Everyone wants the secret to maintaining an über-successful organization
— one that's resilient during crisis, drives towards solutions, and
thrives under pressure. Catherine Mattiske, the globally-recognized
training expert best known for inventing
ID9 Intelligent Design and the
Genius Quotient (GQ), shares two critical tools successful organizations use, and why both are so important.
"It's no secret that employees are the most crucial part of any
organization. Therefore, it is in the organization's best interest to
ensure its employees feel valued and appreciated, providing them with
available formal and informal learning opportunities to excel at their
jobs," Catherine says. " I find that every successful organization
implements:"
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, control, and manage
emotions both in yourself and in others. "When employees master the
following five attributes of Emotional Intelligence, better professional
relationships between employees are created, which leads to a positive
work environment," says Catherine:
- Self-Awareness: Helps employees identify their emotions and emotional
triggers. When employees are aware of their feelings, they can
understand how others perceive their emotions. For example,
self-awareness can be used to recognize how employees and managers in an
organization view each other.
- Self-Regulation: Helps individuals control and adjust their emotions,
leading to a positive effect. Employees need to be in control of their
feelings as emotions can substantially impact others. For example,
employees need to know how to control their emotions by adjusting their
feelings to give a professional appearance in front of colleagues,
leaders, and clients.
- Motivation: Refers to expressing the feeling and desire to do a
particular task. It is related to emotional intelligence, as desires can
prompt various feelings towards something. For example, in a workplace,
employees can display the willingness to successfully complete all the
daily tasks to the managers.
- Empathy: Refers to the ability to identify and understand the
feelings of others. Employees who understand others' feelings handle
workplace situations more effectively.
- Social Skills: Allow individuals to communicate and interact with
others properly. Strong social skills help you listen, speak, and
resolve conflicts and issues more effectively. In addition, social
skills can help employees develop their careers and lead to leadership
qualities and opportunities.
After observing many high-level performers, Catherine found each had
unique behavioral traits she calls The Growth Mindset. "The seven traits
of The Growth Mindset are vital for organizations to train their
leaders and employees in if they wish to maintain and grow upon
organizational success," she says. These traits are:
- Being Decisive: Those with The Growth Mindset avoid wasting time,
never allowing themselves to be sidetracked. Instead, they take actions
that keep them moving in a forward direction.
- Being Consistent: People with The Growth Mindset are fully in, fully
committed, ready every day, and always looking for the information
needed to achieve the goal they've set out to achieve.
- Smashing Negativity: Those with The Growth Mindset let negative
thoughts go quickly. "They may have a negative thought, but they simply
don't allow it to consume them, and move on from it quickly," says
Catherine.
- Taking Risks: Taking risks opens you up to failure, "but someone with
The Growth Mindset is okay with that," says Catherine, "because by
failing they know they're also learning, changing, and getting one step
closer to their end goal."
- Being Positive: Those with The Growth Mindset are very positive
people to be around! "When someone with The Growth Mindset embraces a
new challenge — even if it's incredibly difficult — they're the ones who
constantly see the glass as half-full. Even when there's only a drop
left in the glass, they still find the positive about that drop," says
Catherine.
- Going Slow: People with The Growth Mindset have a philosophy of "Go
slow in the beginning so you can go fast at the end." They take things
slowly at the beginning of any new process, making sure to lay down a
good foundation so that when they get to the end, everything is
absolutely correct.
- Getting Support: The Growth Mindset is fueled by support, whether
that be from HR, Growth & Development, or co-workers. "That support
mechanism is absolutely the game-changer," says Catherine.
Global business educator and author
Catherine Mattiske is the founder of TPC — The Performance Company, a leading training and consulting organization that has worked with Fortune 100 companies worldwide. Established in 1994, TPC has offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, London, Singapore, and Basel (Switzerland). The author of more than 30 books, her latest is “Unlock Inner Genius: Power Your Path to Extraordinary Success” (September 2021). Discover more about your Inner Genius at
thegeniusquotient.com.