The Social Butterfly

The Social Butterfly

It seemed to John that Jane spent at least as much time away from her desk as she did at her desk. It seemed like every time he walked down the hallway he would see her speaking with someone. And she never made it through the company cafeteria without stopping to exchange greetings with several people. John had never seen most of these people before; they clearly did not work in Information Technology or represent their major user groups.

John was never sure if he should say anything to Jane or not. Her socializing appeared excessive and yet, she always got all her work completed and her projects ran smoothly. So, although she seemed to be a bit too social for his tastes, John figured he should just let it go. It never occurred to him that Jane knew something that he did not. It never dawned on him that her socializing was actually strategic professional behavior.

Then one day the CEO called John and informed him that it was time for the Information Technology (IT) department to host and manage the yearly company party. John was shocked and panicked. He just assumed that the sales or marketing departments would always want to take charge of this event. In prior years, John had attended some of the planning meetings for this event. Talk about chaos, every department wanted things their way, no body could agree on anything. Basically who ever was the most persistent got their way.

As John drove home that evening, he was still annoyed about the yearly party. He was a technology guy, not a party guy. Who in IT would ever be able to coordinate the yearly party? As soon as that idea went through John’s mind, he instantly received a series of very clear visual images; Jane in the cafeteria talking to the marketing team and Jane in the hallway joking with the accounts payable manager and Jane getting coffee with their benefits manager. The answer was obvious, Jane was the right person to bring people together and to make things happen.

All of a sudden John began to appreciate Jane and her social skills. He realized that she had built some smart and valuable relationships.

If John had studied emotional intelligence or EQ, he would have seen that Jane’s ability to build rapport with a wide range of people was part of why her projects went so smoothly. She had mastered the component of EQ called Social Skill. In order to master Social Skill she also must have excelled at the other areas of EQ:

Self-Awareness – A person who is self-aware understands their own moods and emotions and also how those moods and emotions may impact others.

Self-Regulation – Someone who exhibits self-regulation thinks before they act. Remember that person you worked for? The one who used to get red in the face, yell and scream and throw notebooks across the room? They were not exhibiting self-regulation at all.

Motivation – If you love to work and it is not just for money or for status; if you have a strong drive to achieve; then you know about motivation.

Empathy – The empathetic individual is able to understand the emotions of others and also learns to treat them as they wish to be treated.

Apparently there was more to being a social butterfly than meets the eye.