The Art of Balancing Emotional Intelligence at Work- Justin Bariso [Interview]

About Justin Bariso

Justin Bariso is a well known author, known for his work, “EQ Applied: The Real-World Guide to Emotional Intelligence”. He uses the perspective of Emotional Intelligence, to understand the stories, businesses and the entrepreneurs who pioneer them. A celebrated columnist on Inc. com, he has been featured in world class publications like TIME magazine, Business Insider and Forbes.

Aishwarya Jain

We have the pleasure today of welcoming Justin Bariso, today to our interview series. I’m Aishwarya Jain from the peopleHum team. Before we begin, just a quick intro of peopleHum – peopleHum is an end-to-end, one-view, integrated human capital management automation platform, the winner of the 2019 global Codie Award for HCM that is specifically built for crafted employee experiences and the future of work with automation and AI technologies. We run the peopleHum blog and video channel which receives upwards of 200,000 visitors a year and publish around 2 interviews with well-known names globally, every month.

Aishwarya

Welcome Justin, we are thrilled to have you!

Justin

Hi Aishwarya, I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Aishwarya

Thank you so much.

So the first question I have for you, Justin, was, you know, we would really like to know about your journey, how did you come about to EQ Applied and what was really your inspiration to write so passionately about, of all the things, emotional intelligence to the world?

Justin

Sure. So I’ll try to make it short. You know, a lot of people talk about following a different path or having a different type of journey, but I feel like I really did have a different type of path. So I started out, about over 20 years ago, working for a nonprofit organization, and it was the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

So I used to work as a volunteer, helping to make Bibles, work in a printery, very, very different from a business environment. I had no interest in business whatsoever.

I was working there at basically the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we’re all volunteers. We didn’t really get paid. We got just a small stipend every month, but this was a great part of my life, I learned a lot of principles in dealing with people empathetically, you know, good communication skills, good motivation skills because you couldn’t motivate with the carrot, right?

There is no extra bonus or anything like that, but I learned these principles. So when I finally left there and, what happened was my wife and I had children, and so I stumbled across entrepreneurship accidentally, because at that point I said to myself, “let me take all these skills that I’ve learned of good communication and dealing empathetically in the workplace and let me create a consultancy” and that’s what I did.

I moved to Germany because my wife is from Germany, and I would help German executives with their communication skills and dealing, with their management skills, because what happens here in Germany is, the level of English is relatively high.

But there’s a lot of miscommunication with other English speakers because Germans tend to speak very directly and very, very bluntly at times, and then also managerially, there’s a German phrase loosely translated to something like if we don’t curse you out, then that’s all the praise that you need.

“If we don’t curse you out, then that’s all the praise that you need.”

So the managerial style is not really to give commendation and praise. It’s just to tell someone when they’re doing something wrong or say nothing at all. You know, trying to bring some of these principles of appreciating people in the workplace and showing that appreciation and working with them on a very human level that people here like that very much.

And so I started writing about that experience. I got the column with Inc magazine, Um, and that’s really where it took off and started getting, you know, more and more business in the emotional intelligence field and that led me to write a book on the topic, which, thankfully, has gone very well, and we’ve just been expanding the platform since then.

Aishwarya

Wow, that is wonderful. And, you know, it’s great to see somebody working on such an important aspect that we kind of tend to forget or tend to, just not having a perspective, right? I’ve read your article on, emotional intelligence – What is human emotional intelligence?

And it’s very beautifully put out.

I understand it’s about social awareness and self-awareness, but looking at all of our senses getting filled up now with so many things, and with so many distractions in the workplace itself, how do you still remain socially aware, and how do you practice being self-aware at workplaces now?

Justin

Yeah, I mean it. It’s not necessarily an easy thing to do.

“We all have blind spots when it comes to ourselves.”

We all have blind spots when it comes to others, it’s actually one of the problems that I found with traditional tests and emotional intelligence, for example, somewhat scientifically validated tests will rate the way that a person interprets pictures of a person’s eyes and a person’s face.

And you have to say, based on these pictures, if you feel the person is angry or if they’re happy or if they’re sad and no doubt there’s some advantage and being able to do that and there are certain standards or norms.

But you know, there’s so much that can influence that, too. You know, you can have a happy smile. You can have a sad smile You could have been influenced through cultural upbringing, that makes the way we manifest feelings differently, you know, from person to person, how we show those feelings differently.

So I think that’s kind of, you know, you have to be careful about trying to test emotional intelligence. But what I really encourage is just that people take the time to look back, you know, it’s great if we can identify, you know, these blind spots ahead of time, but realistically it’s very hard to do that. But all of us have had instances where we make a big mistake where we say something or do something that we later regret.

We send the angry email, for example, or we misread someone totally. And I think there’s a lot of benefit in taking advantage of the times after those situations to now reflect back. What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? What mistake did I make? When we take time to really reflect on those mistakes, that’s when we start to improve and be aware of where our blind spots are.

“When we take time to really reflect on those mistakes, that’s when we start to improve and be aware of where our blind spots are.”

Aishwarya

Right! So it’s more of introspection and retrospection and then, breaking it down in slices. So slice and dice kind of concept and then, you know, what we did well and then what we could do better, right? It’s sort of like that

Justin

Exactly, Exactly just taking their time, That’s something that we don’t do so well anymore. I mean, it’s always been hard to do to, block out some time and to do some introspection, to do some reflection. But you talk about today when we’re used to constantly looking at our devices or constantly being on our computer. I just read an update on LinkedIn today. Actually, it was a friend, a colleague, and she said, you know there was a time when we turned the computer on when we had a specific task to do, and then we turned it off. And that was a long time ago

“There was a time when we turned the computer on when we had a specific task to do, and then we turned it off. And that was a long time ago”

So just recognizing that and buying out those moments for the reflection, that’s the first step, I think

Aishwarya

Absolutely. I think getting you to know, getting that “Me time” is very important. And, you know…

Do you think waking up early in the morning really helps with that, with just kind of taking out time for self, early in the morning, and reflecting self here?

Justin

I mean, for me, it does. But for everyone, it’s kind of different, right! You have the night owls, you have the morning people. I was traditionally always a night owl, but then when I had children, I found I couldn’t be a night owl so much anymore, because the problem is, you finally get that peace and quiet once everyone goes to bed.

But you’re just so dead that, you know, you don’t have the mental capacity anymore to do deep thinking. So I try to also wake up early because then you have these quiet moments. But also your mind is very fresh after a good night’s sleep.

We just had our third child. She’s about a year old. So good night sleep are few and far between right now. But that definitely for me that’s the time early in the morning, peace and quiet and taking time to reflect and to jot something down to journal and to really meditate on certain things and that that’s really helped me a lot over the years.

Aishwarya

Absolutely, I think it would also really really help a lot of leaders out there who are struggling or grappling with how to empathize with their team, especially in such circumstances, Right? And, um, you know,

Talking about this ravishing pandemic, with the perspective of emotional intelligence and the power of emotion to drive good. Can you tell us how organizations are you expected to hold on? What are they supposed to do right now?

Justin

Yeah, I mean, it’s a super tough situation, as you know, with COVID 19 right now. And you know, organizations are struggling with their budgets and on, you know, trying to do whatever they can. So it’s gonna be different for every organization what they can and can’t do. But, just getting to a very fundamental level, listening to your people since everyone is dealing with a lot of anxiety.

“It’s gonna be different for every organization what they can and can’t do. But, just getting to a very fundamental level, listening to your people since everyone is dealing with a lot of anxiety.”

And so we can encourage our managers to give people a chance to actually speak, to let them know what their worries are, what their concerns are because that’s the first step. Some of these people don’t have anyone to speak openly and freely with and just having that already build some of the trust there in the work environment and with the relationships that allow a person to feel more comfortable with their work.

And, of course, a lot more work is being done remotely, which we’ll talk about more later, too. But that just makes those communications skills much more needed. So giving the person the chance to speak freely, listening to them, and then we talk a lot about empathy when it comes to emotional intelligence and one thing that I like to share with others, and that I also learned from, Chris Voss, who is another best selling author. He was, the lead kidnap negotiator for the FBI for many, many years, and he taught me that empathy does not equal agreement.

“Empathy does not equal agreement.”

So just because a person thinks or feels different from us doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with them. In fact, that’s the very definition of empathy is being able to feel those things that you were not necessarily feeling so.

For example, we talk about the pandemic right now, you know you as a manager or as a business leader. You may be listening to one of your persons on a 1 on 1, and there may be a tendency to say, Well, you know, what are they complaining about? This other colleague has a much worse situation than them or do they don’t see all the troubles that I’m going through.

I’m trying to balance this and this and this, and the key is to kind of take those feelings which are also valid, but take him away for a minute and just focus on listening and just focus on relating to the person because we all have our bad days. We all have what we’re going through.

And if you can relate now to the other person if you can put those other feelings aside for a minute and say, ‘it’s okay, I’m just gonna focus on listening and trying to understand this person that I’m speaking to right now’, and if they can feel that you’re doing that. Because if we have all these thoughts going there are head of downplaying what they’re going through, it’s gonna come out whether we say it or not. It’s gonna come out.

It’s gonna come out in the way we look at them. It’s gonna come out in the way we respond to them. But if we can really try hard to relate to the feeling, we just say, ‘OK, regardless of what situation they’re going through, they feel overwhelmed right now, and that’s a valid feeling. I, too, I’m feeling overwhelmed, or I felt overwhelmed in these past days’ and relating to that feeling and just listening to it and saying, ‘Okay, Tell me more and saying, I’m sorry to hear that. Um, is there anything I can do to help you know?’

And now, when the person feels heard, then there’s that connection and, you know, empathy brings in empathy. We say so when they feel understood. Now they’re willing to listen and understand you and the issues that you have. And now you can explain to them exactly the trials that you have, you know, as the business leader.

Or sometimes as the employer, and then hopefully together, the employer and employee can find solutions to get through this time and hopefully get over the hump to the time when things start to go back.

Aishwarya

Absolutely. So what you’re trying to say is that you know, as leaders, you need to be more proactive, and you need to reach out to employees and to understand their situation and try and help them out.

And not just be reactive, because I think that’s what leaders typically do, right. They’ve always just reacted, but it’s also important to be proactive, and that makes no sense.

But also, you know, as leaders, how are leaders supposed to you know, cope with this. Where do they go when they feel emotionally low, or when they don’t articulate the feelings that they’re going through. Let’s say it’s anxiety or depression. What can they do?

Justin

Great question. So we all have to have somebody that we can go to. So, basically, even before this pandemic, one thing we always encourage and in that journey of emotional intelligence is having a coach or a mentor that you can trust. So sometimes that means a colleague right there in the office.

Someone that trained you or someone that you feel comfortable with, you know, going to it with your own, anxieties, your own problems. And they mean someone that you’ve worked within the past that you’re still in contact with.

Other times it’s a family member, you know, for me, my wife is probably my most trusted confidante and, many times going to her in the conversation, you know, we joke that she doesn’t have to say much sometimes because sometimes it’s just me talking out loud and getting these things out there. You know, these things that we wouldn’t necessarily confide in others when we have that trusted, confidante, as we say things out loud, we kind of work these problems out for ourselves, too. And when we reach a point where we really don’t know what to do, then getting that trusted feedback from someone that we trust can help us get through.

“When we reach a point where we really don’t know what to do, then getting that trusted feedback from someone that we trust can help us get through.”

Everything really looks dark and bleak on one day, but once we have that type of conversation, we get these things out, we get some feedback, and the next day something sparks, and many times we are confined, if not the solution then the stepping stone to the solution.

Aishwarya

Absolutely. I think that will definitely help a lot of people cope with what they’re going through.

And, you know, in terms of the economy, if you believe in the gig economy, how is it you know going to evolve, especially when you consider the growing ranks of millennials in the workforce?

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