Transcript: The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
INTRO:
Welcome to demystifying franchise ownership. The podcast that brings you expert advice, transparency, and clarity around franchise ownership. Whether you are a prospective or current franchisee or a franchisor or simply curious about the topic, say hello to your host Kristine Givens.
KRISTINE:
Welcome. I'm Kristine, an entrepreneur who built and sold a highly successful, Chicago based boutique accounting firm, and then acquired and operated a national franchise. After five long years of frustrations, struggles and challenges, I exited that franchise. But what I lost financially, I gained in knowledge, experience and hard-earned lessons learned, all of which I want to share with you. So, let's get started.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining my second podcast. Even though this is podcast number two, it's the first podcast I recorded. And, like many new endeavors, I encountered a couple of hiccups. One my mic didn't work. I had tested it. I thought it worked. Turned out one little button needed to be switched. My sweet husband figured that out. Second, my elderly dog stood outside my office door barking throughout the recording. And lastly, my daughter called during that the recording. What did we do? We went on we continued with the interview. We persevered. The guest, my friend Kirsten, said don't worry about it. Let's just record on zoom. You sound great. So, we went on. When I reflected on the whole situation, I saw the humor in the whole thing. It reminded me of what it was like to be a franchisee. We always had unexpected things happening. But as a franchisee you must go with the flow and work with the hand you're dealt. You must expect the unexpected, because sstuff happens all the time. All the time. For example, one Chicago winter, I got a call at 5am from the property owner telling me that a pipe had burst in the adjacent space and water was running into our space. We were to open at 10am I certainly hadn't scheduled my day to deal with flooding in our space, but I had to quickly adjust. It's all about being flexible, adaptable, and really being okay with things not being perfect, which has not always been easy for me. I think it's apropos that all these unexpected things happened when I was embarking on my podcast about franchise ownership. Just because unexpected things happen when you're a franchise owner, I hope you can give me a little grace if the audio quality is not quite up to standard, you hear my dog barking in the background or my phone ringing.
So now let's get to today's episode, where I interview my good friend, Kirsten Ramos. Kirsten has her own learning and development firm Elevate Performance Solutions, where she creates customized leadership training solutions for small to mid-sized, post startup organizations. She also does one on one coaching which is how she and I met where she coaches individuals on leadership skills to increase their awareness and success in business.
When I was brainstorming about podcast topics, one I knew I needed to cover is the essential skills of a franchise owner. Prospective franchisees don't really consider fully what are all the skills I need. Do I have those skills? If I don't have those skills, how am I going to fill the gap those skill gaps? Since Kirsten teaches courses on soft skills and emotional intelligence, I turned to her to help me unpack this topic. Hello, and welcome, Kirsten.
KIRSTEN:
Hi, Kristine. And thanks so much for having me on. I'm so excited for our conversation.
KRISTINE:
I am too. And a fun fact, Kirsten is Kirsten, K I R S T E N. And I'm Kristine, K R I S T I N E. And we both as children had Kitty as a nickname, right? Yeah,
KIRSTEN:
Good old nickname that people to this day, depending on the circles that we're in, call us Kitty from time to time.
KRISTINE:
Right, exactly. So, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I have a minor in psychology. I've always had an eye toward psychology along with my financial perspective of situations. This topic is interesting for me, and having been a franchisee myself, I learned not only do you have to have all those hard skills, like financial fluency and sales and marketing, but you also need to have soft skills. And I think going into franchise ownership, I underestimated the importance of emotional intelligence. So first, can you start off just talking generally about what it means to have emotional intelligence?
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, and I agree with you, Kristine, this is an important topic, because a lot of times people look at it as, hey, you need to have really high IQ, when you know you're going into business. And I don't disagree that you need to have business acumen and having emotional intelligence. You’ll hear emotional intelligence, referred to as EI. So, when you hear this, it's synonymous. You’ll hear me refer to it as EQ. Because we know what IQ is, well, having that EQ or emotional intelligence is really important in business. And, several different practitioners or creators have different assessments and content and knowledge around emotional intelligence. And I really like the work of Daniel Goleman. I like to call him as the Godfather or the grandfather, you know, at times of emotional intelligence. And so you'll see with different people, some have four different tenants, some have five. Golden has five. I want to just briefly walk through what each of these tenants are and what they look like. Because I think it's easy to hear a different qualification and say, okay, that's great. I don't know what that looks like. So I'll walk through it briefly because the five different areas of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, and others, are self-awareness, self-regulation (or self-management depending on how you want to look at it), motivation (oftentimes referred to as self-motivation), empathy, and social skills. So those are the five. To be self-aware means that you have a thorough recognition of your personal strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't mean that you rely on the strengths and stay away from the weaknesses, but it means you have that knowledge. And this is a critical component. All of them are important, but really knowing this is an area where I excel or this is an area I need to work on is really important. The next is self-regulation or, or you may hear of it called self-management. This is where we take those strengths and weaknesses of how we react in a certain situations, what emotions get the best of us and really think about taking a breath, pausing before we let a reaction become negative. We want to turn it into a positive and not to say we don't want to show any emotion that could be seen as negative, but it's more so when we're looking at this in business. We want to make sure we're controlling our outward emotions. I like to say we want to make sure we're responding versus reacting.
Okay. The next is motivation. And self-motivation is a critical component for leaders, especially as a franchisee leader, because we're self-motivated, you're going to continuously work to be better. You're not going to say that “I'm waiting for that next assignment”. Because as a franchisee leader, you are going to push to get better numbers, to get better people, and do whatever you need to have that success. And what's great about someone who's self-motivated. You won't stop. You'll keep striving to be better and to get better.
The next and don't worry, this is the fourth of five. So, we're moving through this.
Empathy is next. And contrary to some old beliefs that used to tell us, hey, don't show any emotion. It's business where we don't want to show ourselves as human beings contrary to that belief. Empathy shows strength, not weakness. It shows that you care about your team members, that you want to bond with them on a deeper level than just the operational. You want to understand what motivates them, what brings them joy. It also shows compassion and understanding because guess what, we all have things that crop up in our lives. That happens, and they're not always pleasant, and they're not always positive. So being an empathetic leader truly brings that human level of leadership into any organization. It also makes it easier to solve workplace issues when they arrive, or even disagreements. Because you know where the person's coming from. You already assume positive intent because you know them. You know where they're coming from.
And lastly, we have social skills. We want to make sure that we're employing social skills because it's going to help us work more effectively with one another. And sociable managers can be more persuasive to work with. And they are adept at handling conflict. And, it is another important skill when you're leading others. Social skills make you a better leader. They really help to drive collaboration, and overall effectiveness and cooperation amongst the team.
KRISTINE:
To that last point about the social skills. Two of the other franchisees, male franchisees who were part of the franchise group I was in, were very skilled at that social skill component. And, now going through these and thinking about these at the end, they were both quite successful. And I think that they really knew how to deal with the employee base. I struggled with this aspect a little bit more than they did. So very interesting. I never really focused on that one, the social skill part of it, because I think as a woman, I always felt like I needed to be a little bit more businessy. Sure, of course, in a corporate environment, I was warm with my employees, but didn’t want to be too social. I wanted to keep boundaries with my team.
KIRSTEN:
Well, also as women, we have a little bit of that unfair advantage when people say, oh, well, you're not being professional enough. Or you're being too emotional. So, I think as women leaders, it’s always in the back of our mind to be professional. We focus on elevating ourselves to that professionalism. You don't want to seem emotional. I think that one is tougher, you know, and especially empathy as well. Looking at empathy and social skills. Are we showing up as that professional? The answer is we can have both. But it can be a little bit more difficult for us just based on how we've been ingrained into, hey, if you're going to get a seat at the table, you must be professional, don't show emotion.
KRISTINE:
Do you find that empathy is more important now, especially in this world where everyone wants to see authentic people. Authenticity is such a trend right now. I don't mean it’s a trend, but it's something that's very important right now. So, do you feel like that's even more critical? Or it always was and is? And now people are just seeing that.
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, I think we've experienced collectively the awfulness of the pandemic. I think having that empathy for others becomes more important, but I also look at it from there's a lot of different ways that we're all working now. So being able to have the empathy to say like, hey, I get it, you've experienced it, we've all collectively experienced trauma. And different people have experienced greater trauma than others, and people react to it differently. So, I think having the ability to be an empathetic leader and meet people where they are and still able to set clear expectations is very important. But if they're having a day, or I like to say they're having a week, because we've all been there, cutting them a little bit of slack and letting them know, hey, I see you. I see that you need to take a moment. I'm here for you. And then letting them have their moment. And then when they get back. Great. Now we're back. And I think that will really help authenticity.
KRISTINE:
There you go. That’s a great overview of the five tenants, five elements, EI. When you're coaching clients, how do you assess emotional intelligence? And I know just from knowing you, one of the things you do is assessments. Is it necessary to do assessments to evaluate your emotional intelligence?
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, so I probably have an unfair advantage because I work with emotional intelligence so often, and I have for so many years. The way I look at assessments is they're great. If you are pretty novice to the topic and you're looking at it as I don't really know where I fall, I think that's where it can be really effective. You can also just read about it and understand, okay, if this is a characteristic of some strong self-awareness, or self-regulation, I can look at this and say, I'm not sure I am strong in this area. Whenever someone tells me, Oh, I'm good in all these areas, then I let them know self-awareness is where you struggle. But I think there's some other things that you can do if you don't really want to want to incur the expense of an assessment. Asking others for observations on your behavior. This can seem, this can seem weird, it can seem embarrassing, or clunky. But I'm telling you, people love to be asked their opinion. And by asking someone that you really trust, a valued colleague, a friend or family member, someone that can really give you some honest feedback and say, if you can observe me and let me know, some of my behaviors. You don't tell them some of my negative behaviors or some of my positive. You don't spin it like that. And then, when they share what some observations, take note of it. You can also well, okay, that seems weird. I'm not going to do that, Kirsten. Alternatively, you can also keep a journal and write down the ways you react or respond in different situations. Even keeping a journal about your workday. And I know this could be time consuming. But if you have some extra time, it's a great exercise. Because what you'll notice is once you revisit what you wrote the next day, from the previous day, you may say, oh, I really reacted poorly. Maybe I need to work on my self-regulation. Because when I heard that person say what they said and it made me angry or it made me frustrated, or whatever, the emotion came out. And then I realized, I probably reacted inappropriately. Perhaps I need to go back and possibly apologize, and to look for a way to do something differently next time.
KRISTINE:
So talk about the assessment. I mean, generally, how much are they? What’s entailed with those? if someone was really thinking about, gosh, I want to invest in a franchise. But I really feel like I need to determine whether I have the soft skills to do it? Because you doing everything when you are a franchisee. You are wearing every single hat in the franchise environment. You need to have these skills down.
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, and I think emotional intelligence because there's so many different components, we're not all going to be 100% every time. Related to assessments, you can oftentimes can find complimentary assessments online. If you look up emotional intelligence assessment, you’ll find free assessment. They're not as robust as a paid assessment. So going and looking for something that that is a paid assessment that will provide you with a detailed report on the areas that will show graphs and give you tips on how to improve in different areas. They're probably anywhere from $25 to $100, just depending on the areas that you use. There’re also other assessments that aren’t necessarily emotional intelligence assessments, but they can be communication style assessments, and those can really show you how is it that I communicate? And how am I perceived by others, which, again, falls right in line with emotional intelligence.
KRISTINE:
Yeah, well, $25 to $100 is not a huge investment, considering what the investment that you would be making in a franchise. That’s a drop in the bucket. It's nothing. So it would be a good investment in determining whether you have the skills. You've outlined these five tenants. Do you feel like there's any one of them? That's critical?
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, I really think this probably sounds like an easy way out of an answer. But I honestly believe that all of them are really critical in being able to be an effective leader. That said, when you take an assessment or when you self-assess, or when you look back into those journal entries, and you find that you're lacking in one, that doesn't mean you should put the stop sign up. In other words, you shouldn’t go into franchise ownership. It just means make sure you give yourself that opportunity to get better in that area prior to diving into franchise ownership.
KRISTINE:
So you're not stuck with where you are, you can improve, you can grow?
KIRSTEN:
Yes. Yes, absolutely.
KRISTINE:
And how did how do you? What are the best ways to do that?
KIRSTEN:
Yes, so a great question. And this is something where it doesn't help. If I just tell you here, here are the five areas and this is what they look like. So this, this is great for self-awareness, really taking a step back, or asking someone to observe, where are your strengths? Where are your weaknesses? And when you're able to say, these are the things I'm really great at, and these are some areas I have challenges with. That's how you increase your self-awareness.
KRISTINE:
When you're able to do that you’ve gained self awareness?
KIRSTEN:
Yes. And if you're not, that's when you really want to ask someone else, you really want to journal, the way that you that you respond to situations so that you can see, oh, okay, now that I have it on paper now that I've asked someone externally from myself, I'm able to recognize something I didn't recognize.
KRISTINE:
Have you seen situations with clients where they have really grown in that area?
KIRSTEN:
I have in fact, I was recently coaching in an individual that would talk over me and would say “oh, no, my team doesn't feel that way about me or, oh, no, this isn't how it is.” And I was able to stop and say, what you just did there. You were talking over me. I'm telling you; this is my perception through this conversation. You may not agree, but it's best to just take it in. And listen, and by the end of our coaching engagement, it was really evident, there was a lot of growth in that area. In fact, this individual said “I tried this stuff and it really worked, because I saw that my team members started opening up with the things that I was doing. I was stifling them. I wanted to grow in this area. And I'm able to because I wrote everything down and was able to revisit it at another time.”
KRISTINE:
Hmm, that's pretty amazing.
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a long process, either. I think that's what's nice. This particular individual had an eight week coach coaching session with me. So it wasn't, hey, six years later, they're good to go.
KRISTINE:
Yeah, but it's not a two-day thing, either. Right? It's, it's over a period of time. And you must keep doing it too. How do you ensure or how do you coach them so that they continue to do that?
KIRSTEN:
We really try to set up systems so that it can be something where, hey, every day, do this, or after a meeting, capture your notes, send it out to the group. Have someone else capture whatever it may be whatever we're, we're really working on related to emotional intelligence or, or any of the other skills that I coach on, it's really about setting up systems so that once our coaching engagements done, whether it's six weeks or eight weeks, they can walk out of that coaching engagement with some really positive habits at that point, or on the way to making habits. They say it takes 21 days of consistency, doing the exact same thing every day for 21 days, to make it a habit. So setting up those systems so that after the engagement, they're continuing to do this, and it's part of their life and the way they work.
KRISTINE:
So I can see how self-regulation, social skills, and self-awareness, you could there would be ways to make improvements. Self-motivation, I feel like that's such an part of your DNA. How do you coach people on self-motivation?
KIRSTEN:
I would be lying if I said, this is easy. Because I completely agree with you a lot of work that people do to be self-motivated, is internal, it's hard to coach this. It's a very innate response to a challenge or to growth or to continuous learning. Having that ability to push through is very innate. And so in order to increase those skills, you really need to structure out your time and structure out your days. Because, as a franchisee, as an entrepreneur, whatever you're getting into time is yours. You can make it what you want. But I will tell you, if you don't structure it that way, you have a greater chance of losing that momentum and losing that motivation. I tell people in a way to increase that motivation that is very innate. And if you don't have it, you must create systems. And usually it's related to time management and prioritization. As a way to really structure out that time and keep yourself motivated. Sometimes people have told me what they do. Even though they work for themselves and maybe their franchise isn't open yet, they still get up every day, and shower and put on dress clothes. You know clothes that they would wear into a corporate office environment, because that puts them. And this puts them in the right frame of mind.
KRISTINE:
Have you had a situation where someone's self-motivation was pretty low? And you were able to get them up to a much higher level?
KIRSTEN:
Yeah, and I will say it's on them. I know that sounds like a cop out, and why would anyone pay for my, for my coaching, when I say it's on them, but a lot of them are sent to me from their employer. You're exactly right. The people who come to me willingly on their own because they are starting their own business or getting into franchise ownership. Those individuals are already, I would guess, fairly self-motivated. But if again, if someone takes this assessment, or takes an assessment and realizes, ooh, I would really love to own a franchise, and I have social skills and empathy, and I self-awareness and self-regulation. But boy, that self-motivation is lacking. I would encourage them to look into getting a coach, because what we can look at is what are the big roadblocks? What are the things you need to accomplish? What do you need to accomplish simultaneously? Usually, it's the build out along with hiring staff, along with making sure you have the right inventory. Looking at what is it we need to focus on? And also what do we need to focus on simultaneously, so that we can put a plan into place to look at breaking those tasks down into manageable yet momentum filled tasks that can be accomplished to keep that motivation going.
KRISTINE:
I hear you. I'm a very self-motivated person. However, I've struggled at figuring out okay, how do I get this all accomplished? Sometimes I'd get stuck focusing on small things that didn't really matter. It's like, I need to be focused on these big chunks, the most important things. In a franchise, it's so easy to get weighed down with these little tiny things. And instead of focusing on the big, big issues, you get roped into the small stuff. I still struggle in that area.
KIRSTEN:
Sure. And I would say that's probably not even the self-motivation piece. It's probably either one of two things, either a hyper focus of, hey, I need these are these little details and I need to dive into them, which granted in sometimes some cases you do. But then it's also the sometimes we're not as motivated to take on that gigantic piece, because it's looming. So whenever there's an opportunity to take that big, gigantic piece and break it down into tasks. You know the old adage of eat how do you eat an elephant? Piece by piece, bite by bite. Looking at the gigantic project and really distilling it down so that it's manageable, and you don't feel like it's insurmountable. You look at it and say, Oh, look at this. I got three pieces of this gigantic project done.
KRISTINE:
Yeah. Well, this has been so amazing. You and I have worked together a lot. You coached me on presentation skills, which I enjoyed so much. And this has been really, really good. How do people get in touch with you if they're interested in?
KIRSTEN:
Yes, absolutely. The best way is to go to my website then this way. You're able to see everything that I offer, and it's also has a link to get in touch with me. My website is elevateperformance.net. You can also feel free to link into me or even just check out my LinkedIn profile. And it's just under Kirsten Ramos. So if you search me up, I'm one of only a handful in the world of Kirsten Ramos's. So feel free to check me out on LinkedIn as well.
KRISTINE:
Well, thanks so much for being a guest on today's podcast. And certainly, I think you've given some clarity to what are some of the soft skills, the emotional intelligence you would need to be successful in your job, but also most definitely as a franchisee. Because franchisees, again, they need to be wearing so many hats. You need to be the CEO, the CFO, the CTO, I mean everything.
KIRSTEN:
I agree. And Kristine, thanks so much for having me on. It's always, always a pleasure to speak with you and to work with you. And I'm very grateful for the opportunity.
KRISTINE:
Thank you so much. All right. We’ll see you on the next episode.