things like OCL, that speaks our language. And we tend to come up with our own acronyms for things. But the I Am, the message really hit home with a lot of our employees. One of the things that we do after every class is we have a team’s channel that we have all of the alumni from our classes added to. And then that’s the space that we use, because we’re spread out, there’s 24 branches, so we’re spread out all over northeast Wisconsin. And that’s how we share our stories, and how we talk about the things that are coming up and give each other advice and space to vent and that sort of thing. And this last class that we had, two days after the class we had, I am the message I am the message just spread throughout the team’s chatter, it was so cool to see it was it was like our mantra basically, in some in the group, they really carried that through, they’re very excited to yelloweye in the message, but things like acceptance versus agreement, reflective listening, the disc, those are all common language now between the 50 some people who have taken the class at the credit union. So it really does help us have really good conversations. It also helps with coaching conversations. So I didn’t plan this, but a lot of the people who have attended the classes at the credit union just happened to be supervisors, we do have a good mix, but a lot our supervisors, and it gives them tools for their toolbox, when they’re having those coaching conversations with their employees to be able to identify, Okay, now is the time I need to stop and listen, now is the time to share a story or not share a story, and really identify those moments and help those conversations become more meaningful, productive. And just in general, really a deep conversation for the employee.
Adam Salgat 12:25
You know, you already touched a little bit on your workplace culture and the impact this is having having the teams chat in a space where everybody can come together and kind of reiterate terms and talk to each other about things. But how have you seen this have an impact on workplace culture,
Erin Wojkiewicz 12:39
I’ve seen a huge difference. So we just came out this year with our new mission, vision and values. And our mission is one employee, one member, one experience at a time. And so for our employees who deal with difficult situations regularly, whether that’s with a member or with an employee, it’s really given them the skills to know how to respond and know how to flex their style to meet whatever the situation might be. We do have, you know, situations where maybe we have to foreclose on someone’s home. And it’s an unfortunate situation, and understanding where that person is coming from. One of the concepts from the course is the empathy versus sympathy thing, and it’s huge in these situations, is being able to not only just put your self in that person’s shoes, but to really understand how they feel. And that helps it become it’s more than just a member, it’s more than just a name or an account number. It’s a real person sitting across from you. So across the organization that’s been helpful, not only when we deal with members, but also when we deal with each other.
Adam Salgat 13:47
You said this about yourself in our pre production meeting. I go all in when I believe in something I do. And that attitude, I believe it’s led you here to facilitator training this week. Tell me about your experience thus far.
Erin Wojkiewicz 14:00
Sure. Not lying. When I say I go all in, I really do. I am passionate to a fault at times when it comes to things that I really believe in. And I could really see the big picture with our community lessons, I could see how could have an impact on our organization and in the community. And so that led me to pursue facilitator training. And I managed to talk to a couple of my co workers and they were also interested in pursuing facilitation training. So it’s been a journey for all of us it believe we started with facilitation training in I want to say April, and it’s grown. It’s grown exponentially every week that we have attended. So in the beginning, we’re learning how to like a high level overview of the topics and such but right now we’re learning how to facilitate and on my team, I have a couple of people who have facilitated for many years and some who’ve never facilitated at all. And then I’m kind of in the at all, because I used to facilitate, but I don’t really much anymore. So it’s like, drawn us closer together as a group, because we’re all brushing up on these skills that either we have or haven’t used in a long time. And it’s just, it’s a really cool bonding experience for us. And it’s been so cool getting to know the other facilitators across the country, virtually, and now getting to meet them in person here at the facilitation school. It’s a really neat experience. I love every interaction I’ve ever had with the Chapman foundation. So
Adam Salgat 15:30
what do you hope to get out of this week?
Erin Wojkiewicz 15:33
Oh, well, I will tell you, what I’ve gotten out of it so far is that I’ve learned more about myself, I think then I have about facilitating and teaching others, I just really hope to come away with a better understanding of how I can share my stories to help others how I can connect the dots and create the aha moments for folks as they’re in the classroom with me, and just really, don’t get out in the community and see, the good that I know that this course can do.
Adam Salgat 16:04
You have a co worker Kristin as becoming a facilitator, you mentioned to me that the two of you now communicate better than you did before. Tell me a little bit more about that. Sure.
Erin Wojkiewicz 16:12
So Christina, and I have a longer history, she’s one of the employees that has worked the longest in the learning and development department. And in the beginning, you know, we got as we got to know each other, we had a very good very close relationship, we talked a lot sort of drifted apart, she ended up leaving the credit union, but she came back. And we had some, I guess the best way to say it is miscommunication. Some wires crossed at times where I would be saying something, meaning something, and it would not come out that way. And so taking our community lessons together, has helped me look for those physical cues, when I can see the message has not landed. And it’s helped her see with me where there might be some confusion, and has allowed us to stop and reconnect and deliver our message in a different way. So the other day, we were at a meeting, and it started to get a little, I wouldn’t say heated, but a little high on emotion, anxious sort of emotion. And I recognized it. And so I just stopped and listened. And it the the emotion came down. And after the meeting, Kristin stopped in my office, and she said, Thank you, she said, I noticed what you did. And I really felt heard. And I was like, Yay, that’s all i That’s all I want is for us to feel hurt. I mean, that’s we deserve that as human beings. And so that’s that was my goal to help her feel hurt. I know she needed that in that moment. And I’m so happy that it came through by me just listening
Adam Salgat 17:46
was such a wonderful reminder of how things can go certain ways, right. And when you take the time to stop and listen, that they can end up really well and had you not done that and not trying to paint you as anyone who would start raising their voice. But that’s what can happen right when we let our emotion continue to go up. And then, but instead, you ended up in a much different path. So it’s awesome.
Erin Wojkiewicz 18:13
It takes practice, not perfect by any means. And there will be missteps that I make, there will be missteps that we all make, but it just takes practice. And someday we’ll get there.
Adam Salgat 18:24
If you don’t mind me asking. The biggest areas I know I mess up are in the personal life with my wife with my kids. I know you mentioned to me in the pre production meeting that you called your husband, your best friend, and then he refers to you that So sounds like you have a great relationship. But how has this course maybe enhanced that connection?
Erin Wojkiewicz 18:43
It’s shown me that it takes work. Sometimes people say the people you love the most you treat the worst. And I have found that to be true at moments. It’s it’s almost to a point where sometimes I’ll say something that’s hurtful that I would never ever say to anyone else. But because he’s my husband. And I know he’ll give me a bit of grace. I’ll say it. And so since I’ve taken that course, I’ve tried to identify those moments and think about why am I feeling the way I’m feeling right now? Why was I just going to say that to the person I love the most in this whole wide world. And so it’s helped us have more like a meaningful connection. We just spent a week together up north at our cottage alone, just the two of us and I put the phone down. I didn’t he was talking. I did not watch TV, I tuned in to what he was saying. And those moments are ones that’ll last forever. We’ve been married for almost 15 years now. I think we’re closer than ever before, because I just listen. So it’s great.
Adam Salgat 19:44
Wonderful. I’m so happy to hear that you and your husband, you know, sounds like you’re even closer, like you said than you have potentially have been and you’re 15 years married and that’s that’s just an awesome thing to get to experience. So let’s bring it back to work a little bit. So In our pre production conversation, we talked about how many employees, you have total and your plan for classes this year. So give me a little leeway, because Massena, my strongest students, so it sounds like you’ll have about 25% of your total staff, through our community. Listen, by the end of 2023. What do you hope to see during 2024?
Erin Wojkiewicz 20:24
Well, I hope to see a demand for the classes that’s so high that there are waiting lists upon waiting list to get into the classes, every class that we’ve had so far has been to its maximum. And a lot of employees who attend so this year we’re focusing on employees, a lot of the employees who attend hear about it from word of mouth of other employees, and maybe don’t necessarily know what to expect, they just know they’re going to come to the class, they’re going to learn how to communicate better and learn communication skills, but then they get in the class. And by the second day, you can see they’re fully invested, there’s no checking of emails, there’s none of that they’re immersed in what they’re doing. And it’s so fun to hear their homework when they come home, or when they go home at the end of the evening and do their homework, and then they come back the next day to share in the class, it’s so fun to hear how those conversations have gone. And there’s been some really cool moments that have happened in some of our classes. But going forward, what I’d love to see is as we expand this to the community, so we’re in Northeast Wisconsin, to my knowledge, there really isn’t anything like this in our area. And so to expand it to the community, I think will be so huge. All that we care about is a financial institution is educating others. Usually that’s on finances, but it’s also on life. And this is a life skill that I think it’s invaluable to everybody. My hope is, you know, we see some community organizations taking the course police departments, fire departments, it would be so awesome to get the word out, and just have everybody understand and kind of speak each other’s language in the community. What I really hope is to see an army of people who can communicate better, and spread the word across the community,
Adam Salgat 22:12
if you could, a few sentences or So summarize your overall experience with the champion foundation for caring communities. Sure.
Erin Wojkiewicz 22:19
So I was introduced to the Chapman foundation from our president, Lori Butz, who her mentor is bob chapman. And so that’s what got me to go to the course initially. And when I walked out of that room, after those three days, I was a changed person, I really thought, wow, this is something that’s really cool, I need to bring it to the organization. And so that prompted me to start interacting with the people at the Chapman group, and a more caring and professional group of people I have never seen, they’re very passionate about their purpose. And it shows in every way in everything they do from the thoughtful emails that they send to the ideas that we have as to how to grow and get the word out in our community. It’s been a breath of fresh air to work with everyone at the Chapman organization.
Adam Salgat 23:11
So for our podcast listeners, what’s your key takeaway for them?
Erin Wojkiewicz 23:15
So for me, it would have to be reflective listening, and just understanding the value in listening more and speaking less, and the opportunity that gives to the person that you’re listening to to share their story, and a story that you might not have ever heard. It allows them to feel like a human being and in be heard. And isn’t that what we all want?
Adam Salgat 23:42
I think so. And I wish you luck this week with the facilitator training and looking forward to it. Have a blast getting to know everybody and spending some time together. Thank you. You’re welcome.
Welcome to today’s skill snippet. With me today is Katie Trotter, our Senior Director of Content and coaching. Katie, thank you so much for joining me again for a skill snippet.
Katie Trotter 24:08
Thank you for having me, Adam.
Adam Salgat 24:09
I really love the opportunity that we get here to talk about our skills and to you know, go into the nuances sometimes of the skills and that’s what you wanted to talk about today was the link between feelings and needs. So go ahead and set that up for us.
Katie Trotter 24:24
Yeah, in our course of our community listens, we talk a lot about the different unique needs that people have, right, we talked about within discuss, some people have a need for control or ownership or for stability or for perfection, right or for this ability to be in relationships with people. So we talk a lot about needs, but today I wanted to talk a little bit more about how they tied directly with feelings and emotions.
Adam Salgat 24:48
So in our pre conversation around this, you mentioned something about the check engine light in a vehicle and how it’ll come on and, you know, it could mean a lot of different things. want you to tell me a little bit about that?
Katie Trotter 25:01
Yeah, I’m guessing that everyone who is listening to this right now has had some moment in their life where they encounter a person and that person is experiencing a lot of emotion. Right? Either they’re very angry and are yelling, or they come in and they are crying. And there are some of us that are completely comfortable in that situation. And then there are also some of us who are like, Whoa, I have no idea what is happening right now. And regardless of your comfort level, I think it can be really helpful to think about a person who’s expressing emotion as a check engine light. And Adam, I don’t know if you have any memories of when you own a vehicle, because I know you own a vehicle of a check engine light coming out. But what does that typically mean?
Adam Salgat 25:43
Well, I can tell you one memory I have real quick is my dad had a check engine light on one of his vehicles, and he just covered it up with a piece of electrical tape. So you know, I guess that was his solution at the time to just forget about it, maybe. And I suppose we do that sometimes in our lives, when we have a check engine, we just put like, a theoretical Band Aid or, you know, piece of tape over it just to try to keep ourselves together. But that’s not really your question. So what could what could the check engine light meanwhile, I mean, it could be a lot of different things, right? Sometimes it might be something small, like maybe I quickly stubbed my toe. Or maybe it’s something big and much more impactful, like, I lost my job, or someone passed away.
Katie Trotter 26:28
And Adam, when we think about somebody who comes to us, when they have a motion, we have no idea what’s actually causing it. And so you’re right, if we take the time to really listen, we might find that it’s not a big issue, or it’s a huge significant issue that’s impacting every area of their life. But what we do know is that if we put the electrical tape over top of it, right, which we do, sometimes when people are experiencing emotion around us, it doesn’t go away, which we sometimes like to believe, yeah, sometimes as a leader, if I have a team member and employee who comes in and they are filled with emotion, and it’s impacting gratitude, if I’m really honest, there can be that initial reaction of like, who you need to go figure that out, right, and then come back to work. Or we do that with our kids, sometimes when they have a lot of emotion, like you need to walk away and settle down.
Adam Salgat 27:18
I do that. I mean, I was just thinking, like, in my life, especially with little ones around, you know, seven, and four. Or sometimes I’m like, Alright, go talk to your sister about it. Like, you know, like, you know, I really can’t do anything. But there’s other times where I slow myself down, I take a moment, typically help them work through that emotion, whatever it might be. And it’s also harder sometimes with kids, because it might be emotion that you just as an adult can step through quickly. But as a kid, it means a lot more. Your example of the work situation makes a ton of sense. Because as a leader, you don’t want to just send somebody back out and say, go ahead and figure that out. Right? You kind of you want to be there for
Katie Trotter 28:00
yeah, there’s an impact when we keep putting electrical tape over the check engine lights of the people around us, right? If every time our team members have emotions, we’re just covering it up and pretending like it’s not there. Yeah, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still impact them, or also impacting their work and how much they enjoy their jobs and the work that they do. And so one step, the very first step is as first just deciding as a leader, I’m going to pay attention to the check engine light. So step one, you notice the feelings. And again, as I mentioned, for some people, that’s really overt it will be easy to know when they are experiencing an emotion, right, some of us are not as overt. So for you as a leader, you sometimes have to be paying really close attention, who on your team is sitting back and folding their arms every time we talk about a certain project, who on your team is maybe less engaged than they normally are? These are all signs that a check engine light is on. By the way, we can also notice our own check engine light coming in. So all of those different things to consider. So step one, notice the check engine light.
Adam Salgat 29:05
Notice the check engine light notice the emotions in the room. Okay, you mentioned step one, I’m guessing there’s a step two,
Katie Trotter 29:12
yes. And this is about the linkage to needs, right? So this idea of now that you know, there’s an emotion, it’s connected with a need somewhere. So we have to get to step two, which is to uncover the real need. Sometimes you will have someone around you who already knows what they need, maybe they’re very familiar with articulating that and being able to advocate so I might have a team member. And when I see that emotion and I go and have a conversation, they might clearly be able to articulate, hey, I’m really wanting to take on more ownership of a project that might be their core need, or I really feel like I don’t have enough guidance and information in this space to be effective. Whatever that looks like. Sometimes, though, people don’t have that high level of self awareness yet. So let me might require you to use all those reflective listening skills, responding back peeling back layer by layer until you can get down to what is the real need here? That’s step two.
Adam Salgat 30:11
Yeah, step two, the need that makes a lot of sense, especially when, you know, working with the, my daughter’s in this situation of motion. And even thinking about how to apply that to, you know, teammates, you know, what, what is their need? Like you said, are they looking for a challenge? Maybe, you know, are they looking for more or more ownership of a project, or maybe they’re looking for less ownership of projects, and they need a breather, you know, something like that. Alright, so step two, start peeling back layers, find out what is the need, let’s move on to step three. Well, step
Katie Trotter 30:43
three, in an ideal world, you as a leader could choose to meet the need, right, you’ve heard the need, you have an opportunity to adapt to maybe make an accommodation, whatever that might be. As you can imagine, there are some instances where you can’t as a leader, and I wish that we had 40 minutes together, Adam to dive into that more deeply. Because in our community serves, we really take some time to dive into what happens if your goals don’t seem to be aligned, whether their goal with the organization or their their goal with your goal. And so we work through that more there. But just know for the purpose of this conversation, step one is to be aware of the feelings. Step two is to uncover the real need. And then three, you want to meet the need. And the reason why that’s a really important step is because of where it takes you for step number four.
Adam Salgat 31:36
So you mentioned it, you gave us a little teaser there. Step three clearly leads into step number four. What is number four?
Katie Trotter 31:44
As you Adam, I actually will pose it as a question, how do you feel when your needs are being met?
Adam Salgat 31:50
Oh, happy, tranquil content. Yeah, all of those kinds of things
Katie Trotter 31:57
are a great spot to be. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that last part of the link is this idea that when you live with and work with people who are getting their needs met, there are so many ripple effects around having positive emotions, which gives people more energy, which allows people to feel more satisfied with the job that they’re doing, increases their internal level of motivation, because they’re getting their needs met. And when they look at it in that way, that connection between is it worth me paying attention to the check engine light. And you think of all of those positive emotions, people who feel motivated to do the work that they’re doing? versus how much electrical tape? Can I keep putting over all of these check engine lights, in hopes that it magically fixes itself?
Adam Salgat 32:44
Yeah, I mean, if you really don’t take the time to adjust the problem, the light stays on. And in the end, all depending on what your goals are as a leader, but if you’re getting a lot of pressure to maybe meet the bottom line, you’re not going to meet that bottom line, likely because of the people that you’re doing the work to get there. Just can’t do the work well.
Katie Trotter 33:04
Yeah. And, Adam, I’m glad you talked about that it has direct ties to productivity, and people’s ability to complete their job tasks. It also has the people side, right, it does impact the way that they feel about their co workers about you as a leader, all of that has that ripple effect. And this both applies at work and at home as well.
Adam Salgat 33:25
Katie, as we wrap up here, I want to give you the opportunity to refresh everybody on the four steps here on how to deal with that check engine light when it comes on.
Katie Trotter 33:33
So the very first thing is to recognize that the light is on and choose to explore. That leads us to step two, which is to keep using your reflective listening skills to uncover the real need. Step three, allows you now the opportunity to meet that need that you’ve had a conversation about, which in turn leads to step four, where people experience positive emotion and more energy and satisfaction with the work that they’re doing.
Adam Salgat 34:01
Well, that sounds wonderful. I love you know, breaking this down. And like you mentioned there about, you know, this could be a 40 minute conversation. Because it really truly could. I mean, there’s a lot that we covered in this small skill snippet, but it’s just a taste and a teaser to try to remind people this is opportunity to make better connections at work and make better connections in your personal life. Thank you so much Katie for being part of it. Today’s skills
