Social Awareness: How to Be Aware of Others’ Emotions!

Welcome to part 4 in our 5-part blog post series on emotional intelligence.

In the first post, we discussed emotional intelligence, why it’s important, and we then introduced the 4 skills that comprise emotional intelligence.

In the second post, we discussed the first skill, self-awareness in depth and discussed some strategies for improving self-awareness.

The third post saw us discuss self-management, which deals with how we act or don’t act in response to what we feel.

In today’s post, we will discuss the third skill of emotional intelligence, social-awareness as well as some strategies that we can use to improve social-awareness in our lives.

We will also continue our example of how the late, great Steve Jobs used emotional intelligence to deal with a very public attack. If you missed part 1 where we introduced emotional intelligence, part 2 where we discussed self-awareness, or part 3 on self-management, you may want to go back and read them before you continue.

Before we get to some social awareness strategies, let’s first discuss the concept of social-awareness in a bit more depth.

Social Awareness – The Third Skill of Emotional Intelligence

While self-awareness involves you looking within yourself to recognize and understand your own emotions, social awareness is a skill that helps you recognize and understand the moods and emotions of others.

By being a good listener and observer of others, it will allow you to pick up on their emotion. This will help give you an understanding of what they are thinking and feeling. It will also allow you to understand how your words and actions make others feel so that you are able to modify them if the impact may be negative.

We will now review some of the social-awareness strategies that Bradberry and Greaves discuss in their great book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0.  The key is to find the strategy or strategies that work for you to help you improve your social awareness.

Strategies to Improve Social Awareness

(1)  Use People’s Names

As Dale Carnegie said, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Greeting someone by name is one of the oldest and best social-awareness strategies you can use. It makes them feel good, acknowledges them as who they are and helps you build a connection with them.

(2)  Observe Others’ Body Language

Many times, just watching people’s body language will give you great insight into how they are feeling or what they are thinking, so you can respond appropriately. Check out our previous posts on eye contact communication and body language to learn how to read others better.

(3)  Time Things Right

There is always a right and a wrong time to do things. For example, when your Dad came home from worked all stressed out and pissed off was probably not the best time to ask to borrow the car. Being focused on the other person and not yourself, is the key to using this strategy of social-awareness.

(4)  Have a “Back-Pocket Question”

This is a strategy the authors recommend when you are in an awkward moment or faced with uncomfortable silence. The idea is to simply have a ‘go-to’ question such as “what do you think about —” to break the awkward silence and show the other person you are interested in them.

(5)  Selectively Take Notes at Meetings

While taking notes is important, if you are too focused on taking notes you will miss critical clues on how others are feeling or what they may be thinking. By focusing on others, their body language, their tone of voice and expressions, it will help improve your social awareness.

(6)  Ditch the Mind Clutter!

When you are talking to someone else, try to ditch all the mind clutter and focus on them and what they are saying. Don’t interrupt them and don’t plan your response, instead focus on their face, their words and what they are saying.

(7)  Be Present

Wherever you are, be where you are. If you are going for a swim, go for a swim. Thinking about the past or future means you are not focused on the present and your social awareness will suffer. Be present!

(8)  Be a Good Listener

When other people are speaking, stop everything you are doing and listen in a focused manner until they are done speaking. Really try to hear what they are saying.

(9)  People Watch

This is one of my favorites and it is just practicing watching others to see if you can understand how they are feeling. Watch their interactions and body language to see if you can uncover their intentions or emotions without being involved in their interaction.

(10)  Experience the Other Person’s Viewpoint

Taking time to put yourself in the other person’s shoes may be the best social awareness strategy there is. It helps you look at things from their perspective and really understand where they are coming from. You may want to check out Howie’s video on Other Person’s Viewpoint (OPV).

How Steve Jobs Used Social-Awareness Dealing with a Public Attack

To recap our story, recall that Steve Jobs was publicly attacked by someone in the audience at an Apple Developer Conference after returning to the company after over a decade away.

Instead of immediately getting hijacked by his emotions and flying off the handle he used self-awareness to understand his emotions and then he used self-management by pausing for 10 seconds, taking a sip of water.

Then he made a funny remark and took another long pause which allowed him to maintain his composure to plan what he was going to say.

He then used the last social-awareness strategy (#10) above to put himself in the questioner’s shoes by actually agreeing with him and saying:

“One of the hardest things, when you’re trying to effect change, is that–people like this gentleman–are right! …In some areas,”

It’s brilliant and completely disarming and helps to find common ground with the man and others in the audience and shows that he completely understands their emotions and how they are feeling. Amazing!

So far, Jobs has done a masterful job of using the first 3 skills of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness.

In tomorrow’s blog post you will see how he closes the loop just as incredibly by utilizing relationship management to bring both the story and this week’s blog post series on emotional intelligence to their conclusion.

Until then, keep using those social awareness strategies and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It

Some of the social awareness strategies we discussed above are:

(1)  Use people’s names
(2)  Observe others’ body language
(3)  Time things right
(4)  Have a “back-pocket question”
(5)  Selectively take notes at meetings
(6)  Ditch the mind clutter
(7)  Be present
(8)  Be a good listener
(9) People watch
(10)  Just ask
(11)) Experience the other person’s viewpoint

When to Use It:

Use these strategies to improve the social awareness part of your emotional intelligence.

What Do You Think?

Do you use any of the social awareness strategies we discussed above? Do you have any others you use? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

1 Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

2 Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.

3 Bradberry, Travis. (2005). The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work. New York: Simon & Schuster.