Star Trainer Recommends Emotional Intelligence (EQ) for Effective Instruction (Interview)

Star Trainer Recommends Emotional Intelligence (EQ) for Effective Instruction (Interview)

With the upcoming release of our book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, there has been a lot of interest in interviews about personality assessments and training.  In our book, Toni Rothpletz and I dedicate a chapter to each of the important personality tests, including a chapter for Myers-Briggs and Emotional Intelligence.

I recently was interviewed for a piece on Bloomfire.  Some topics we discussed included:

• Things that  have influenced my approach to training
• The importance of EQ
• Valuable books to improve EQ levels
• How to apply learning about EQ to corporate training

   To read the entire interview, click here.

Millennial Job-Seekers Have Unique Expectations

Millennials in the workforce are the focus of many articles lately.  I deal a lot with post-boomer generations due to the fact that I teach for several different online universities.  Millennials have been singled-out as having different personality issues. In all three of my books, I address how personality issues affect our expectations and preferences. 

Tomorrow I will be delivering a talk at a local university’s annual forum.  The topic will be, “Obtaining Your Dream Job by Marketing YOU as the Product”.  I often give talks about how to find jobs and market talents. Tomorrow’s topic will be specifically focused on a younger generation.  Many in the audience will be millennials. When talking to post-boomer generations, it is important to realize they have unique expectations.

Many claim that millennials have entitlement issues.  Sixty Minutes did a nice job on a piece they did titled: The Millennials Are Coming.  In that article they stated: You now have a generation coming into the workplace that has grown up with the expectation that they will automatically win, and they’ll always be rewarded, even for just showing up.  

In another interesting article by ere.net, the following questions were actually asked by millennials in job interviews.  

• If I don’t like my boss, how can I get that changed?
• How many hours per day will I be expected to work?
• Do you allow the use of Facebook?
• If I don’t like my pay, who do I talk to about fixing that?
• If we do reading for the job, can we do it at the gym during work hours?
• Who will be my mentor and coach while I’m learning my new job?
• What does the company do to make work fun?

For anyone that is older than the millennials, these questions may come across as humorous or brazen.  However, they are a good example of how different newer generations may be, in regard to their work expectations. 

In our book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I explain how newer generations are often seen as the “me” generation.  Jean Twenge did a nice job of addressing this in her book, Generation Me. 

In my talk tomorrow, I will be discussing the importance that companies put on emotional intelligence when looking at potential new hires.  Part of having emotional intelligence is having the ability to have good interpersonal skills and empathy.  The interviewee must be able to “read” the interviewer and present themselves accordingly. 

Generational differences can be a big issue that many millennials need to be aware of.  Asking questions like the ones listed above may not endear you to the interviewer . . . unless, of course, that interviewer is a millennial with similar expectations as well.  My guess is, that probably won’t be the case. 

If you didn’t see anything wrong with the above list of questions, my suggestion to you is to do some research into proper interviewing etiquette.  I wrote about the mistakes people make in interviews in my book, How to Reinvent Your Career. 

For more reading, check out articles like:

You May be Looking for a Job . . . But it is Your Emotional Intelligence That Needs Work  

Millennial Workers – New Ways of Doing Things  

How is Your Job Satisfaction? It May Be Based on Your Personality Type 

Related Articles

• Meet the Millennials: Our most educated generation faces a most challenging time (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Lindsey Pollak: How Millennial Women Are Shaping Our Future (huffingtonpost.com)
• New Book Points to Millennials’ New Thinking as the Best Way to Restart America’s Innovation Engine (marketwire.com)

How is Your Job Satisfaction? It May be Based upon Your Personality Type

If you are having difficulty enjoying your job, recent research indicates that the problem may be due to your personality type.  The research, in November’s issue of The Journal of Psychological Type, is based on the Myers-Briggs MBTI personality assessment instrument and the EQ-i which is an instrument that measures your emotional intelligence level. 

The MBTI breaks down personalities into 16 different types, based on how we prefer to process information.  Those types are listed as follows:

In the recent issue of The Journal of Psychological Type, the authors found some new things about how our “type” can affect our job satisfaction.  They stated, “Extraverted and Thinking types scored higher on emotional intelligence and job satisfaction than Introverted and Feeling types.  Emotional Intelligence, however, was a more effective predictor of job satisfaction and organizational commitment than were any of the type dichotomies.”

I wrote my dissertation on emotional intelligence and its impact on performance.  While doing my research, I became a qualified Myers-Briggs instructor also received my certification in emotional intelligence testing. 

If you are not familiar with emotional intelligence, it has been defined in many ways.  I prefer the following definition:  Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions as well as those in others. 

If you have not read Daniel Goleman’s books about emotional intelligence, I highly recommend them.  Goleman has made emotional intelligence a popular buzz word in the last 15 or so years.  His work explains the importance that employers put on your emotional quotient (EQ).  In fact, employers may not be more concerned with your EQ than your IQ. 

What do the results of this study mean to you?  The research from Myers-Briggs shows that your basic personality preferences don’t really change.  If you are an extrovert, you probably will remain an extrovert.  However, you can change your emotional intelligence levels.  Goleman has done a great deal of research into this area. 

That is the good news as one’s emotional intelligence played a more important role in one’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment than did the Myers-Briggs personality “type”.  In our book about personalities in the workplace, we discuss the importance of emotional intelligence.

I think it is important to constantly work on developing our EQ.  I became qualified in emotional intelligence by training through Marcia Hughes.  She has written books for ways to improve your EQ. 

The first step to improving your emotional intelligence is reading about what it is.  If you want to improve your EQ, and improve your job satisfaction as demonstrated by this study, I would recommend looking into Daniel Goleman’s books and check out It’s Not You It’s Your Personality:  Skills to Survive and Thrive in the Modern Workplace, due to be released in the next month.

Related Articles

• Why Do Managers Need Emotional Intelligence? (brighthub.com)
• Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Business World (brighthub.com)
• Top 10 Personality, Career, IQ and EQ  Tests (drdianehamilton.wordpress.com)
• You May be Looking for a Job but Your Emotional Intelligence May be What Needs Work (drdianehamilton.wordpess.com)

MTV Scratch to Connect with Millennials

According to their site, “MTV Scratch taps the power of MTV to connect with millennials in new ways.  Partnering with select brands to pioneer new business models, we deliver award-winning, multi-platform programming and creative, consumer insights, brand strategy, product development and design.”

I am interested in marketing and especially in the post-boomer generations.  Most of my students fall into that age-group.  In our book, The Young Adult’s Guide to Understanding Personalities, Toni Rothpletz and I write about the unique needs and issues facing this generation. 

Because I teach a lot of marketing classes, I tend to look for differences in marketing techniques.  I found the tone of MTV Scratch to be interesting.  They are trying to market and appeal to the preferences of a younger generation.  In their FAQ, instead of having the traditional question and answer format, their responses are a bit different than what you see on most sites.  

Examples FAQ:

Question: Can I come work with you guys? 

Answer: Let’s make friends first, yeah? We’ve love to meet you.  Hit us here . . .

That is not the typical vibe that most sites project.  MTV has always been good at targeting their market segment.  I will be curious to see how well they do with MTV Scratch.

Does the New Facebook Movie Imply Zuckerberg has Asperger’s?

There has been some buzz on the Internet about Zuckerberg’s psychological state for years now.  The release of the movie, The Social Network, only has added to the discussion.  There is one scene in which they show Zuckerberg sitting in a meeting where he is making continuous popping noises with his mouth. 

Those of you who have seen Boston Legal may recall a popping sound made the character, Jerry Espenson, played by Christian Clemenson.  The show’s character had asperger’s syndrome and was unable to stop making the popping sounds.  The portrayal of Zuckerberg in the scene where he “pops” may be implying there is something more going on with him. 

One could simply watch that scene and think he is just being rude.  It also could  just be something that Hollywood added to make the movie more interesting.  Whatever the case, it does open up some interesting possibilities about the true personality type or psychological state of Zuckerman. 

In our forthcoming book, The Young Adult’s Guide to Understanding Personalities, Toni Rothpletz and I list many examples of celebrity personality “types”.  To find out more about Zuckerberg and his personality type, click here.