When you think of emotional intelligence, there are still many leaders out there who falsely believe it has no place in business. Business is about logic, not emotions, right? Wrong. How can being aware of yourself and others not have a place in an environment where relationships are everything?
My guest today is Robin Hills. He defines emotional intelligence and its core components, the role motivation and empathy play, and why AI won’t take over anytime soon. He talks about resilience and shares strategies to manage stress and weather storms in the workplace. Finally, Robin shares a fascinating take on the Intelligence of Emotions and what useful information can be gathered when we learn to properly read emotions – both our own and those of others – so we can move forward and succeed.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Emotional intelligence is more than just the emotions themselves. But the emotions are what make us human. Leave the working without emotions to AI.
- When humans communicate and empathize with each other, we change each other in the processes, modifying the neural pathways in the brain. That interaction cannot happen in the same way with a robot.
- Emotional intelligence is always a work in progress. Whether you started studying it today or have been studying it for your entire life, there is always something more to learn.
“Emotions drive our thinking, emotions drive our decision making, emotions drive everything that we do. Without emotional intelligence, we really are going to be just like the robots.”
— Robin Hills
Episode References:
- Free Newsletter: Ei-Matters.com
- The Empathy Edge: Dr. Michelle Zhou: Empathic AI is Real and It’s Here – But We Need Everyone Involved!
- The Empathy Edge: Miniter Dial: How to Embed More Heart Into AI
About Robin Hills, Director of Ei4Change, Business Psychologist, and Emotional Intelligence Trainer
Robin is the director of Ei4Change, a company specializing in educational training, coaching and personal development focused around emotional intelligence, positive psychology and neuroscience. He has taught over 400,000 people in 195+ countries how to build resilience,
and increase self-awareness and understanding of others.
Robin is the author of 2 books and has through his work developed the experiential coaching methodology Images of Resilience to support cathartic conversations around resilience. He has delivered keynote speeches at conferences across the world including at Harvard University and sits on the North West Committee of the Association of Business Psychology.
Connect with Robin Hills:
Ei4change: ei4change.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robinhills
Facebook: facebook.com/EI4Change
Instagram: instagram.com/ei4change
Robin’s Courses: courses.ei4change.info/collections
Download this free guide: Developing your Emotional Intelligence
courses.ei4change.info/courses/free-book
Robin’s course on empathy: Understanding Empathy
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. When you think of emotional intelligence, there are still many leaders out there who falsely believe it has no place in business. Business is about logic, not emotions, right? Wrong. How can being aware of yourself and others not have a place in an environment where relationships are everything, where your ability to understand motivate, persuade, and inspire others enables you to perform and deliver. My guest today is Robin wells, the director of e i for change, a company specializing in educational training, coaching and personal development focused around emotional intelligence, positive psychology and neuroscience. He’s taught over 400,000 people in 195 plus countries how to build resilience, increased self awareness and understanding of others. His educational programs on resilience and emotional intelligence cover the most comprehensive and detailed education of any emotional intelligence organization, and are today used in educational establishments in South Africa and India. Robin’s the author of two books, and has through his work developed the experiential coaching methodology, images of resilience to support cathartic conversations around resilience. Today, Robin defines emotional intelligence and the core components of it, the role motivation and empathy play, and why AI won’t take over anytime soon. He also talks about resilience and share strategies to manage stress and weather storms in the workplace. Finally, Robin shares a fascinating take on the intelligence of emotions, and what useful information can be gathered, when we learn to properly read emotions, both our own and those of others, so we can move forward and succeed. What a great conversation, take a listen. Hello, Robin hills, welcome to the empathy edge podcast to talk about all things emotional intelligence and resilience. Welcome to the show. Maria,
Robin Hills 02:48
it is a pleasure being here. And thank you for having me on the show.
Maria Ross 02:52
So let’s talk quickly, you’ve been doing this work for a long time your company has taught you have taught over 400,000 people across 195 plus countries, as we mentioned in your bio, and you’ve devoted your work to resilience and emotional intelligence, training and development. So just briefly, tell us a little bit about how you got into this work and what’s your passion for it?
Robin Hills 03:17
Well, my passion really is to see people develop, grow and reach their optimum performance. And when I started out my career back in the 80s, emotional intelligence was still being studied in the universities. Nobody had heard of it beyond the academic walls. And it wasn’t until the mid 90s, when Daniel Goleman published his books on emotional intelligence that he came into the public consciousness. And at the time, I thought, Well, this sounds really, really interesting. Then, to cut a really long story short, I went through a couple of redundancies and I set up vi for change, ei being emotional intelligence, the change 15 years ago, to concentrate on people development. And so everything then was underpinned by this construct that is emotional intelligence, whilst everybody else does training and various other aspects of CEO C suite development, leadership development, emotional intelligence underpins everything that we trade. So all I’m doing is she’s coming along and doing the training, the coaching and the facilitation, from a slightly different perspective. And hey, Maria, it works.
Maria Ross 04:39
Well tell us what’s that slightly different perspective?
Robin Hills 04:42
Well, the fact is that a lot of trainers will run an emotional intelligence module when they’re doing leadership training. I don’t because I just lead with emotional intelligence. So everything that we do on the leadership development, bro Abram is talking about emotional intelligence because it is so fundamental to us as human beings that you can’t kind of segregated separated out multi TARDIS. Oh, let’s have a look at emotions because emotions define us. emotions drive our thinking, emotions drive our decision making emotions drive everything that we do. And it underpins the the topic of your your podcast, which is empathy. So without emotional intelligence, we really are just going to be very much like the robots like the Daleks.
Maria Ross 05:41
Exactly. And that that is the thing of when you’re teaching people these new skills or bringing these new skills into their consciousness, there’s this desire to separate it out to border it to say that, Oh, this is this discrete thing that we’re going to study and learn. But it sounds like what you do is more integrated into leadership development, training through everything that you do, which is where I hope at some point, empathy comes to because I’m sure you’ve had these conversations to where it’s like, I mean, I, I do a really great empathy workshop. But one workshop is not going to transform your culture, it’s got to be embedded into the fabric of how people lead how people communicate, the policies that you have within the organization, how people treat each other, it’s got to be embedded in all of those things. And I’m often asked the question of what’s the difference between empathy and emotional intelligence? And I always talk about the fact that empathy is sort of just one rung of the ladder of emotional intelligence. Can you talk about that question and say, you know, in your mind and in your work, what is the definition of emotional intelligence? And what does it encompass?
Robin Hills 06:49
Well, let’s keep the definition of emotional intelligence, really simple. It’s the way in which you combine your thinking with your feelings, in order to make authentic decisions and build up quality relationships, to take action. So that is emotional intelligence. In a nutshell, it sounds so simple, but it is incredibly hard to do. Yes. How do you combine your thinking with your feelings in order to make quality decisions and build up sorry, authentic decisions, build up these quality relationships. So the components of emotional intelligence really, around awareness, awareness of SEL, and awareness of other people. So it is awareness itself, awareness, is having that understanding of what impact one has on the environment one’s working with and the impact that one has on other people. So it’s having this understanding around what emotions are coming up, but it’s also having this awareness of one’s strengths and limitations, what gets in the way, what works really well. And then the awareness of the outer world is an awareness of people. And that’s where empathy sits. So emotional intelligence has empathy as a core components, the next parts of emotional intelligence, or action and behavior. So it’s how you actually work with your emotions, the emotions that are going on, inside you inside your head, your mind, your physiology, your psychology, and how you work with them, to express an emotion. And if you do express it, how are you going to express it to have the impact that you need, it’s all about, therefore emotional regulation, and emotional manage. And then it’s a case of taking that action into the outer world. And as the pinned with the empathy we’ve been talking about, you use your social skill, your social skills to build up relationships with other people, which involves understanding the context. It involves understanding the politics with a small pea, it involves understanding the emotional climate and choosing one’s language and social capabilities to be able to develop those relationships on a one to one basis in small groups and in large teams. Now, of course, none of this is going to work unless you have motivation. And it’s a case of using the motivation that you’ve got to apply these skills internally. And using this both innovation to work and influence and persuade other people to do what is appropriate. I
Maria Ross 09:51
love it. I love it because that it really is emotional intelligence is this vast network, and it’s almost like saying it for me. It’s almost like saying, you know, you study science. But underneath science is chemistry, physics, biology, all of these other skills that you need if you’re really talking about this big world, this big bucket of the topic. And so it’s sort of like emotional intelligence can’t be just a box that’s checked. That’s Yes, I’ve got, I mean, I guess you could say, If you fulfill all of these things underneath it, you can proudly say I’m a very emotionally intelligent person. But it’s something that we constantly struggle with. And I’m wondering how you deal with in your trainings, the pushback that you might get, especially from business leaders that say, well, emotions have no place in business, they literally take emotional intelligence as just the emotions part, the feelings part. And they view that very negatively of like, well, that means I’m going to be crying, that means I’m going to be angry. That means I’m going to be sad. How do you square that for them?
Robin Hills 10:57
What’s wrong with that? I?
Maria Ross 11:00
But not all the time? Yeah. No,
Robin Hills 11:02
no, no, it’s a case of understanding the the emotions that are happening within the workplace. So any leader that then says to me, Look, we don’t do emotion? Emotions here. Yeah. Yeah, we leave that to Barry Manilow? No, I’m afraid that’s dinosaur thinking. That’s old world thinking and in the world that we are now which is 2023 going into 2024 Going into 2025. And the rest of the 20s. A AI Artificial Intelligence is the big component that is driving a lot of business thinking. Those people that are not recognizing emotions, are defining themselves as being incapable of working with people for the future. The robots will do things without emotions, and they’ll do it very well. So that these people are saying that we don’t do emotions, off you go, then goodbye. Enjoy your retirement exactly is that the world is going to change the world is going to change very dramatically. And people are talking about the skills based economy, well, what skills are going to be needed in a world that is dominated by AI? What is it that we can do as human beings that the robots can’t do? The hurray say, of Berea, the biggest component is empathy. Now, I do appreciate that you’ve recently had a guest on the show who has been talking about affective computing, Michelle, so she
Maria Ross 12:46
talks about cognitive, yeah, she talks about cognitive AI and empathic AI. And we’ll put a link to her episode in the show notes. Because I was actually just going to bring that up, that even in her view, running a company that builds this kind of AI solution, or her thinking is that we still need to be involved as humans, because how else are we going to teach these models, we still have to be developing our own empathy and our own emotional intelligence and working on that. Because otherwise, it won’t be embedded in in the models that we have, because it’s only going to be as good as what we can code into it, and what we can program into it. And so I love that, that, you know, techno optimist view of, we need those skills more than ever. And those are the skills that computers can’t just replicate immediately. But they’re
Robin Hills 13:39
never going to be able to replicate them. And I think we should, Dr. Sol is doing some fantastic phenomenal work in affective computing, trying to build empathy into the systems. Now, the thing is, the computers, the robots will never ever be able to do what it is that you and I Maria can do. That’s because they lack a fundamental component of building up empathy. And the component is probably the most complex device that is available in them that you know, in universe, a human Bray. Now, the very fact that you and I are talking together, miles and miles apart, but the fact that we are empathizing together and building up a relationship together, you’re changing my brain, I’m changing your brain. We’re developing new neural connections and new neural pathways through this interaction and we’ve only been talking 1520 minutes, but that is something that we do very naturally as human beings. We cannot survive without doing that. So when we start looking at the skills needed for the future, empathy becomes so fundamentally key And poor to the future, that we’ve got to look at how we can work with them. But the more appropriately because we as humans will never be led by robots, leaders, leaders have that capability, that capacity, that skill set, to know how to influence and persuade, to know how to stop somebody doing something that they shouldn’t be doing, to be able to drive the right ethics and the right morals through to be able to say to somebody, you’re working too hard, go home, to be able to say to somebody come on, but push yourself a bit further, you can do it. Now, those are the bits that AI will never be able to do. So leadership becomes a really core component for the future. Well,
Maria Ross 15:56
and I love this sentiment, and I’m going to link to his episode to mentor dial who is located in your neck of the woods in the UK, he talks about the fact that there’s also this element of we, as humans are still working on our emotional intelligence, we’re still working on empathy, we’re still building that skill. And we can’t just hope to outsource that to a computer to AI if we’re not even like, if we haven’t even perfected it ourselves. Because that is the other argument that many people say is Oh, I don’t need to learn that skill anymore. I’ll just teach it to AI, I’ll teach I’ll you know, I’ll use AI or I’ll teach it to a computer. And he talks about, you know, we haven’t mastered it as human beings, then you know, that’s not something that can be taught to a machine. So no. And expecting a machine to replicate something that we haven’t even perfected is just, you know, for lack of a better word bonkers like,
Robin Hills 16:57
Well, look, I’m sitting here talking to you as an emotional intelligence expert. I’ve been studying it all my life as indeed you have a family emotionally intelligent, interesting question, isn’t it? Because if I in progress is what I like, most definitely, it’s got me because if I say yes, there’s no room for improvement. And if I say no water, so by doing talking to people about emotional intelligence, it is as you define its work in progress. And I’m still learning, right. And there are some fascinating things that I will share with you that I’ve learned only fairly recently, which really blows my mind. And I think what we’ve got to think about this as we look at empathy, and we look at moving forward. But before I say that there are certain other things that well, before
Maria Ross 17:53
we move on, I want to just switch gears for a moment and talk a little bit about emotional resilience. Yeah, because that is, and maybe that was where you were going with this is you talk about strategies to manage stress and weather storms in the workplace. And I think that that’s a big part. You know, once we’re, once we’re able to be more aware of our triggers and our strengths and our blind spots, being able to build that resilience, especially in the face of so many changes and traumas that we faced in just within the past few years. What are some of those strategies that you talk about that folks need to can use to build that resilience? And maybe, before you even begin that, what is your definition of emotional resilience?
Robin Hills 18:38
Well, resilience is having the capacity to be very, very focused on what it is that you’re trying to do, to have been very, very goal orientated. It’s having the creativity and the adaptability to work as the environment changes. And it’s underpinned by a firm belief that life has some meaning. So all of those components together will give people emotional resilience. And if we go back to our discussion about ai, ai hasn’t bought the adaptability, the creativity, to work as an environment, or changes. The other thing that AI does not possess, it doesn’t possess consciousness. So it has no comprehension of meaning. And it has no comprehension of spirituality, itself, bliss within the universe, whatever you as an individual defines that to be. So all of those are wrapped up within this emotional resilience. So as we are now working in environments which are increasingly Buka, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and they’re going to get even more so this is where the human element come through. And this is where emotional resilience will resound quite nicely, because humans with good emotional resilience have got the creativity and the adaptability to do what is right, ethically and morally, and do it because, well, because, and because it is appropriate to do it, and it gives all of our lives that meaning. So
Maria Ross 20:26
what are some strategies to, to build that resilience and manage that stress, so we can measure those those ups and downs we can whether those ups and downs, again, I’m
Robin Hills 20:37
gonna go back to what we’ve been talking about all the way through this book, because it’s building up the social connections, the networks to have the people that we can fall back on when we need them. And to have the social competence to be able to communicate well with people to be able to say to people, life is getting too much for me at the moment, there’s too much going on in my life, I need a bit of a break, to help me I need some help here. I can’t do everything. So it’s knowing who to have that conversation with them to fall back on. It’s also learning to be a lot more adaptable, a lot more flexible. And to be a little bit more proactive. So saying to oneself, look, this is what I’m going to be working on over the next few days, the next few weeks, what do I need to do in order to make that happen? Now we know that life happens, that changes things, and the unexpected comes up. So it’s having the ability to work around that and be prepared for it and get back to what it is that you’re trying to do. When you you’ve got the ability to do that.
Maria Ross 21:55
So you mentioned earlier this idea of motivation, being really important being motivated to improve your emotional intelligence and to connect with people. How can leaders both inspire themselves and inspire others? To build those successful relationships? What are some ways that they can employ that? Well,
Robin Hills 22:17
the best way to motivate somebody is, again, these are all skills underpinning empathy is to ask them, and to listen. So the critical skill that a leader needs to develop is the ability to coach and the ability to ask the most appropriate questions in the right way to help the other person to explore what it is that they need to do in order to move forward. Now all sounds very, very simple and very straightforward. For being on the end, the receiving end of a good coaching session can be incredibly motivating. Somebody has listened to what I’m saying, somebody is pushing me in a different direction somebody understands. So what I would say to leaders is, stop being a manager and be and stop being a leader, and stop telling people what to do and start coaching people, because they are doing jobs that you will never do. And you will never do it because your job is a leader, not a worker. So what are you doing, telling people what they should be doing? Ask them? What’s the best way of doing this? What’s getting in the way? What can I do to help you to improve your performance more effectively and efficiently?
Maria Ross 23:46
I love that. I love that. As a last question, I want to talk to you about this concept of the intelligence of emotions. You talk about that? And can you share a little bit about what that means? Yes,
Robin Hills 23:57
if we go and have a look at the move, most people quite wrongly, in my view, define emotions as being positive and negative. Now emotions are not positive or negative emotions are physiological and psychological states that drive us forward to adapt around the environment that we find ourselves in. So they’re neither positive or negative. Yes, some emotions can feel quite unpleasant at times, and some emotions can feel quite pleasant. So it’s how we use these emotions in a constructive way. That is the defining part of the emotion. So if we look at emotions as being data, providing us with information, we may be feeling unpleasant, but that’s because we are in a set of circumstances that is driving us to feel that by now, before we came on air. You and I had a little bit of a hiccup in terms of getting the technology to work. And this often happens when I got podcasts so it doesn’t feel good. And it was your friend Maria and I was feeling for you because it didn’t feel particularly nice. I know that because he didn’t same sort of situation. But we needed that feeling of unpleasantness in order to get it to work. So we, we went about doing a few things to sort things out, and hey, we’re having a, a an issue free conversation, which is great. But we can’t feel pleasant all the time. We can’t feel deliriously happy all the time. And why why should we? Or why would we want to be because if we are feeling that way, then we’re going to take unwanted risks, we’re not going to be communicating particularly well with people, we’re not going to be engaging with them at a deep level. So what we’ve got to do is just to recognize, why am I feeling the way that I’m feeling? Isn’t? How can I utilize that emotional state and work with it, in order to be constructive around the way that I’m feeling? I
Maria Ross 26:08
love that I love that idea of of looking at our emotions, positive or negative emotions. As information, that’s often what I talk about in terms of being empathetic is just trying to gather information about somebody else and their context, so that you can move forward together. But that’s almost empathy for ourselves is understood looking at our emotions, as information, what what is this telling me? And what needs to be my next move?
Robin Hills 26:36
But unless we understand it within ourselves? How are we going to understand it with other people? And how are we going to empathize 100%,
Maria Ross 26:44
because if we don’t, if we don’t take the time to reflect on what that emotion means, to us, when we see it in another person, we might react in the same way that we might react if we have that emotion, right, people that are brought up not to cry, or not to show anger. When someone else cries or shows anger, they’re going to dismiss it in that person, because that’s what they were taught to do within themselves. And that does not lead to a productive relationship, or a productive way to move forward, especially if you’re leading someone in the workplace is to try to, you know, understand and motivate someone else. And if you don’t know how to read those emotions as information and what it’s telling you, when you get curious about what it’s telling you, then you can’t move forward together. So
Robin Hills 27:29
I love that. I think we’ve got to set people’s expectations here look, for more academic paper you read, but there anything between about three bells, and 27,000 Dubeau. So we can’t label all of and I think the easiest way for leaders to look at emotions is to define whether it’s a pleasant emotion or an unpleasant emotion. And if it’s unpleasant, how do I use this constructively? And if it’s pleasant, how do I use this constructively, and stop either of these emotions pleasant or unpleasant or either of these groups of emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, becoming destructive in the way in which we behave, because unpleasant emotions that are destructive, and that they are sustained, will lead to stress and burnout. And I think as leaders, we’ve got to work with that both in ourselves and in other people. And to say, enough is enough. I
Maria Ross 28:31
love it. Well, this has been such a great conversation and lots of little nuggets for us to take with us. I do want to mention to folks that they’re all your links will be in the show notes, especially to your book, the authority guide to behavior in business, how to inspire others and build successful relationships, and a link to all your courses, especially your course on empathy called understanding empathy. And I also see here that you have a little free book for our listeners, developing your emotional intelligence. So I will put that link in the show notes as well. Listeners, check that out. It’s a free resource from Robin to you. So for folks on the go, that don’t have a chance to look into the shownotes Where’s where’s the one or two best places they can connect with you?
Robin Hills 29:18
Well buy companies ie I changed so go straight to the company website, which is EI for change.com and you should be able to find all the information that you spoken about by clicking through there. And I’ve also got a digital magazine called E i matters ei hype and matters.com which is regularly being updated with fresh content. There are again resources quizzes, podcasts, this podcast will be featured on ei matters regularly so do check out ei matters and completely free just go through and and enjoy the articles.
Maria Ross 29:58
I love it. I Love it. Well, you know, there’s we can’t get enough resources to help us improve our emotional intelligence. And I just want to mention for folks that are listening audibly, it’s E I, the number for change.com is the website address. But again, all these links will be in the show notes. And I know there will be lots of listeners who reach out and connect with you, Robin, thank you so much for your time today. Maria,
Robin Hills 30:21
it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for ending my day on such a positive note.
Maria Ross 30:26
And thank you everyone for listening to another great episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, please rate review and share it with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
