SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE – THE NEW SCIENCE OF SUCCESS BY KARL ALBRECHT

Social Intelligence – The New Science of Success by Karl Albrecht


Introduction
Karl Albrecht defines social intelligence (SI) as the ability to get along well with others while winning their cooperation. SI is a combination of sensitivity to the needs and interests of others, sometimes called your ‘social radar’ an attitude of generosity and consideration, and a set of practical skills for interacting successfully with people in any setting. Social intelligence provides a highly accessible and comprehensive model for describing, accessing, and developing social intelligence at a personal level.

This book is filled with intriguing concepts, enlightening examples, stories, cases, situational strategies, and a self-assessment tool - all designed to help you learn to navigate social situations more successfully.
Chapter 1.A different kind of "smart"
This chapter aptly provided insight to how to get along well with others and to get them to cooperate with you. That what we will call SI consists of both insight and behavior.

The chapter used various concepts to drive home this belief i.e.:


Old wine in new bottles? An expression from the ancient tradition of Zen philosophy clearly defined it as; the biggest obstacle to learning something new is the belief that you already know it.

Going beyond IQ. I however consider the publication of Harvard Professor Howard Gardner in 1983 as a summary of all other scholars’ submissions on this. He rearranged these multiple smarts that go beyond IQ into six primary categories viz;



1. Abstract intelligence: symbolic reasoning

2. Social Intelligence; dealing with people(the topic of this book itself)

3. Practical intelligence; getting things done

4. Emotional intelligence; self-awareness and self-management

5. Aesthetic intelligence; the sense of form, design, music, art and literatures

6. Kinesthetic intelligence; whole-body skills like sports, dance, music or flying a jet fighter.

The above summary succinctly encompasses all the ingredients needed to succeed not only on the job but in all areas of life.
EI, SI, or both? Daniel Goleman’s landmark publication – Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ, the concept of "EI" or "EQ" – an emotional quotient. This has taken hold significantly in business sector. Goleman’s practical model of EI identified 5 dimensions of competence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and relationship. Among them all, relationships dimension seems to stretch the model and the concept beyond the boundaries. The first 4 primary competencies clearly identify elements of internal emotional landscape, which influence one’s behavior in fundamental ways.

From Toxic to nourishing. Toxic behaviors, by definition, cause others to feel devalued, inadequate, angry, frustrated, or guilt. Nourishing behavior in the other hand, cause others to feel valued, capable, loved, respected, and appreciated. People with high social intelligence are primarily nourishing in their behavior while people with low social intelligence are exhibit toxic behavior toward others. They act as anti-magnetic. In this regard, the old expression about having a magnetic personality may have some value.

Blind spots, lenses, and filters: These simply mean that just as our brains work around our visual blind spots, so too do they work around our social or psychological blind spots. We don’t see what we don’t want to see. And we do see what we want to see. The commonplace expressions we use in our culture indicate that we understand, at some level, that we human beings do not actually perceive reality, we create at the instance of perception.

Social halitosis, flatulence and dandruff: Social halitosis is referred to someone who is inauthentic, with inconsiderate behavior, the conversational equivalent of bad breath. Also someone with only one story and who insist on telling it all over and over to everyone who will hold still. The usually have false sense of perceiving attention. Social flatulence describes people with knack for saying something inappropriate, inconsiderate or crude, showing so little appreciation for the immediate concept. Its social equivalent is passing gas in church, or at wedding or funeral. I call it social fart. It originates in ignorance, lack of situational awareness, or worse still, lack of respect for accepted norms for behavior. Social dandruff, however means, a pattern of behavior that selfishly imposes one’s interest on others. They usually impose on the politeness of others to ask for favors inappropriate to the relationship. It aptly describes "get my way persons".

Becoming a socially smarter species. The observation of renowned British writer and futurist H.G. Wells perfectly described civilization as becoming more of a race, between education and catastrophe. For us to survive and live a semblance of peaceable state, we need leaders who model high social intelligence; we need educational system that honors principles and behaviors associated with high social intelligence; we need an educational system that equips young people to express their ideas clearly, to make themselves understood, and to seek to understand others before reacting to their behavior; and lastly, we need a media environment that serves the higher values of the culture and not simply the commercial interests of corporations whose executives feel entitle to sell anything they choose, to anybody they can influence, by any means possible.

S.P.A.C.E: the skills of interaction: SPACE acronym clearly defined a comprehensive model for describing, assessing, and developing SI at a personal level and it sets the topics for subsequent chapters of this book. The space acronym is a veritable framework for social diagnosis for developmental model. They are; sensational awareness, Presence, authenticity, clarity and Empathy.



Chapter 2. "S" stands for Situational awareness:
This can be likened to "social radar" or the ability to read situations and to interpret the behavior of people in those situations, in terms of their possible intentions, emotional

states, and proclivity to interact. This is more of an environmental scanning and consciousness among people. It has great implications on evolution of cultural complexities.
Chapter 3. "P" stands for Presence:
This is often referred to as "bearing", presence incorporates a range of verbal and non-verbal patterns, once appearance, posture, voice quality, subtle movements – a whole collections of signals others process into an evaluative impression of a person.
Chapter 4. "A" stands for Authenticity.
The social radars of other people pick up various signals from our behavior that lead them to judge us as honest, open, ethical, trustworthy, and well intentioned – or inauthentic.
Chapter 5. "C" stands for clarity.
This deals with our ability to explain ourselves, illuminate ideas, pass data clearly and accurately, and articulate our views and proposed courses of action, enables us to get others to cooperate with us.
Chapter 6. ‘E" stands for Empathy.
Going somewhat beyond the conventional connotation of empathy as having a feeling for someone else or "sympathizing" with them. The book defines empathy as a shared feeling between two people. This referred to a state of connectedness with other people. This provides basis for positive interactions and cooperation.
Chapter 7. Assessing and developing SI.
This chapter provides some simple assessment procedures one can use to paint a clearer picture of your SI skills and preferences. It invites you to compare your perceptions of yourself with those of others and to reflect on and plan the areas of SI that you would like to improve. These self-assessment tools, adapted with permissions from SI profile, a published self-assessment questionnaire. This has capability to give you a start on the process. Among various interaction skills you can assess are: by conducting a mental inventory of a large number of people; by taking stock of nourishing people, those you consider skillful in getting along with others and getting others to cooperate with them. Mentally combine all of the toxic people you identified into one imaginary person, give this hypothetical person a hypothetical name for reference purpose. Then, the challenging one, you compare your own pattern of behavior, as you perceive it, with the behavior pattern you’ve observe in both the toxic and nourishing role models. Once you’ve figure out your T/N scores, plot them as dots on the 5 matching axes of the radar chart.
Chapter 8. SI in the world of work – Some reflections.
This book began the study of the role of SI in workplace partly by studying the absence of it. i.e. organizations and organizational cultures mired in social incompetence. Industrial organizations differ considerably in the extent to which they maintain work environments that support mental health and quality of life. Some have invested heavily in programs,

services, facilities, and expert resources to help employees; some have shamefully neglected and exploited their workers. In all the companies and organizations appraised you can clearly defined whether they have toxic or nourishing management. Those managers that ensure increased productivity, with healthy and friendly work environments are nourishing managers while toxic managers maintain hostile, depressed and frustrated employees.
Chapter 9. SI in charge – thoughts on developing SI leaders.
Trying to function in an authority role challenges a person’s emotional intelligence and SI at the same time. Many leadership experts contend that people with relatively low emotional intelligence as characterized by low self-confidence and diminished feelings of self-worth tend to hide behind the badge. Lacking the necessary confidence or skills to explain their views, persuade others of the soundness of their decisions, and solve problems collaboratively, they may use their authority to intimidate others. The fearful or insecure manager may suppress dissent, reject the ideas of team member, scold and criticize them, and maintain distant relationship with them, primarily out of fear of loss of control. But on the other hand, managers with strong SI and EI are very supportive, are teachers, good delegators, communicate frequently, give rewards and praises, take care of the team, with good sense of humor, smart, help subordinate get ahead, source of inspiration and know their job very well.
Chapter 10. SI in conflict.
Many of the most costly conflicts in human history have no such redemption in comedy. Onlookers may ridicule the protagonists for their mindless escalation of the situation, but too often, innocent bystanders pay the price as well. The escalation of animosity tends to follow a very well defined pattern, even though the parties who have become locked in to it may not see it. But conversely, two parties, who manage to maintain cordial and cooperative relationships, display the exact opposite of the escalating atrocities. Positive relationships can grow and strengthen over time, moving upward in a positive self-reinforcing spiral. Just as continuing negative relationship move downward in an ever more destructive spiral. The upward spiral of cooperation looks like a mirror image of the downward spiral of conflict. A strong SI personality debate rather than argue, because "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still". Crucial and frequent conversations breed peace much more than bottling up emotions and conversation avoidance. Even the most of notorious religious and ethnic wars are majorly caused by lack of effective communications. Steve Albrecht offers basic formulas for setting crucial conversation; Get clear about the situation, define your own interest, choose an approach strategy, conduct the conversation in a positive spirit, and try for a clear outcome.
About the author:
Dr. Karl Albrecht is a management consultant, executive advisor, futurist, researcher, speaker and prolific writer. He is the author of over 20 books on various aspects of individual and business performance. Karl has over 25 years’ experience in wide range of sectors, i.e. public, private businesses and NGO. He is happily married with children.