By Ellen Barnes Pfiffner, EBP Business Consulting
When customers schedule a briefing - virtual or in-person - with your company, they know your organization has a product or solution that will solve their problems. During the briefing, they are going to decide if they want to do business with you or not. The briefing is an opportunity to differentiate your company from your competitors. However, the briefing is much more than providing the “right” content. If the briefing is not able to stay on time, the customer wonders if their installation will go as planned. If the briefings are “canned” one-way monologues, the customer thinks their business is not important to you. An ABPM World Class Characteristic is “Briefings are facilitated by a trained professional in order to deliver dynamic, interactive, highly customer-centric experiences.” Understanding Emotional Intelligence (EQ) will enhance your personal success as a facilitator. Knowing your emotional barometer will reveal much to you about your style of facilitation and how you lead briefings. How well you tolerate stress, handle change, express your emotions, and interact with others are all influenced by emotional intelligence. It is also a lens to view other’s behavior and influence results, especially through the anxiety of the pandemic. This article, the fifth in the virtual briefing series, is an overview of EQ and EBP tips on how a facilitator can use EQ to improve the outcomes of virtual briefings.
EBP Tips
Facilitating briefings is more complex than facilitating meetings because of the of objectives of the multiple stakeholders – customers, sales, discussion leaders, executives and the briefing staff. The briefing facilitator plays a key role in ensuring there is a balanced dialogue, the discussion stays on track, and linkages are made with the customer’s business issues throughout the briefing. ABPM research supports, facilitation is one of the most important initiatives your program can implement to raise the level of excellence in your briefings.
In addition to the complexity of a briefing and facilitating virtually, we are living in unprecedented times. A range of mixed emotions accompanies the pandemic: fear, anxiety and even waves of panic. These emotions can be compounded by worries about health and finances, as well as the stress of working from home and home schooling.
Briefing professionals are reporting they are experiencing down days and they are seeing the signs of the stress in their teams, account managers, discussion leaders and some customers. In business, we are trained to place our attention on data, technology and facts. During Covid-19, we are recognizing the power of emotional intelligence and how it can increase our effectiveness personally and in the workplace. In his book Working with Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Golman defines (EQ) as:
“The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”
We posit that developing emotional intelligence is always a good thing, but during the current crisis it is an invaluable skill. The following is an overview of how to apply EQ techniques to be more effective personally and in your role as a facilitator.
The key components of EQ include Personal Competencies and Social Competencies. Personal Competencies include personal awareness. A successful day starts with being able to manage ourselves and our calendars. In contrast, Social Competencies are our abilities to understand others. Briefing professionals juggle many different needs and have both internal and external people to serve. The social side of emotional intelligence is very important when dealing with so many people and their often-conflicting agendas. The four pillars of EQ and their competencies are listed below:
Personal Competencies
Awareness, understanding of our strengths and limits
Social Compentencies
Ability to understand others, empathize and listen
Understanding ourselves and motivating others is essential to facilitating impactful briefings. Here are some tips, based on the four pillars of EQ, that will enhance the value you deliver when facilitating a virtual briefing.
Self-awareness
A good practice is to mute your microphone when you are not speaking. It helps limit background noises and system feedback.
Vary your voice tone.
Maintain your own energy.
Have faith in yourself; you can do it!
Self-management
Close all the other windows on your PC so you are not tempted to respond to a chat or Facebook posting.
Use active listening; display an interest in what is being said, be inquisitive and question to understand.
Be open and honest, interact with integrity and build trust.
Social awareness
Employ empathy, acknowledge other’s perspective or feelings.
Be patient, if someone doesn’t respond immediately, give him or her a few seconds. The slow response may be an audio delay or people might be desperately trying to unmute themselves.
Understand roles and know who are the decision makers and influencers.
Take five-minute breaks to keep people energized.
Relationship Management
Reinforce ideas and encourage engagement.
At the beginning of the briefing ask for and record the customers’ objectives for the briefing.
Encourage collaboration by keeping participants focused on the agenda.
Give each person the spotlight, even if it is only briefly.
Manage conflict by asking good questions, use humor and suggest putting tangent issues in a “parking lot”.
Review objectives and action items at the end of the briefing.
These are unusual times and there is lots going on in our homes. On a recent international call, the discussion leader’s dog barked in North Carolina. Soon everyone on the call was laughing. A participant wrote into chat, “My dog heard the bark, then the neighbors’ dogs heard my dog bark, and soon it seemed as all of the dogs in England were barking.” This is a time for authenticity; relax and enjoy the moment together.
In summary, the good news is that with awareness and practice we can improve our emotional intelligence. An added benefit is that working on emotional intelligence actually builds new pathways between the emotional and the rational parts of our brains. There’s also a strong correlation between emotional intelligence and job performance and effectiveness. Understanding your clients and being able to adjust your approach with them are critical skills in successful facilitation. EQ can help you modify your approach to the style of the attendees and improve the outcomes of virtual briefings.
Would you like to learn more? In EBP Business Consulting’s Facilitation Skills Training, we provide additional information and EQ skill development.
Ellen Barnes Pfiffner, M.Ed., CMM – Ellen is the principal of EBP Business Consulting and offers benchmarking, tools, and consulting to executive briefing programs globally, on-site ABPM Competency courses, and customized training programs including Facilitation Skills. EBP Business Consulting offers on-site and virtual ABPM Core Competency courses, benchmarking and consulting to executive briefing programs.
Note: My mother named me Ellen, our family name is Barnes, and I married Tim Pfiffner. When I started consulting to Executive Briefing Programs 15 years ago, I just knew I had to name my company EBP Business Consulting. I welcome your questions and feedback. Contact me online or at 214.789.3571.