E. I., E. I. Ohhhh...

Emotional intelligence known as EI or EQ, and what it's done for me.

As Socrates said, "to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom." As any of my coworkers will tell you, when starting a project my favorite quote is inspired by this. "We don't know what we don't know." And then I start asking questions. But that wasn't always the case.

Breaking it down

Many theories exist on EQ with self and social awareness, self-regulation and relationship management, empathy, leadership style, and connection at the core. And generally, we can build EQ through our intake of data through perception, tribal knowledge or cultural truths, and being inquisitive.

For me, interpersonal skills like empathy and a high sense of perception come naturally. My intrapersonal ego and the chance of being perceived as ignorant was my struggle.

Therefore, asking questions meant I didn't know. Perhaps my ideas weren't as great or as correct as I assumed. Maybe that meant my know-how wasn't valuable. Maybe I am uninformed about this stuff. Then I offer nothing. That can't get out! So I'd keep my head down and plow through, tripping along the way.

This approach didn't serve me.

Asking questions doesn't mean you're the stupidest person in the room; it usually means you're the only one brave enough to speak up. - Simon Sinek

Validate being heard

The most common word I heard as a creator of training was "validate." I was advised early on, if you don't connect to the stakeholder, you will build a class that will not meet the gap, and you won't find out until the course is posted. Then start back at square one.

This was the genesis of my question quest. I found the skillset of validating what I heard served me in communications and change too.

"Is this was you said?" Is so powerful. Just the simple question confirms understanding and also says "I'm listening to you" and "I care about what you said."

A curious scientist

A curious state of mind enables you to better learn about unrelated things. - Professor Charan Ranganath of the University of California, Davis

To pull my own emotionally charged feelings from a topic, I've taken the approach of a curious scientist asking questions. To look at things from an outside perspective and think - that is interesting, I wonder why it happened? This is also helpful when working with very passionate stakeholders. It can be tempting to take feedback - critical or complementary - personally. From the approach of the curious scientist, I can better grasp the "why" of the feedback and analyze the result from facts and feelings.

Even in asking questions, perception of reception is important. In my family, we laugh about what we call the "most condescending question." Which is, "Why did you do that?" And I add it here as a caution. The curious scientist is empathetic and observes without judgment. Listening to the answer to gain the insight makes all the difference. That is, listen to hear what the person says not listen to hear how you should respond.

Why? What? Who? When? How?

I have found, that any questions asked must address what might be misunderstood or clarify a situation. A great way I start is to say what I see or perceive to be true. Use the questions to test my theory of what I perceive but not work to disprove someone else's reality. From the answers, I determine what this means based on fully understanding another perspective or situation. Then I repeat it back for validation. Each question is another puzzle piece to the full picture.

From my experience, the full picture is everything. Seeing the players, the board, the moves, and the real change that needs to happen is the way to achieve the goal. And I've found by the end of the project the risk of "looking dumb" early on made the entire team look smart in the end.