The "Technology" of Understanding Another's Point of View

Emotional intelligence deals with four components: emotional self-awareness, self-control (of disturbing and distracting emotions), empathy, and management of interpersonal relations. Social intelligence, with its focus on the research of neuroscience and human interaction, is primarily focused on social awareness through listening and empathy, as well as success in social relationships, including influencing others through appropriate self-presentation. Social intelligence has proven a human characteristic that is distinct from general intelligence, Torker unicycle though there is certainly a degree of overlap between the two.

Relationship building applies all the structure and research of its sister concepts and takes that into the world of business interaction. Its focus is clearly on the dynamics that involve business interaction-understanding both colleagues and customers and, second, making the best business presentation possible to the target group.

Reading others well, including their emotional disposition, is the skill of putting ourselves into someone else's shoes-whether that be customer or colleague-while listening attentively. This business-oriented form of empathy (listening skills) is the delicate yet powerful option of allowing mental images and/or emotional sensations of shared experiences to emerge within. It involves:

� Listening to another's story
� A basic understanding of emotions-hurt, sorrow, anger, and so forth
� Allowing this inner feeling to grow without judgement
� Framing this feeling within the context of the particular business situation at hand
� Responding with a question, to make sure what we've heard the other person sharing is on target in terms of emotional accuracy

But reading others successfully also involves accessing our own emotions to accurately capture someone else's emotion. According to Dr. Tobin Hart, from his article "The Refinement of Empathy" appearing in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, this occurs by comparing what your colleagues or customers are telling you with your own experience, to arrive at a similar emotional experience.

To communicate and understand most effectively with our colleagues and customers, we can reflect their posture and expressions, deeply and authentically "walk in their moccasins" to synchronize our brain patterns with theirs, and then get the highly desire rapport we seek. More than that, if we do the reflecting well, will echo those emotions in their own minds. The power of effective communication comes when we step back from the ongoing rush of business interaction. Then we can take stock of our own emotional vantage point "in the moment" and decide which direction to move for the future success of the team, organization, or customer.

David Nour is a social networking strategist and one of the foremost thought leaders on the quantifiable value of business relationships. In a global economy that is becoming increasingly disconnected, David and his team are solving global client challenges with Strategic Relationship Planning� and Enterprise Social Networking best practices. http://www.relationshipeconomics.net/