'Spiritual Intelligence' Counselling

IQ, EQ - and now SQ?

Terms like Emotional Intelligence (and Emotional Quotient - EQ) and Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) are all the rage these days. But what do they mean, are they relevant to you and your business and is it even possible to bridge the gap between the so-called 'spiritual' side of life and the hard-nose business practices necessary to survive?

Many business leaders are beginning to think they are not just compatible, but actually the key to the future successful business model.

But how to make the transition? What changes does it require in you, personally? Would you like some expert guidance? Then, again, do talk to me!

Personally, I have found that the very term 'Spiritual' to be far too broad and open to too many dodgy interpretations to be very useful (unless you really are running a 'religous' organisation!)

However, the whole idea of Customer Empathy was always to find a means (or excuse) to bring a bit of human spirit or 'heart' back into the workplace in the strictly non-denominational, non-devotional, non-divinty sense.  "He has a tremendous spirit" or "She's a very spirited person" are very non-contentious aspirations for anyone, and certainly, everyone can relate to being warm-hearted or open and welcoming. These are exactly the kind of new 'human' values that EQ and SQ are leading us towards in our new 'integrated' businesses (and lifestyles).

Also, a fundamental principle that emerges as we go deeper into achieving better Customer Empathy with customers, for example, is that, really, individual members of staff will always be reflecting the fundamental 'spirit' or 'culture' of the company they work for, and will almost always find it challenging, if not impossible, to put more of themselves (more of their own 'spirit') into the customer interactions than they are receiving from the cultural environment around them.

In fact, one of the most amazing aspects of a performing an Empathy Audit is that the personality of the business leaders themselves comes straight down through to the customer interface and can be picked up and played back to the Board as the unique 'cultural fingerprint' of their company.  Many a time the Board or CEO/MD have recognised themselves in the Empathy Audit's specific cultural findings - usually to their acute embarrassment!

There was one audit, where we kept picking up an underlying impatience with the Customers if they did not understand exactly what was being explained to them. We reported this back as general sense of "Which part of this don't you understand?" impatience coming over (even though that phrase was, of course, never actually used on a Customer!) Much hilarity ensured when later on in the presentation, the CEO himself said words to the effect of: "I've told them [the staff] over and over what they should be doing, it's so simple, which part of it don't they understand?" thereby beautifully proving the point to everyone that staff simply reflect their leaders' true values (not what they write in corporat Values statements!)

So, now a problem arises: a company's culture and the attitudes of its people are defined by the very business managers/executives who are asking their staff to change. But this is a bootstrap problem, because until the leaders themselves change, their staff simply CAN'T. Put simplistically, if managers are hostile, say, to their staff it's no good demanding that staff be nicer to the Customers without the managers being nicer to their staff FIRST!

And so this all starts at the top - with the CEO or possibly Board (if leadership is truly devolved to the Board as a team). This need for personal development of the business leader(s) requires a new level of awareness, motivation and values to be nurtured.  These values inevitably move on from the traditional financial/ accounting/ shareholder value dominated ones into more personal, emotional, human and even straying into 'spiritual' values. Even introducing the idea of emotions and feelings can be a bit of a 'spiritual journey' for many if not most executives! The transformation that Norwich Union had to go through in their management to get an emotional word like Care, not only into their vocabulary, but actually into their corporate slogan, was huge:

" Is your team using emotion words like 'care'? "
Darren Cornish, Director of Customer Experience at Norwich Union:
"Insurance at core, care at our heart"

I have some in-depth experience of assisting business leaders into introducing 'feelings' to their team, finding their own 'truths' and growing into their next level of people leadership. Sometimes this inevitably does edge into certain areas of 'New Age' or 'spiritual' ideas (such as the so-called Law Of Attraction or "what you put out is what you get back.")

Because of my own extensive investigation, experience and refinement of the pitfalls and practical applications of so many of these sometimes useful personal growth and spiritual paths and principles, I'm able to offer powerful insights and personal growth guidance to business leaders which quickly shortcuts the whole exploration into grounded pragmatic application, even when it strays from 'with spirit' into 'spiritual'.

This unique service would probably naturally evolve out of any of the other service we might start with, however, if you have a specific interest in bringing 'spiritual' values into your business - let's talk now!