Leading Principles: Strengthen your EQ and culture mapping

This project was my brain-child which took birth while I was struggling as a "UX designer in a large structured company", in the form of daily conflicts with her business partners who had short-term goals leading, to losing those partnerships at work, to a design & culture evangelist with long-term vision for growth.

My journey has not been easy since it lasted almost 1.5 years of navigating my way, purely because of the lack of UX maturity other teams have across organisations globally. Simply because people are not trained to think for people. Business decisions are based merely on ROI in monetary forms and thus the revenue-focused working culture of people that make operations, marketing, development & finance teams.

I believe that is where the real struggle comes in for every designer, who has to not only care for the customer but also the investors &their own colleagues and partners.

Conflicts at work usually happen because we all come from diverse backgrounds. And more so at companies which advocate Diversity & Inclusions as part of their credo.

So while navigating my first stint with a big corporate company, with constant conflicts I was left wondering, "What do I do now?". I mean I had to work with the same people right. I got along all my partners but just when it came to customer advocacy, things would fall apart. Lot of research and conversations with acquaintances led me to realising that it's all happening due to the difference in goals and the mindset you come at work with.

Now companies today can set all the rules and regulations in place for people to follow, but then those frameworks are to be follows by the people with emotions right! And when as humans, we don't have our emotions in check, we will not succeed for long.

There are various models in our ancient history that have taken shape of the real-ruthless-corporate culture. I call it Power Play. One of its examples from the Hindu scriptures is labelled as the Chanakya Niti consisting the following 4 pillars:

1. SAAM: Policy of getting work done through peaceful negotiation

2. DAAM: Policy of getting work done through allurement

3. DAND: Policy of getting work done by fear or escalation

4. BHED: Policy of getting work done by creating differences or divide & rule

Because leaders are those who lead with the pack and not alone.

In real world, when you have to grow in your professional life, the above method doesn't work after a time. Because leaders are those who lead with the pack and not alone. And in order to grow, with my personal experience I can advocate for a much better method to use, i.e., Emotional Intelligence and Culture Mapping.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

EQ Is a vast topic to cover under this one blog, but 4 basic pillars can help sharpen your EQ:

1. Self-awareness: Identify your behavioural patterns when in an uncomfortable situation at work.

2. Self-management: Manage your actions

3. Social awareness: Understanding others and the room you stand in.

4. Relationship management: Know how to influence, coach, mentor and resolve conflict effectively

Once you sharpen your EQ, the next important step is-

Be the first to reach out: Be firm but empathetic while negotiating your terms.

Include service leadership attitude: Ask yourself what value you can add to the other person's goals. And also ask them.

CULTURE MAPPING

Culture mapping is a research method that helps identify peoples distinct behaviours, cultural assets. I read a book on the same, The Culture Map by Erin Meyer, a renowned author and professor at INSEAD. She has devised a framework of Culture Mapping that consists of 8 different scales and we can place each country, or ourself and our partners/colleagues/stakeholders on each of the scale, to identify the patterns of how each one builds trust, gives feedback, and makes decisions.

The eight scales are:

1. Communicating: low-context vs. high-context

2. Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback

3. Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical

4. Deciding: consensual vs. top-down

5. Trusting: task-based vs. relationship-based

6. Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoids confrontation

7. Scheduling: linear-time vs. flexible-time

8. Persuading: principles-first vs applications-first

The culture map (source: www.erinmeyer.com/tools)

Some of her videos, on the topic, that I watched before buying the book:

• Culture map: The future of management

• Low context vs High context societies

• Getting to Yes across cultures

• How cultures across the world approach leadership

I used this tool and conducted a workshop at my current organisation to help understand our stakeholders and then plan our strategy to deal with them. You can read more here.

My intension was to sensitise people that it's okay to have conflicts but it is not okay to just leave it at escalations or resignations (yes, study by Pearson shows 2/3 employees said their performance declined and 12% resigned due to low EQ behaviour at work).

In order to grow, one has to learn to lead with empathy across cultures by only knowing what other people's cultures are and by having the service attitude. Only then you truly become a leader.

One has to learn to lead with empathy across cultures by only knowing what other people's cultures are and by having the service attitude. Only then you truly become a leader

It's a fact that today we hire for hard skills but often times recruiters and hiring managers forget that its the person's soft skills that will help define the outcomes during times of pressure and challenges thrown at unprecedented times that usually come with no-warning. And it's the people's soft skills that define the difference between a high performer vs low performer and between a leader vs manager.

I'll close it with concluding that today, it’s the need of the hour to bring more focus on up-skilling our own emotional intelligence and bring empathy at our workplaces in times of pandemic, when we all are so busy juggling between our personal and professional lives from the closed doors of our homes.

And this, my friend, shall take you up your career ladder and ensure you stay there!