I still can remember vividly what Ms Lim (teacher of the class professional communication) had told us about Emotional intelligence (EQ) in the class. She said:” 80% of your success depends on your Emotional intelligence (EQ) and 20% of your success contributed by your Intelligence Quotient (IQ)”. The first thing came across my mind was what is EQ? what define EQ? People have always been talking about EQ, but the term EQ actually seems very vague and abstract to me. Then I did a quick search on Google search engine to get a quick glimpse on its definition.
“Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage your emotions in positive and constructive ways. It's about recognizing your own emotional state and the emotional states of others. Emotional intelligence is also about engaging with others in ways that draw people to you.”
It actually makes sense that EQ shapes a person’s success. In my opinion, how a person succeeds is depending on how well a person is fitted in a community. We are living in a social world which comprised of people of different interests, perspectives, social background and etc. Since everyone is quite different from each other, without communication, we possibly cannot fit in well in the society. Hence, interpersonal skills come in handy to help people to interact with each other but it is not an easy task.
Inevitably, most of us always encounter interpersonal conflicts with our friends, family or colleagues. There is a live example about interpersonal conflict that I have had with my friend, Mr A.
Mr. A is an ambitious undergraduate like us who wants to become a BIG boss in the future and he has always worked hard towards his goal (do internships, do start up business, join investment clubs, join business trips and etc). It is a good thing that he has the passion on doing these. As a friend, I am fully supporting him towards his dream. However, there are some weaknesses of him that somehow irritate me. First, he thinks that to become a boss he must think like a boss. So, sometimes he tends to promise an empty promise. For example, once, a friend B had ordered 50 club shirts from his family business. He ensured the friend B to meet her requirements. At the end, what B gets are shirts with some typing error and shirts which are not in the size that B wants.
Besides, every time when a bunch of friends are throwing gathering or asking him out, he will definitely be late for it (almost up to one hour). The reason being is that he is busy about his business or whatever meetings. Once in a while is ok for us, but that is like every time. In my opinion, if you are too busy with your business, you can just tell us that you could not make it instead of making promise that you will come on time and yet making everyone to wait for you and hence wasting everybody else’s times. In fact, I did tell him about his weaknesses politely and privately (so that he would not feel embarrass in front of other friends). He replied that he will improve yet still the same old him again. How to feedback to him again as I have tried before once but failed?
Hmmm...I don't think giving empty promises to his friends is something a boss would do =S
ReplyDeleteLooking at how you've described your friend, I believe the fundamental problem that lies with him is not the habit of making empty promises, but rather a severe lack of responsibility. And it is really difficult for someone who is irresponsible to become a successful boss. He will lose credibility with the people around him; his clients (taking the shirt incident as an example), his staffs (delay their salary maybe?) and even his business partners.
I believe it would be wise for you to ask him to consider other people's feelings. To place himself in their shoes and understand how they feel being treated like how he treated them. Otherwise, I guess a business failure would come his way and be the biggest wake up call for him.
No offence to your friend xinying =S
It seems very irresponsible and hypocritical to think that his actions are those of a big boss. It seems he got his priorities wrong(but who am I to say so when he's got the money and I don't, huh?).
ReplyDeleteFirst thing that came to my mind was "INTERVENTION". I first saw that on the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother". I do not know how effective such a measure would be, but I think it should have a pretty deep impact.
It works something like this. It could be just you, or it could be many people who know your friend Mr. A getting together to persuade or compel him to rectify his 'problem'. It can be direct (confrontational) or indirect (subtle encouragement, I suppose). I get the feeling this tactic is rather drastic, though. It's a psychological/therapeutic technique.
Regardless, I think you'd have to use your EQ smarts to get him to change in this fashion. He probably sees only his goals and his friends are people along the way. I don't think he intends to offend you, but he probably doesn't realise how horrible his actions are. Slow down his pace, get him into your pace, try to make him see and feel and empathise with what you and your other friends feel. However, I am skeptical this would work. It would take someone he greatly respects to open his eyes (so to speak).
Basically I agree with Julian - the best alternative is to let him suffer hard and fast himself. Let him learn for himself that such behaviour will lead to losses in the long run.
In one ear, out the other. Once bitten, twice shy. (hopefully)
:)
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ReplyDeleteI do have a few of these friends. I find it difficult to change the mindset of irresponsible people. I think some people are brought up that way. I do not doubt his ability to start a business, however, it is up to him to realize that he has issues with personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the best solution for these people would be to let them suffer hard before they will learn. It is not recommended but if you care for him and have ideas on how to hit him real hard with a failure, then do it. He'll probably learn fir good. =D
Hi XinYing,
ReplyDeleteI think you should not give up YET. Trying once is not trying. You should try at least twice, or the number of times that you believe how much this friend is worth to you. If you had enough of trying, let the person know nicely that you have given up hope on him. Maybe the finally blow will be a wake up call for him. Sometime people are ignorant of themselves, or maybe they do not bother about what others are thinking. It will take a while or a certain knock on the head before they will realize what is going on.
Good luck and hope you get to change your friend into a better man :)
ReplyDeleteHi Xinying!
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason why your friend is behaving this way is perhaps because of his priorities. Becoming a successful business man is what he has in mind now, thus everything else would seem secondary. And perhaps he is also taking for granted of his friends, thinking that they would always be there for him or he might even feel that friends are not important to him at the moment.
I guess the best way to resolve this problem would be to give him a good kick, just kidding! haha. While you should continue to be an understanding friend, making him realise that his friends would forsake him if he doesn't change could be a start (in a non-treatening way of course). But there's so much you can do on your part, so the rest is really up to him. So let him know that if he doesn't put in an effort to change for the better, you're done trying to help (again, in a friendly way).
I hope he does become a better person soon! :)
These are really good suggestions to advice my friends.
ReplyDeleteI'm kinda agree with Ally about my friend that he has taken friends as granted.That's why whenever he interact with us, he somehow don't apply his EQ and not really being considerate on what he does.
For Jun Wen's suggestion, I admit that people needs to be reminded always and always. If same things happen to me, I would like my friends not giving up on me and give me a pull and tell me what to improve. But I found that that friend of mine is abit stubborn in some sense , so I guess I'll let him has some lesson by himself. People do learn from mistakes, don't they. ;) ahha...of course I'll still be a loyal friend for him