Staying tough...Resilience training

How you train emotional intelligence gives you and your team the resilience advantage in the midst of a tough season. 

 

“More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails." - Barbara Kerr

On an Emotional Intelligence group that I subscribe to, E.I. expert Barbara Kerr recently posted  the quote regarding the strategic advantage of resilience. In the case of leadership, our teammates will perform, or fail to perform, based on their emotional intelligence - specifically when it comes to resilience.

My organization moved into a new level of competition this past season, which took an initial toll on our win/loss record as well as our ego. Having experienced a couple playoff runs the years prior to the move, my team wasn't used to the emotional toll of losing. Even so, to our relief we instituted an emotional intelligence training program 2 years prior which ended up becoming our strategic advantage to staying resilient.

Sitting at 0-7, the team maintained their resilience which promoted a learning environment and an adaptive growth mindset for our new competitive environment. Our resilience contributed to a 4-0 run to end the season! To quite the skeptics, I must note that our end of season competition didn't get easier and we didn't add any new talent mid-season. Instead, we just proved to be more emotionally intelligent as an organization, which is exactly what we trained to be. http://bit.ly/HjEdaO

In my opinion, any leader must take Barbara's quote to heart and decide how they will train their own organization to become resilient.

Win Today!

Victor

Bouncing back from victory

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Victories are special moments that we all savor.  Whether it's winning an athletic contest, getting an "A" on a test, or closing a deal...a victory moment is validating.  Such moments are like road signs signifying that you are on the right path to success. But, like those set-back moments of defeat, victory too needs to be put in the rear view mirror in order to keep growing.

Right out of college I put my economics degree to work by entering the financial industry in a sales role.  Early in my training I was taught that you need to put habits of success to work each day in order to finally catch the carrot of financial freedom that dangled at the end of the stick.  If you've worked in financial sales, you know the habits of success that I'm writing about have less to do with secret professional development tools and more to do with cold calling a long list of leads each day.

One day, my fellow newbies and I witnessed an associate  haul in a whale of a sale that we dreamed of eventually landing.  As the days followed, my co-worker's reputation became renowned, while his time in the office grew scarce.  Apparently, his big sale had become an arrival point for him, instead of a data point. Eventually, it became apparent to us all that his big win had derailed his process for success.  The long awaited victory may have launched his reputation, but unfortunately it short-circuited his drive.

In the book Great by Choice, Jim Collins writes about this unfortunate impasse of success by observing that, "success comes from different behaviors, not different circumstances (2011)."  If we allow the circumstance of victory to alter the behavior that led up to the outcome, then it's all a loss.  When it comes to our professional growth, if not careful, yesterday's successes will make us tomorrow's memories if we don't bounce back from victory.

Win Today!

Victor