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Dear Travis,

Thanks for your response, I agree with many of your substantive ideas.

Where I differ mildly is in the issue of definitions and constructs.
These involve more than "pedantic description of theoretical jargon."
They involve the issue of understanding.

As I see it, clear definitions and well-developed constructs are the
basis of democratic conversation. Management scientists and scholars
are not privy to special secrets. While there are proprietary methods
and programs in consulting and in industry, there is no proprietary
information in management studies. What we publish is open and freely
available.

The issue making what we know accessible involves careful definition
and clear constructs described in comprehensible form. Good
constructs are the basis of "description that is concise, accurate,
and to the point."

The diffusion of science and scholarship involves several stages.
Some of us work in one area, some in another. I share knowledge
outside the research arena. You asked a research question. I answered
your research question from a theoretical perspective anchored in
reasoned argument from evidence. It seems strange to complain that an
answer to research question involves a scholarly perspective.

You state that you posted to three Listerv lists and got no answers.
I began to develop an answer by attempting to clarify the question.

Your questions are wide-ranging and profound. It is hard to expect a
concise answer to such questions on a Listerv group. The answer to
such a broad series of interlinked yet distinct questions cannot be
concise.

You asked, "If core leadership behaviors like vision,
decision-making, communication, and results focus are considered to
be soft skills, then how do you define "softer" skills such as
emotional intelligence, fairness, and developing employees? I've
heard the latter set referred to as "intangibles" of leadership. How
do you refer to concepts such as these?"

One reason you are not getting answers is a somewhat unclear
question. To answer your question, you must start by stating the
research problem. This requires clear definitions and constructs. The
point of my earlier post was creating useful definitions and clear
constructs.

Your response clarifies some of the constructs.

In part, we seem to be saying similar things in different terms.

I wrote, "Emotional intelligence is an attribute, not a skill or
behavior. Emotional intelligence may imply a skills set and a range
of implementing behaviors, but it is not in itself a skill or
behavior."

You wrote, "Many vehemently argue, including those who coined the
term, that emotional intelligence is an ability or skill manifested
through behavior. There is much research by Mayer and Salovey to
support emotional intelligence as an ability. Research across the
board shows that it is distinct from intelligence and has some
overlap with personality."

Ability is an attribute or quality of the individual who possesses
it. It is manifested through behavior.

It is problematic to state "emotional intelligence" is "distinct from
intelligence." Emotional intelligence may be distinct from cognitive
intelligence, or spatial intelligence, or motor-sensory intelligence,
but it is not distinct from intelligence as a construct.

There are many kinds of intelligence. Emotional intelligence is one of them.

All forms of intelligence are abilities, and all are manifested
through some form of behavior. All abilities are attributes of the
individual who possesses them.

I may have used the term skill in an inappropriate or misleading way.
While some definitions of skill imply actions, others suggest
ability. I apologize for a poorly constructed statement.

You gave a good answer to my questions on emotional intelligence. I asked,

"Is emotional intelligence innate and revealed through behaviors?
Does emotional intelligence involve a set of learnable skills? Is it
possible that emotional intelligence involves a combination of innate
qualities of character, together with learnable skills and behaviors
that in turn shape further qualities of character? All are possible.
This is the case with so many aspects of leadership. I will not
attempt to answer these questions. I merely suggest that only by
distinguishing issues can be begin to do so."

You answered, "Emotional intelligence can be learned and this boost
in knowledge and skill improves workplace behavior (read: leadership
performance). Like most skills and abilities, some individuals are
born with more. Traditional leaders are born not made, but great
leaders are made. Building skill in competencies like emotional
intelligence (notice the different ways we can refer to these 'soft
skills') take leaders beyond the 'core competencies' I referred to in
my first message."

All abilities can be enhanced. This is the role of education and
practice, learning and reflection.

Fairness is a construct where I believe you are right in substantive
terms. I was questioning the construct description. The substance of
this paragraph is profound and important. It is simply the multiple
uses of the term "fairness" that I found problematic.

In your response, you wrote, "Fairness is an outcome but it is also a
behavior. Think of organizational justice. Leaders who give their
employees a voice (Procedural Justice) and distribute outcomes fairly
(Distributive Justice) not only create a fair environment but improve
employee satisfaction and performance. They do this through specific
actions (behaviors) that are a manifestation of their skills."

Fair behavior manifests the quality of fairness and leads to fair
outcomes, that is, outcomes characterized by fairness.

The word "fair" is an adjective. The word "fairness" is a noun.
Fairness is a characteristic. Given the occasional imprecision of
language, I can see that one can describe fairness as a behavior
characterized by the quality of being fair. I simply argue that it is
clearer to use one word for the quality, and another for the behavior.

The major distinction between what you seem to be saying and what I
am saying is the metaphor of soft skills.

I do not argue against the skills and abilities you describe. I argue
against describing them by using the TERM "soft skills."

These abilities and skills are important. I argue that that these are
not soft skills as contrasted with the wrongly labeled "hard skills"
that many assert as core management competencies.

The abilities you describe under the rubric of soft skills and the
behaviors that manifest them are core competencies for any effective
leader

We both believe these qualities, abilities, and behaviors important
for successful leadership. I suggest that we avoid the metaphor of
"soft skills," precisely because it is so easy to let this metaphor
distract us from a range of issues that is as important to any
business as logistics, accounting, and bond ratings.

Best regards,

--

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University

In the second of his exchanges with Travis Bradberry, Ken Friedman writes
(in part):

>As I see it, clear definitions and well-developed constructs are the
>basis of democratic conversation.

Ken does so in the stated context of communicating and fostering
understanding of what we know.

I'll take that a step farther, one that is implicit in what Ken
writes: Clear definitions and well-developed constructs are the basis of
sound thinking. Muddy definitions and muddy constructs lead to muddy thinking.

Some years back I came across a book titled "The Art of Practical
Thinking." It was written by Richard Weil, Jr. and published by Simon &
Shuster in 1940. At the time, Weil was president of Bamberger's, a
well-known retail business. Chapter 6 of Weil's book presented some
"general rules for better thinking" and bore that as its chapter title. I
was especially taken by this chapter; so much so that I wrote a reprise of
it, which was published in 1995 in Performance & Instruction, the journal
of NSPI - the National Society for Performance & Instruction (since renamed
ISPI - the International Society of Performance Improvement).

That paper is available on my web site (see the link below). I offer it up
not to show what I know (because all I did was report what Weil had to
say); instead, I point to it because Weil had a great deal to say that is
very consistent with what Ken is saying and, equally important, Weil wrote
from the practical perspective of a successful business leader. Here is a
snippet from Weil's foreword to the book, touching on just one of his six
rules for better thinking:

"The rule that to solve a problem properly you must first state what the
problem is does not always seem noticeably to influence the thinking of
business people. It is quite clear too that many of the people who are
trying to succeed in business do not know that the rules exist. They work
their fingers to the nub trying to achieve certain rich effects from which
they hope to reap rich rewards -- and they invest all this time and all
this energy and effort in a game where they hourly break rules whose names
they don't even know."

Weil's six rules for better thinking were:

1. Establish immediately your best possible priority of problems
2. State your problem
3. Separate, as far as possible, all emotional influences from all
rational processes, in the effort to obtain correct solutions
4. State your situation with respect to data
5. Observe a fixed sequence of acts in the handling of problems (Weil laid
down eight such acts)
6. Estimate, as well as you can, the loss-gain factor in probably
solutions, and plan in advance the course of action if the solution is
unsuccessful

Weil's six steps involved the proper use of six tools for use in
thinking. These are:

1. Intuition
2. Formal logic
3. Semantics
4. Voluntarist logic
5. Symbolic logic
6. The continuum

By the way, Weil's book can still be found by looking on used and
antiquarian book web sites (e.g., abebooks or bibliofind). I stumbled
across my first copy and subsequently found and obtained a second for a gift.

The direct link to the web version of the Weil paper is
http://home.att.net/~nickols/weil.htm. A .pdf version is out there as well
if you prefer to print and read off line. Its link is
http://home.att.net/~nickols/six_rules.pdf. It is a very brief article so
you needn't worry about being swamped with pages and pages of dense text.


Regards,

Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@att.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm

Fred,
Interesting work. Would you consider it a classic in the field of MED?
If so, I'll follow up with a personal email. If not, thanks for the
lead. BTW who is the publisher?
Barry

Fred Nickols wrote:

> In the second of his exchanges with Travis Bradberry, Ken Friedman writes
> (in part):
>
>> As I see it, clear definitions and well-developed constructs are the
>> basis of democratic conversation.
>
>
> Ken does so in the stated context of communicating and fostering
> understanding of what we know.
>
> I'll take that a step farther, one that is implicit in what Ken
> writes: Clear definitions and well-developed constructs are the basis of
> sound thinking. Muddy definitions and muddy constructs lead to muddy
> thinking.
>
> Some years back I came across a book titled "The Art of Practical
> Thinking." It was written by Richard Weil, Jr. and published by Simon &
> Shuster in 1940. At the time, Weil was president of Bamberger's, a
> well-known retail business. Chapter 6 of Weil's book presented some
> "general rules for better thinking" and bore that as its chapter
> title. I
> was especially taken by this chapter; so much so that I wrote a
> reprise of
> it, which was published in 1995 in Performance & Instruction, the journal
> of NSPI - the National Society for Performance & Instruction (since
> renamed
> ISPI - the International Society of Performance Improvement).
>
> That paper is available on my web site (see the link below). I offer
> it up
> not to show what I know (because all I did was report what Weil had to
> say); instead, I point to it because Weil had a great deal to say that is
> very consistent with what Ken is saying and, equally important, Weil
> wrote
> from the practical perspective of a successful business leader. Here
> is a
> snippet from Weil's foreword to the book, touching on just one of his six
> rules for better thinking:
>
> "The rule that to solve a problem properly you must first state what the
> problem is does not always seem noticeably to influence the thinking of
> business people. It is quite clear too that many of the people who are
> trying to succeed in business do not know that the rules exist. They
> work
> their fingers to the nub trying to achieve certain rich effects from
> which
> they hope to reap rich rewards -- and they invest all this time and all
> this energy and effort in a game where they hourly break rules whose
> names
> they don't even know."
>
> Weil's six rules for better thinking were:
>
> 1. Establish immediately your best possible priority of problems
> 2. State your problem
> 3. Separate, as far as possible, all emotional influences from all
> rational processes, in the effort to obtain correct solutions
> 4. State your situation with respect to data
> 5. Observe a fixed sequence of acts in the handling of problems (Weil
> laid
> down eight such acts)
> 6. Estimate, as well as you can, the loss-gain factor in probably
> solutions, and plan in advance the course of action if the solution is
> unsuccessful
>
> Weil's six steps involved the proper use of six tools for use in
> thinking. These are:
>
> 1. Intuition
> 2. Formal logic
> 3. Semantics
> 4. Voluntarist logic
> 5. Symbolic logic
> 6. The continuum
>
> By the way, Weil's book can still be found by looking on used and
> antiquarian book web sites (e.g., abebooks or bibliofind). I stumbled
> across my first copy and subsequently found and obtained a second for
> a gift.
>
> The direct link to the web version of the Weil paper is
> http://home.att.net/~nickols/weil.htm. A .pdf version is out there as
> well
> if you prefer to print and read off line. Its link is
> http://home.att.net/~nickols/six_rules.pdf. It is a very brief
> article so
> you needn't worry about being swamped with pages and pages of dense text.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Fred Nickols
> 740.397.2363
> nickols@att.net
> "Assistance at A Distance"
> http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
>
>

Barry:

Officially, I'm in no position to designate Richard Weil's book a classic
in any field, let alone MED. Personally, I believe that (1) anyone with an
interest in improving the thinking that is done in a business context is
well served by reading Weil's book and (2) it ought to be on every
manager's bookshelf. (I guess that's a roundabout way of saying, Yes in
answer to your first question.)

To answer your second question, the publisher was Simon & Schuster.

>From: Barry Armandi <armandi@attglobal.net>
>Subject: Re: Leadership inquiry and clear constructs
>
>Fred,
>Interesting work. Would you consider it a classic in the field of MED?
>If so, I'll follow up with a personal email. If not, thanks for the
>lead. BTW who is the publisher?
>Barry

Regards,

Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@att.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm