If you’ve not studied Emotional Intelligence you should. Two reasons — First, the overwhelming difference between top performers and average performers is higher levels of Emotional Intelligence. Second, Emotional Intelligence is totally learnable.

What follows are 10 essential understandings about relationship management that ought to be common sense. However, after 20+ years of working with managers at all levels and across a wide spectrum of industries, I’ve found too many people who are not aware of them. Therefore, if your work involves dealing with people, soak this in:

1. In the realm of personality styles, we should drop the ideas of “good” and “bad.” People are just different.

2. People often equate “different” with “difficult.” In reality, different is difficult only because people haven’t learned to work effectively with the differences.

3. In the same way that a stick has two ends, people have strengths and weaknesses. All strengths have an associated weakness, and all weaknesses have an associated strength. You choose which end of the stick will receive your attention.

4. All personality styles add to team strength; it’s just a matter of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses. By focusing on strengths you’ll get stronger. By focusing on weaknesses, you’ll get weaker.

5. Seeking the strengths in differing styles does not come naturally — it takes constant effort.

6. We cannot be effective if we expect everyone else to meet us on “our turf.”

7. We cannot assume we know another person’s definition of “win.” We may have a general idea, but to truly be effective we must ask.

8. If we place personal goals over those of others, the team, and/or the organization’s vision and mission, we create divisions. This severely weakens our ability to maximize results.

9. Effectiveness has to with doing the right thing, efficiency has to do with getting things done fast. When working with people, effectiveness is rarely efficient. The best results usually come when we take the necessary time in our relationships to do things right.

10. It’s one thing to understand these things, it’s another thing to do them. The longest road can be the 18 inches between your head and your heart. So if you want the best results, start walking the walk.

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Filed in Management, Team Building, Customer Service, Workplace, Corporate Culture