Regardless of the fact that change is inevitable reality, not many people and organisations are excited to adapt or equipped to manage it. Managing change should be a systematic approach, when dealing with the transition of its vision, processes and operations. Emotional intelligence better empowers people and organisations to effectively execute and adapt to changes. The leadership of organisations must therefore develop the ability to influence the critical stakeholders through exemplary behaviour and corporate governance to embrace the necessary adjustments for sustainable growth.

This puts a great responsibility on leaders and leadership of organisations to possess the requisite skills in navigating the waters of transitions and evolution of systems. The playbook of every organisation must make provision for vacuums in leadership positions, regulatory requirements, growth strategy, and change in customers’ consumption patterns etc. The real world is far from simplistic, the complex nature of business environments require more than textbook knowledge, it takes top drawer technical competence and a healthy grasp of emotional intelligence.

It is very important to be proactive in business, people and organizations that know this have realized that there are prospects that may not come through the regular marketing channels, hence a need to prepare a custom presentation that shows how mutually beneficial business relationship between the organization and the client. That is what a proposal does, as a document that shows the prospective client what a person or an organization can do for it if engaged. Proposals are also known as sales pitches, usually written in persuasive language in a bid to elicit a desired action or outcome.

However, great intentions are never enough. There is both a science and an art of designing proposals that sway the hearts and heads of prospects. The signature elements in a great proposal design are what move the needle from mediocre to excellent. There are unspoken expectations that your prospects have whenever they receive a proposal from you; these expectations must be identified, understood and presented in a manner that is convincing.

In this episode, we shared some insights on a number of things that must be included in your proposal to guarantee that your prospects don’t trash it.

In a world where most people feel the need to be savage because kindness has been erroneously seen as weakness, you need to do better. Development and civilisation has come with certain important perks, some of which it’s hard to imagine not having. For example, the advent to social media platforms has helped people and communities communicate much better and has democratise information – however it has also become a weapon for most people in resolving differences in the most uncouth ways. Most times, this instinct is fuelled by a mob mentality – playing the judge, jury and executioner.

For high-flying champions who realise that relationships of any kind are key to personal and professional growth – it becomes imperative to know how to better manage conflict and sour endings. Inevitably, most relationships have shorter lifespans than others – some do not even end as planned. The measure of who you really are then becomes how you manage such outcomes. Understand that shutting the door is not inherently good or bad in itself, how you do it is what defines your level of emotional intelligence.

In this episode, we shared insights that will enable leaders dispense tact and assertiveness in their engagements.

It one thing to acquire customers, it’s another thing to retain them. After you have successfully gotten prospects into your sales funnel, which is from the point of awareness to the point of taking action – you need to develop ingenious strategies to ensure that they don’t leave that desired location. Repeat action or patronage is what successful businesses thrive on because if you can keep your existing customer base whilst scouting for new ones, your bottom-line will be better for it. Emotional intelligence then helps to identify and better understand what attracted customers to you in the first place so that you can continue recreating such experiences.

Retaining customers is much harder than getting them but most business people and organisations underestimate this. There are always rival brands that are competing for their attention and offering similar value, so the quest to keep customers loyal to your brand is an eternal one. The goal of every business to perpetuate and maximise the lifetime value of each customer which is the total value that a customer brings to an organisation over the course of their business relationship. This is because more often than not, it is cheaper to manage an existing business relationship with a customer than it is to acquire a new one. Managing the emotions of customers to ensure than they continue their patronage then becomes a much sought-after skill.

In this episode, we share a few emotional intelligence strategies that will enable leaders drive customer retention.

Organizations are always looking to shore up their customer-base by attracting new demand for their products and services. Using the sales funnel, they deploy numerous strategies to move a prospect from the point of awareness of their product to taking action on the same product. This is no mean feat because in a cut-throat economy, rival brands are also competing for a larger chunk of the market share. That’s where emotional intelligence comes in, as an effective tool in creating a distinct and advantageous approach for any such organisations that seek to drive customer acquisition.

When the metaphorical net is cast into the sea of customer in a bit to catch their attention, the corresponding processes and systems must be set up to effectively harness the marketing efforts. Whether it comes in form of a lead magnet, advertising or any other promotional activity – the aim should be to get the customer to act upon the information being presented. Since must buying-decisions for customers are made from a place of emotions and justified by logic, the science of customer rationale must be understood and applied by organisation seeking to weaponise the attention of their prospects.

In this episode, we share a few emotional intelligence strategies that will enable leaders drive customer acquisition.

Great leaders look to replicate themselves in others; they seek to develop the leadership capacity of those they lead. This is a very important role because organizations are designed to work as a system and not hinged on the whims of a single individual. As an institution, a business ought to be like an assembly line that churns out leaders which all but guarantees its succession and its status as a going concern. However some leaders do not have this consciousness because by their actions and inactions they stunt the growth of their direct reports and by extension the organisation.

These errors are usually mistaken for mere personality traits of leaders, cause carnage to the fabric of the organizations they manage. The collateral damage amongst other things is that the pipeline that was supposed to churn out newer hands gets bunkered, the organization cannot maximize its returns on its institutional knowledge and general growth is threatened – if not hampered significantly. Where there is effective corporate governance, these excesses will be reined in but where it’s virtually non-existent – anarchy will run riot and reign supreme.

Leaders should always examine their actions in the light of best practices, where such behaviour seem to limit the potentials of their subjects and the growth of the organisation, the reset button should be pressed.

In the Cash Flow Quadrant postulated and popularized by best-selling author, Robert Kiyosaki – they are four expressions of building wealth: as an employee, as a self-employed person, as a business owner and as an investor. A lot of people who are working as employees in organisations desire to ultimately operate in one of the other three quadrants at some point in their careers. However, many people are not properly educated on what it really takes to do so; most of them run with the simplistic narrative that, “being your own boss is freedom” and that they “get to do things at their own time”.

Those maxims may not be totally incorrect but they are definitely incomplete. This is why the transition is anything but smooth for most people; they do not conduct an honest assessment of themselves to know whether or not they possess the requisite skills. An exit strategy is non-negotiable, moving from relative certainty to relative uncertainty cannot be haphazard. Becoming an entrepreneur shouldn’t be viewed as an escape plan because it is not a silver bullet – rather it allow amplifies the presence or otherwise of your savviness.

In this episode, we explore these eight skills are crucial for those seeking such transition.

Many times, owing to a poor level of self-awareness, you don’t think you can be the clog in the proverbial wheel of your team’s high performance. It takes an honest assessment to reveal that the challenge your team faces is the person in the mirror. It is sometimes described as unconscious incompetence – a situation where you not only don’t know the right thing to do but you you’re also unaware that you don’t know that you are falling short in the first place. You need to first identify the counter-productive actions before you figure out a way to correct them.

It can be very difficult to diagnose when you are the boss or in top management, except there is an effective corporate governance structure – there will be fewer voices to give you the appropriate feedback. Some of these toxic traits come under the guise of office politics but a more cursory examination shows that such behaviour can undermine the overarching goals of an organization. Someone once said that, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” – so good intentions are never enough, such desires must be executed in a manner that increases the fortunes of all the stakeholders.

Leaders must look out for this behaviours on their team.

A Chief Finance Officer (CFO) is a C-level executive that is basically responsible for managing the organization’s finances. Often third in the line of leadership after the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Chief Operating Officer (COO), the CFO ensures that the financial risks, planning and reporting are in order. Being a person overseeing the flow of money in an organisation means you are supervising not just an important touchpoint but a very sensitive one. That’s where empathy comes in.

Driving high performance isn’t always directly proportional to a heavy financial chest, it’s really about using what you have to achieve your goals with proper people management. This is because finances isn’t always the problem but a symptom of the problem – you can throw money at a problem and you will end up with an expensive problem until you address the underlying issues.

A CFO is should realise that finances is what blood is to the human body, it gives life to the organisation. He or she must grasp the critical importance of managing the material resource alongside the human resource that requires it to function. Having a high intelligence quotient will definitely get you the job as a CFO but empathy enables you to make decisions that are in the overall best interest of the organisation.

In this episode, we explored some emotional intelligence strategies CFOs can apply to drive peak performance.

Technology is without question, the inevitable future of the world. It is one of the most important drivers of growth in the 21 st century. Tech has seen this generation soar to heights only imagined by those in much earlier eras. The neck break speed of innovation and the attendant disruption that we have witnessed in real time gives credence to the power of the digital age where almost anything is possible.

Being a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for an organization is a very critical role and it places huge responsibilities on any such person to not just position the organisation in a strategic niche in the tech universe where it exists but as to steer it towards new worlds of possibilities. Empathy then becomes an indispensable trait for navigating these dynamic paths and achieving top level performance with the available human and material resources.

In the workplace, the CTO has to plot how to infuse tech into the playbook of the organization such that things are done faster, cheaper, better and at best practice. As a C-level executive, CTOs are immersed in the design and strategic planning of the organization – particularly with how tech can enable outcomes and produce top tier results.

CTOs will find useful emotional intelligence insights in this episode in your quest to drive high performance.