Local Business Owner And Author Roberta Moore Believes Taking Emotions To Work With You Can Not Only Enhance Your Professional Life But Your Bottom Line As Well.
When Roberta Moore, a business executive and licensed therapist, was 12 or 13 years into operating her clinical therapy business, she started to become restless. It wasn’t so much about the clients or the work but about feeling split into two parts: the business background part and the psychology/therapy part. “I wanted to find a way to integrate those two parts of myself and feel whole,” says Moore. “I was feeling like I had a whole set of skills and a part of myself that I’d left behind and wanted her back.”
Despite having a wealth of long-term clients and a full practice, Moore felt internally driven to get out of her comfort zone. In addition, she noticed that the professional people who came to see her for help with their families and personal relationships often ended up talking about their work issues too.
“Often, the same skills they needed to build at home to be fluid and happy in their personal lives were the same ones needed to be productive and happy at work,” says Moore. “‘Aha!’ I thought. ‘If I could find a way to work with professionals who wanted to increase their skills and sort of bring psychology into the workplace without a stigma, that could allow me to use both my hard and soft skill sets.’ I also preferred the challenges that professionals sought help with because it allowed me to exercise the dusty part of my business brain.”
As Moore was trying to figure out a way to make this transition, she received a catalog of psychological assessments in the mail one day. As she paged through, she noticed the emotional intelligence model in it. “I got a rush of cold chills when I opened a page of the catalog and saw the ad for the EQ-i 2.0 assessment,” says Moore. “This was not dread but excitement.”
She was familiar with emotional intelligence because of a book by Daniel Goleman, and she saw this as a sign to take action. “I was looking for a structure or a model, and here was one that I thought I could embrace,” she says. “Right then and there I pulled out my laptop and searched until I found an upcoming certification class in Raleigh in March and thought it was perfect timing: I could finish my certification just as I was finishing up my stay in Hendersonville, North Carolina. My plan was to move to St. Louis in April. I would have that certificate in hand and be ready to take on new clients by the time I arrived at my new location.”
Missing the city of St. Louis, their friends, and the abundance of opportunity St. Louis offered, Moore moved back to St. Louis in May 2013, after receiving the EQ certification in Raleigh in March 2013. Having left in 1998 when her husband got a better job opportunity, Moore built her business, Conscious Choices Corporation, for 13 years in Hendersonville, but now saw opportunity in St. Louis.
In 2014 Moore rebranded her business and launched Moore Relationships, moving the executive coaching and consulting service to Moore Relationships in order to separate the clinical therapy practice from the executive coaching and consulting practice for marketing and ethical reasons. “While doing that, I decided to offer more services such as: additional assessment tools, offsite and onsite corporate training, talent selection and development, and team building,” she says.
Moore is also now writing a book, “Emotion at Work: Unleashing the Secret Power of Emotional Intelligence, ” on her studies of emotional intelligence and how it correlates with the business world. “I want to spread the word about emotional intelligence and how it can help you be more happy and successful, both at work and at home,” says Moore. “I want to help others the way my mentors/teachers have helped me. I believe the corporate world could use some ‘psychological help.’”
In the book, Moore explores how taking emotions to work with you not only can enhance your professional life but also can be the make-or-break difference that takes you from being stuck in less-than-optimal performance to stellar success and professional brilliance. “Using the conceptual model of emotional intelligence developed by Dr. Reuven Bar-On, I lay out16 fundamental emotional skills that are vital for workplace success,” she says.
Moore also helps readers understand how emotional intelligence functions in the professional world by presenting real-life stories from her own background in the financial services industry. And she presents written exercises that go beyond traditional goal setting and journaling. “In fact, they stimulate you to begin relying on and exercising your emotional resources, with an immediate result of strengthening your emotional IQ,” says Moore.
St. Louis Small Business Monthly spoke with Moore about her process of working with businesspeople and the benefits of exploring and improving emotional intelligence.
What does your process with your clients look like? Do you take certain steps with each client?
The process is similar but different because each client is a unique individual. Generally speaking, we start with the assessment tool: EQ-i 2.0 that I am certified in. We use the Workplace Report if the client is an individual contributor (doesn’t manage a team) or the Leadership Report if the client is a leader and manages people. It is part of Reuven Bar-On’s model of emotional intelligence. The assessment results are a starting point for building a developmental plan to build and balance the EQ skills (there are 16 skills in this particular model). In addition, I run a Myers-Briggs personality assessment to round out the whole picture of the person. EQ is more behavioral; MBTI is about personality. Then I work with the client to build and balance the 16 skills, effectively raising that person’s EQ.
What results do you and your clients seek to reach?
Different clients state/ask for different goals, based on two things: 1) their assessment results and 2) the industry they are in. We have research data across different industries that show the top five or so different EQ skills that a person needs to become a Star Performer in their field. Star Performers outperform average performers by 127%. Generally speaking, all clients wish to raise their EQ. There are 16 skills, and different clients work on different ones at different stages of their personal growth.
What are some tips everyone can use to boost their EQ and their self-image?
The foundation of EQ is called “self-regard.” Self-regard is the ability to respect and accept yourself as basically good. If you can’t do that, you won’t be able to convey respect and acceptance to others. Often, this is where we start in my work with clients, as many people carry guilt and shame about past experiences in their lives. Often this guilt or shame prevents them from presenting themselves confidently to others. We work to erase the guilt and shame, and then we build up the person’s self-regard. One of the ways to build self-regard is to help a person acknowledge they have always done the best they could with the resources they had at the time. Reframing “mistakes” as “grist for the mill” can be very helpful here. This means helping the person see that valuable life lessons were learned from past experiences that help them move forward in the future. It is also helpful to make a list of past accomplishments (things you are proud of) in your personal and business life. Then celebrate that list and feel good about it. In addition to the list, you can make an intentional effort to “catch yourself doing something right” because we all spend too much attention on catching ourselves doing something wrong. Keeping a daily journal and writing in it at the end of the day, focusing on three things that you were really proud of or did really well that day, can help build up your confidence. I can’t tell you how many of my clients have told me that keeping a journal was one of the most helpful things they did.
How can improving EQ be especially beneficial to business owners?
The amount of money you earn is directly correlated to how high your EQ is, so business owners who raise their EQ improve their profitability. Many business owners need to form a connection with their employees and their clients/customer base. Empathy is one of the 16 skills needed by many business owners. Empathy, or the ability to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and feel what they are feeling, can go a long way in building trust between you and your customer. Without that trust, clients/customers will think you are not listening to them and they may walk away from your business. The same is true for building trust with your employees. The more your employees feel listened to and understood, the more engaged and motivated they will be while at work. Of course, before you can have empathy for others, you need to cultivate emotional self-awareness, the ability to understand your own feelings. Emotional self-awareness and empathy work together: By learning to understand, manage and control your own emotions, you can use them to feel empathy for your client/employee. For instance, often a business owner must manage/control their emotional impulses (impulse control) during a highly emotionally charged meeting with an employee or client. If a business owner loses control over the temper, frustration or anger, they may react (instead of slowly respond) and say/do something that distances the client. Afterwards they may regret their actions, but sometimes that is too late to save the client-employee relationship.
Description for Reuven Bar-On’s 16 EQ Skills
Please note: All descriptions are taken almost verbatim from “The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success” by Steven J. Stein, Ph.D. and Howard E. Book, M.D. in order to be in authentic alignment with the model.
1. Emotional Self-Awareness: is the ability to recognize your feelings, differentiate between them, know why you are feeling these feelings, and recognize the impact they have on others around you. It is the foundation on which most of the other elements of emotional intelligence are built, the necessary first step toward exploring and coming to understand yourself, and toward change. If we can’t take our own “emotional temperature” we are at risk of behaving in demeaning, angry, belittling, and belligerent ways that will turn others off and push them away.
2. Self-Regard: is the ability to respect and accept yourself and essentially like the way you are. To have healthy self-regard is to appreciate your perceived positive aspects and possibilities, as well as to accept your negative aspects and limitations and still feel good about yourself. It’s knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and liking yourself, “warts and all”. This conceptual component of emotional intelligence is associated with general feelings of security, inner strength, self-assuredness, self-confidence, and self-adequacy. People with healthy self-regard have no trouble openly and appropriately acknowledging when they have made mistakes, are wrong, or don’t know all the answers. People with self-regard feel fulfilled and satisfied while at those who score low have feelings of personal inadequacy and inferiority.
3. Self-Actualization: is the ability to realize your potential capacities. This component of emotional intelligence is manifested by your becoming involved in pursuits that lead to a meaningful, rich and full life. Striving to actualize your potential involves developing enjoyable and meaningful activities and can mean a lifelong effort and an enthusiastic commitment to long-term goals. It is an ongoing, dynamic process of striving toward the maximum development of your abilities and talents, of persistently trying to do your best and improve yourself in general. It is affiliated with feelings of self-satisfaction.
4. Emotional Expression: involves openly expressing feelings both verbally and non-verbally. In our interactions with others, whether or not we are aware of it, we constantly give out messages at an emotional level. These messages can be conveyed through the words we use, the tone and volume of our speech, the expression on our face, or our body language. Others register these emotional messages we send out; they also register their responses to them, both consciously and unconsciously. People who exhibit effective emotional expression are open and congruent in the emotional messages they send to others.
5. Independence: is the ability to be self-directed and self-controlled in your thinking and actions, to be free of emotional dependency and to avoid clinging to others in order to satisfy emotional needs. Independent people are self-reliant in planning and making important decisions and are able to function autonomously. The ability to be independent rests on one’s degree of self-confidence and inner strength, and the desire to meet expectations ad obligations without becoming a slave to them.
6. Assertiveness: comprises three basic components: 1) the ability to express feelings; 2) the ability to express beliefs and thoughts openly (being able to voice opinions, disagree, and take a definite stand, even if it is emotionally difficult to do so and even if you have something to lose by doing so) and 3) the ability to stand up for personal rights (not allowing others to bother you or take advantage of you). Assertive people are able to express their feelings and beliefs without being aggressive or abusive.
7. Interpersonal Relationships: is the ability to establish and maintain mutually satisfying relationships that are characterized by the ability to both give and take, where trust and compassion are openly expressed in words or by behavior. Positive interpersonal relationship skill is characterized by sensitivity toward others and the desire to cultivate friendly relationships while feeling at ease and comfortable, and to possess positive expectations concerning social engagement.
8. Empathy: is the ability to be aware of, understand, and appreciate the feelings and thoughts of others. Empathy is “tuning in” and being sensitive to what, how, and why people feel and think the way they do. It is the ability to non-judgmentally articulate your understanding of the other person’s perspective even if you don’t agree with it or even if you find it ridiculous. It is the ability to stand in another person’s shoes and see the world from their eyes, even though it may be different than yours. Being able to put that understanding into words can shift an adversarial relationship to a collaborative one.
9. Social Responsibility: comprises the desire and ability to willingly contribute to society, your social group, and generally to the welfare of others. This involves acting in a responsible manner, even though you might not benefit personally, doing things for and with others, accepting others, acting in accordance with your conscience and upholding social rules.
10. Reality Testing: is the ability to assess the adequacy of your perception and the correspondence between what’s experienced and what objectively exists. The emphasis is on a search for objective evidence to confirm, justify, and support feelings, perceptions and thoughts. Reality testing involves “tuning in” to the immediate situation and seeing it objectively, rather than letting your emotions influence the way you see it. It is also the ability to concentrate and focus when trying to assess and cope with situations that arise.
11. Problem Solving: is the ability to find solutions to problems in situations where emotions are involved, and to understand how emotions impact decision making. Problem solving is associated with being conscientious, disciplined, methodical, and systematic in persevering and approaching problems. This skill is also linked to a desire to do one’s best and to confront problems rather than avoid them.
12. Impulse Control: is the ability to resist or delay an impulse, drive, or temptation to act. It entails avoiding rash behaviors and decisions, being composed and able to put the brakes on angry, aggressive, hostile and irresponsible behavior. Problems in this skill are manifested by low frustration tolerance, impulsiveness, anger-control problems, abusiveness, loss of self-control, and explosive and unpredictable behavior. Impulsive people are often described as tempestuous, hot-headed, and “leap-before-they-look” people.
13. Flexibility: is the ability to adjust your emotions thoughts and behavior to changing situations and conditions in concert with shifting feedback from their environment. Flexible people are agile, synergistic and capable of reacting to change without rigidity. They are able to change their minds when evidence suggests they are mistaken and are generally open to and tolerant of different ideas, orientations, ways and practices. Individuals who lack this capacity tend to be rigid and obstinate. They adapt poorly to new situations and have little capacity to take advantage of new opportunities.
14. Stress Tolerance: is the ability to withstand adverse events and stressful situations without developing physical or emotional symptoms, by actively and positively coping with stress. This ability is based on: 1) a capacity to choose courses of action for dealing with stress, being resourceful and effective, being able to come up with suitable methods, and knowing what to do and how to do it; 2) an optimistic disposition toward new experiences and change in general, and toward your own ability to successfully overcome the specific problem at hand; and 3) a feeling that you can control or influence the stressful situation by staying calm and maintaining control.
15. Optimism: is the ability to look at the brighter side of life and to maintain a positive attitude even in the face of adversity. It is an indicator of one’s positive attitude and outlook on life. It involves remaining hopeful and resilient despite occasional setbacks. It is the opposite of pessimism, which is a common symptom of depression.
16. Happiness (Well-Being Indicator): is the ability to feel satisfied with your life, to enjoy yourself and others, and to have fun. Happiness combines self-satisfaction, general contentment, and the ability to enjoy life. Happy people often feel good and at ease in both work and leisure; they are able to “let their hair down” and enjoy the opportunities for having fun. Happiness is associated with a general feeling of cheerfulness and enthusiasm. It is a by-product and/or barometric indicator of your overall degree of emotional intelligence and emotional functioning. A person who demonstrates a low degree of this component may have a tendency to worry, be uncertain about the future, withdraw socially, lack drive, have feelings of guilt or be dissatisfied with life.
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