In this episode, we explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Dr. Robin Hills, a recognized expert in emotional intelligence, explains how EI enables project leaders to adapt, manage stress, build resilient teams, and guide with empathy. He shares practical strategies for applying EI in today’s complex environment and why it’s a defining factor in moving from good leadership to great.
Chapters
00:00 … Intro
03:53 … Robin’s EI Beginnings
06:54 … Defining Emotional Intelligence
07:54 … Being Kind
10:37 … Emotional Intelligence as a Power Skill
11:55 … Difficult to Train in EI
13:48 … An Evolving Muscle
16:23 … Overlap Between Stress and Anxiety
20:11 … A Realistic Optimism
23:01 … Guiding Through Highs and Lows
27:05 … A Word from Jess
27:38 … Setbacks or Opportunities?
30:17 … Looking at the Track Record
32:45 … EI to Navigate Conflict
34:32 … The Impact of AI
40:31 … Begin a Habit
42:13 … Get in Touch
43:39 … Closing
Intro
ROBIN HILL: …emotional intelligence is not about being nice. Emotional intelligence is about being kind. And on many occasions, you actually have to be cruel to be kind. So, it’s about doing the right thing in the right way with the right person. And it will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable at times because you actually have to say certain things and bring things to people’s attention that you’d rather not.
WENDY GROUNDS: Hello and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I’m Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates. We love having our audience join us. You are such an important part of our podcast. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. So, we just thank you for listening and for being part of the show.
We’d love to hear from you, too, if you want to reach out to us on our website, which is Velociteach.com. You can find us on social media or your favorite podcast app. And if you have suggestions of interesting topics you’d like to hear more about, or projects that you’re working on and you’d love us to feature, please reach out to us, and you can send me an email at manage_this@velociteach.com and send me your ideas.
Did you know that 90% of top performers score high in emotional intelligence, but only 36% of people can accurately identify their own emotions as they happen? So today we’re diving into the skill set that quietly powers the most effective leaders and the topic that’s become increasingly vital emotional intelligence in the changing world. We’re going to look at strategies that you can adapt for both personal and professional growth.
And we’re joined by one of the foremost experts in the field of emotional intelligence, Dr. Robin Hills. Robin is talking to us from Manchester, England. He’s a business psychologist, keynote speaker, and the director of EI for Change. With over half a million students in more than 200 countries, his work in emotional intelligence, positive psychology, and neuroscience has made a global impact. He’s also an author of several acclaimed books and the recipient of multiple international awards. He also holds an honorary doctorate in advanced studies in psychology. Robin helps us unpack what emotional intelligence really means, why it’s more than just being nice. It equips us to lead, adapt, and thrive in uncertain times, both personally and professionally.
BILL YATES: You know, Wendy, we can have such an impact on the teams that we lead, both positively or negatively. In this area of emotional intelligence, it’s so great to hear from Robin and get the advice that he has on being smart with our feelings and paying attention, empathizing with our team and the others that we come in contact with in our project work. We really can have a huge impact in this area. As a matter of fact, we are going to have an impact in this area, so the more we can grow this muscle, the better.
And to Robin’s point, this is not a one-and-done type of soft skill. This is a hard soft skill because this is an area that we continually need to be challenged in and grow in because we don’t know what life is going to bring us. We have different team members. We have different dynamics. We have stuff going on in our lives and our team members’ lives. So, this is a great area, a great topic for us to go deeper in, and I appreciate all that Robin can bring to the table on this.
WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah. He, in fact, he calls it a power skill. Hi, Robin. Welcome to Manage This. Thank you so much for being our guest.
ROBIN HILLS: It’s a pleasure, and thank you for inviting me to be a guest.
Robin’s EI Beginnings
WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah. We are going to find out a little bit about you before we start. Now, you’ve devoted a lot of your work to emotional intelligence, a very important topic today. How did you get started in this? What has made you passionate about being an expert in emotional intelligence?
ROBIN HILLS: Well, I started my career back in the last century, and I was very fascinated by the way in which people interacted with others. It was a bit strange because some people were very good, and some people weren’t; and some people were very kind, and some people weren’t; and some people were horrible, and some people weren’t. And there were some people I liked, and there were some people that I didn’t.
By the same token, there were some people that liked me, and there were some people that didn’t. I couldn’t really work out what was going on because I was actually dealing with a lot of supposedly intelligent people because I was actually selling to the medical profession. I was selling in the London teaching hospitals to senior consultants, registrars, professors of medicine, professors of surgery. And I found their behavior was wide ranging.
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s a good way to put it.
BILL YATES: That’s very, very politically correct.
ROBIN HILLS: Well, yes, yes. It wasn’t until I actually got promoted to a couple of leadership and management roles and moved away from London that I read an article in one of the Saturday papers about a new book that had been published called “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman. And I read this article with great fascination. And I thought, this is the answer to what I’ve been looking for. So, I actually got a hold of the book, and I’ve read it. I’ve read it from cover to cover, which is something that most people haven’t done.
BILL YATES: That’s true.
ROBIN HILLS: Look, it’s a good book.
BILL YATES: It goes deep.
ROBIN HILLS: It does. And Daniel’s writing style is not the easiest read, but there is some good stuff in there. And I think, by the same token, he has done me an absolute favor because when my roles were made redundant, and I say it with an “s” on the end because it happened more than once, I got to a position where I thought, well, what am I going to do for the rest of my career? And I was so interested in people development. I set up a business based around that.
And then a couple of years later, I actually specifically focused on the emotional intelligence with a view to making it practical, with a view to making it applicable, and with a view to making it understandable. So that was 15, 16, 17 years ago. Here I am still going strong, and the world is still asking me for my words of wisdom.
Defining Emotional Intelligence
BILL YATES: More than ever. We need it. Yeah, yeah. So, let’s do a level set just for our audience. How do you define emotional intelligence?
ROBIN HILLS: I define it very, very simply. I’m just going to go off at a tangent because I think it’s important. I was at a conference in Copenhagen on developing emotionally intelligent leaders. And all of the speakers came up with the academic definitions of emotional intelligence, which are great, but they’re very clunky. And people are left thinking, what on earth does that mean?
So, I’m not going to give you the academic version. I’ll give you my version, which is, very simply, emotional intelligence is being smart with your feelings and using the information to make good quality decisions and build up authentic relationships and then taking action. That’s it.
Being Kind
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s very good. So, it’s more than just being nice. It’s not just common sense?
ROBIN HILLS: I think a lot of emotional intelligence is common sense, but sense is not all that common. And I think this is where I come in to help people to clear a pathway through the clutter. Now, you’re right, Wendy, emotional intelligence is not about being nice. Emotional intelligence is about being kind. And on many occasions, you actually have to be cruel to be kind. So, it’s about doing the right thing in the right way with the right person. And it will make you feel incredibly uncomfortable at times because you actually have to say certain things and bring things to people’s attention that you’d rather not. And often when I do that, I get into a lot of trouble.
But it’s a case of reminding myself that I am being kind, and I’m trying to help people to improve their performance and improve what they can do to engage with other people better. So, a lot of people might not like what they hear, but they actually have to work with it and recognize it’s coming from the right place.
BILL YATES: I like the way that you position that of saying, you know, it really takes courage sometimes. It’s not something that I want to do, but I know it’s the right thing to do to be kind to that person. It’s almost like, you know, looking at a family member or a loved one and saying, you know, “You have some lettuce in your teeth, and before we go out you may want to take that out of there.”
Well, I think there are times when I’ve had team members where it’s awkward, and it may be a very uncomfortable conversation, but I need to have that with them so that they know that they have lettuce in the teeth from an emotional standpoint, that they’re not aware of the impact they’re having on other team members. So, I need to bring that to their attention.
ROBIN HILLS: That’s exactly it. And when we are looking at people managing projects, they are responsible for delivering the project through the people, and the people are there to provide the level of success around the project. And in order to do that, there are going to be times when you as the project manager need to go along and say, well, there is a better way of doing it. Now you’re aware that when you do this, this happens, and this is the consequence of that.
By the same token, it’s vitally important to tell people when they’re doing the right thing. And to do that more often than you’re finding fault with people because, if you can catch people doing the right thing, and bring it to their attention, and let them know that you have noticed, then you’ll get them replicating that behavior when you’re not around. And that’s really what you’re wanting.
Emotional Intelligence as a Power Skill
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s the one that’s overlooked so often. People forget to mention the right things. You know, we’re so much more interested in saying when something’s going wrong or you’re doing the wrong thing. But it’s important to commend the ones who are doing the right things, too. I’m glad you brought that up. Now, you describe emotional intelligence as a power skill rather than just a soft skill. Can you describe why you say that?
ROBIN HILLS: Well, it’s one of those skills that it’s very hard to train in. So, you’ve got the hard skills – risk management, Kaizen, all the systems that you’re well aware of around project management. That’s very easy to train in. You sit somebody down in a classroom, and you talk them through a process, and you check their understanding. The thing is, with emotional intelligence, you can’t train it in the same way. And it’s often labeled a soft skill because it’s a people skill, but there’s nothing soft about it.
So really what we need to do is look at changing the terminology. And emotional intelligence is a power skill because it gives you the power to work better, improve performance, and improve the way in which you’re working with other people.
Difficult to Train in EI
BILL YATES: I agree with you 100%. But what is it about emotional intelligence that makes it so hard to train into people?
ROBIN HILLS: Well, there are a couple of things here that I think we need to look at. Firstly, we’ve got two words that don’t seem to go together, “emotional” and “intelligence.” And by bringing the two together, that makes it very difficult for people to understand. Oh, we don’t do emotions around here. We are dedicated on getting things done. We’re focusing on the tasks, and we’re looking at outcomes. Yes, but it’s the people that are going to deliver that. And working with the people is very, very hard because people are emotional beings.
And so, a lot of people will think that being emotional is all about getting angry or sobbing or getting upset or being anxious. Yes, that’s a part of it. But a lot of emotional intelligence really is about helping people to feel good about what they do and to align them within the business and align them with the task and align them with the project in order that they can deliver to their best. So how do you tap into those emotions in an intelligent fashion?
And then I think the other thing that is difficult to train around emotional intelligence is you’re not going to be emotionally intelligent by reading Daniel Goleman’s book, even if you get through it. You’re not going to be emotionally intelligent by taking a course on emotional intelligence. And you’re not going to be emotionally intelligent by listening to me pontificating on the Manage This podcast. You actually need to go away and practice it and get things wrong and get things right and learn through that process and get some feedback. And that is the hard part, as well.
An Evolving Muscle
BILL YATES: That is the hard part, yes. So many of our project managers, they’re accustomed to, okay, you sit me down, you train me, you send me a module to go through. And to your point, like risk management, okay, now I know the three main steps with risk management. I know where to go deeper with the tools. I got this. But emotional intelligence, it’s so nuanced. There are so many situations that we’ll get into that could be for the very first time for us.
Or it could be the stress that’s on the team at the time. So, what would normally be an easy issue to work through suddenly becomes very thorny because, you know, maybe the customers put more stress on it. It feels like emotional intelligence is an area that we constantly experience new challenges, have new opportunities for growth. So yeah, it’s an evolving – it’s not a one and done. It’s an evolving muscle that we have to continue to build up.
ROBIN HILLS: Yes, that’s right. And if we look at emotional intelligence and compare it with cognitive intelligence, cognitive intelligence is fixed in our late teens. And so, you can’t become more intelligent. You can’t improve your IQ. That is fixed. You’ve got what you’ve got. But with emotional intelligence, it’s thought that emotional intelligence can be increased up until about the age of 70 or just around that time, because then the cognitive functions start to decline. But up until that point, and for many people even beyond that point, there is still a multitude of opportunities to grow and develop your emotional intelligence.
BILL YATES: See, Robin, that’s the best news you’ve shared yet. There’s hope, people.
ROBIN HILLS: Yeah.
BILL YATES: There’s hope.
ROBIN HILLS: Yeah. Well, unfortunately, I’ve only got a few years left. But I think it goes back to when we look back across cultures and across time, the elders within the culture are perceived to be the ones with the wisdom. And they are the ones that the younger people will go to for guidance. And they often don’t get the answers that they’re looking for because the elders are there to impart their wisdom, and they know how to do it. And I think that’s where emotional intelligence sits and emotional intelligence resides. So, if people are then saying, “Ooh, Robin Hills, he spouts a lot of wisdom,” then I think, oh, yes, okay, I’ve made it.
Overlap Between Stress and Anxiety
WENDY GROUNDS: Something that I think would be so beneficial. I mean, I want to hear your thoughts on this, as well. You know, there’s just a lot going on in today’s world, in the climate, not just politically, but so much going on in the world that it’s just not good. And I think a lot of people have rising stress levels, or they’re very anxious, not just about the future. It can lead people just to feel very overwhelmed. And there becomes this overlap between stress and anxiety. How does emotional intelligence help people to deal with overwhelming anxiety and stress? And how do you kind of differentiate between this is stress, and this is anxiety?
ROBIN HILLS: Oh, dear, you’ve got a complete podcast episode here.
WENDY GROUNDS: Had to throw that one in there.
ROBIN HILLS: Yeah, but look, let’s look at it from an emotional intelligence perspective. First and foremost, I agree with you that there is a lot going on in the world that people don’t like, very much at a political level, very much at a level which causes a lot of anxiety. We’ve got wars. We’ve got decisions being made that we’re not happy with. There’s a lot of unfairness out there. There’s a lot of nastiness out there. And I think what we’ve just got to do is we’ve got to recognize it, and we’ve got to learn either to filter it or to zone out.
Now, I look on Twitter or X or whatever they want to call it these days, and I look at particular topics, and I read through the topics, and I see some of the arguments for and arguments against. But once I’ve actually scrolled through and read them for about five minutes, I feel very overwhelmed by the actual argument that I’m looking at. And I’ve actually got to shut everything down and say, right, well, this is what I think about it, and forget it.
And the other thing I do do is I look at the news channels; but I’ve also learned to filter that, and I’ve recognized that the media is feeding us with information that they want to feed us with. And more often than not, a lot of it is what we would term as bad news because that gets clicks. That sells newspapers. That gets people listening in or watching programs.
So, we’ve got to recognize that is what is happening. I get my news feeds. I am – I’m looking for good news. There is a lot of bad news out there. I recognize there’s a lot of bad news. What can I do about it? Personally, not a lot. If I was capable of doing something about it, I’d go into politics. And if I wanted to do something, I would do something a lot more positive.
What I have to do is to recognize my place on the planet, and that is dealing with this topic of emotional intelligence. So, what I do is I look at my family, and I look at my core values. And I think these are the things that I have influence over. My circle of influence is around the core which is my family, which, you know, it’s a small little unit, but it extends. And then it extends out there to friends and colleagues, people that I work with.
And then it extends further to your good selves and other people that I touch by the work that I do. So, if I’m doing everything according to my values and my principles and my morals, and I do it in the most appropriate way, then I can make a difference. Invariably, it’s an incredibly small difference, but it’s a difference.
A Realistic Optimism
And I look at things realistically. Yeah, it’s not very nice out there, but what can I do about it? So having a realistic optimism around, well, the world is good. People are good. What is it that we can do to tap into that and get more of it? And then to go back to the next bit of the question in terms of overwhelming stress and anxiety, we’ve just got to recognize that these are emotions that we do have a level of control over. And a lot of it is choice. And this is very, very hard.
So, prior to coming onto the podcast, I hadn’t met you, Wendy. I hadn’t met you, Bill. You hadn’t met me. I had made the assumption, quite correctly as it turns out, that you’re going to be very nice people, and you’re going to be very engaging. But I didn’t know that.
So, there was a degree of anxiety prior to plugging into the podcast. Are they going to ask me a question that I can’t answer, and all these sort of anxieties. Great. Because, look, I needed that anxiety to physiologically and psychologically get me into the right place. So, I’ve just got to recognize that I need that unpleasantness of those emotions in order to help me to perform.
Now, when we get to overwhelming stress – and I get it from time to time where things compound on me. I’m decorating the house. I’m dealing with my mother who died eight months ago, and I’m dealing with her estate. The bank’s phoning up. I’m locked out of the bank. I’ve got problems because my daughter has phoned me and she’s very upset about something. My wife is giving me earache over something I have done or I haven’t done. And all of these things compound and compound and compound.
And you will have your own levels of stress. Stresses are more often than not deadlines, things going on at work, conflict, people that you don’t like, people that you have to work with, and ethically they’re not in the same place as you. You know, there are a whole host of things. I think what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to recognize that these things do happen. They are fairly short term. But what you’ve got to do is to learn to manage them.
And if it gets to a point, if it gets to a point where it becomes clinical depression or clinical anxiety, go and seek the most appropriate medical help and support. They are there to help you. And you have done nothing wrong. And actually, you’re being very brave and very emotionally intelligent by going and seeking that help.
Guiding Through Highs and Lows
BILL YATES: Yeah. Excellent advice. I have to go back and just highlight some of the things that you said early in that. And you’re right, that could have been its own podcast. It’s such a good topic. That’s one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed about being a project leader or being a part of a project team is it’s like the outside world. And it could be within my own company, other things that are going on in the company, maybe uncertainties or changes that we don’t like. Or it could be the community I’m in, or it could be the broader globe that we’re on, wars and all these other things.
I could always go to work and think, okay, what can I do today on my project to make a difference? And then, you know, in a leadership role, what can I do as a project leader to help my team really focus on the good stuff that we’re doing, the goal that we have for this project, and get them excited about that?
Because each one of us, if I have 17 members, each one of us are having the highs and lows of life that are sometimes very emotionally challenging. Other times I’m kind of at an emotional high, you know, things are going well. But when we come to work, and work together on this project, I want it to be a positive as much as possible. So how can I set that up?
And then, too, there are times, in spite of our best efforts with our projects, we are the source of stress. It’s like, okay, I’m trying to create this little utopia, a fun place to team; you know? And now we have the client saying, no, I need this a month earlier; or, you know, they’re about to cut our project budget or whatever; you know, there’s stressors that come into that. So then trying to put on that emotional intelligence hat and go, okay, how is this news impacting me and my team? And what’s the appropriate response that I have? How can I lead through example to my team so that we respond to this? We process it together and respond to this in a healthy way.
Some of the core beliefs, the family, the things that are most important, that’s such good advice that you have. And I think, given our project context, sometimes we have some other little triggers that we can focus on to help out when things get stressful.
ROBIN HILLS: Yes. Can I just add to that, Bill?
BILL YATES: Absolutely.
ROBIN HILLS: Because I think it’s vitally important. A project manager or project leader has the responsibility to recognize when somebody is going into overwhelming stress, either burnout or some other form of stress. And it’s that person’s responsibility, or the manager, the leader’s responsibility to take that person to one side and sit down and say, “Look, I’m recognizing this is having a negative impact on you. What is it that I can do to help?” Now, if the person turns around and says nothing, I’m okay, which they probably won’t. But if they do, then you’ve been given permission to just carry on as things are.
But if they don’t, if they actually sit down and say, well, actually, I’m pleased we’re having this conversation. Billy’s in trouble with the police, my wife is filing for divorce, the cat died, you know, and all of these compounding things happening in my life. The leader may say, look, you need time out of the project. You need to get away, take some time off, go and sort yourself out. We’ll deal with everything. Come back when you’re ready. That is incredibly hard to do, very hard when you are compounding the issues that are already there that you very eloquently spoke about, but it’s vitally important for your team, not only now, but for the future.
BILL YATES: People remember how you treated them and how you made them feel.
ROBIN HILLS: And also, you know, the word will get out to the rest of the team that you have been a good, kind, emotionally intelligent leader. So, they will feel supported, even though they are starting to feel stress. They know they’ve got a safety net there.
A Word from Jess
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Setbacks or Opportunities?
WENDY GROUNDS: So how do you teach people to look at setbacks as opportunities? If things are happening on the project, and we’re getting setbacks, or it could be something in personal life, as well, not necessarily work related, but they’re setbacks. How can we turn those around into something of growth, as a growth opportunity, rather than just viewing it as a failure?
ROBIN HILLS: It’s, again, a very, very difficult situation that you find yourself in because a lot of people will look through rose-tinted spectacles. And it goes back to what I spoke about earlier. It’s having realistic optimism. It’s understanding that the world is not going to serve everything up to you or me on a silver platter, and everything’s going to be absolutely wonderful. What we do have to realize is that the world is a place which will present us with challenges on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. What we’ve got to do is to learn to be creative, and adapt around that, and to do things in new different ways, but also to be focused on what it is that you’re trying to achieve.
What are your goals? Okay, your goals may have been set back by a few weeks. Okay, you may not have the resources that you wanted. What is it that you can do about it? Put yourself in control. I think those three words are really the answer to it. Put yourself in control. What is it that you can influence? What is it you can manage? What is it that you can do? And then go away and do it. And don’t worry about the things that you can’t control, and don’t worry about the things that are beyond your control. If there’s a way in which you can influence, go away and do that.
Look at the things that you are capable of doing, and keep yourself in control, and just have that focus in a realistic way, that times will get better. But the time that it’s happening, you’ve just got to recognize, you’re not going to feel particularly good about it. But when you come out of it the other end – and look, let me ask all of you to think about something that happened five years ago. It’s so far in the past. You don’t have to worry about it. What is it that you did, and how do you feel about it now? Because you’ve actually survived. You’ve actually grown through that. You’ve actually developed, and you’ve actually learned. So, if a similar sort of situation was to occur, you’ve got some coping mechanisms.
Looking at the Track Record
BILL YATES: That’s so true. You know, even with projects we have ups and downs. And I think that’s an outstanding point, Robin. There needs to be a little bit more historian in me with my project team to go, “Hey, we’re in month 10 of this project, so it’s probably going to take a year and a half.” And the team is stressed because maybe some technology failed, or we’re not getting what we need from a vendor.
And as a historian of the project, I should look back and say, “Hey guys, you remember the tough decision we had to make in month two? And remember how we were really stressed over it? You know, look at how that turned out. Look at where we are now. Look at the progress that we’ve made. We’re going to be okay. This is another big decision, sure. But we’re okay. We’ve got a great track record. Let’s be confident in ourselves.”
ROBIN HILLS: Yes. I think, too, what we’ve got to do, as we all grow older and become more mature, is just to recognize that we have survived through many of these things, whether they’re inside or outside of work. This doesn’t work particularly well on a podcast, but my best friends are these. For those who are listening they’re my gray hairs.
BILL YATES: Yes.
ROBIN HILLS: Because that shows that I’ve actually lived through a whole host of different circumstances, and I’ve got the badge of honor by getting those. So realistically, is a 20-year-old going to effectively manage a big corporate project that is going to involve millions and millions of dollars? Probably not. That’s going to come to somebody with experience. That’s going to come to somebody probably 30s, 40s, 50s. They’ve got the badge. They’ve gone through the hard times. They’ve learned the hard way. They may even have been dragged into HR for some very serious discussions at some point, and they’ve learned through that because they’ve not done the right thing.
They’re going to have hard times. They’re going to have lost projects. They’re going to have lost millions of dollars. They’re going to have worried about whether they’re going to lose their home because they lose their job. They get fired; they get hired. There’s a whole host of things going on. It’s all down to life’s rich tapestry, and we grow through that.
EI to Navigate Conflict
WENDY GROUNDS: Something else that hopefully we learn from is conflict. It can be at home, it can be at work, anywhere. It’s inevitable. We’ve all had to deal with it. So, talk about applying that emotional intelligence, so how we can navigate those complex situations, those dynamics at work or at home to resolve conflict in an effective way. Now, I know this could be our whole podcast on itself, so, in a nutshell, Robin, how do we fix conflict, really?
BILL YATES: Yeah, how do we do conflict well?
WENDY GROUNDS: Yeah.
ROBIN HILLS: Well, it’s incredibly difficult. And three or four succinct sentences from me is not going to resolve people’s conflicts. I think the important thing with conflict is it happens all the time. We are in constant conflict, constant conflict with ourselves; but we’re in constant conflict with other people. And the reason why we’re in conflict is they are just experiencing things and seeing things in a different way to what we’re seeing. And also, they may be having a different set of values to us. And I think what we’ve got to do is to learn to empathize better, which is a core component of emotional intelligence.
Now, empathy is not sympathy. It’s not giving in. It is not being nice. It is about understanding things from other people’s perspectives in order that you can understand how people are thinking and understand how people are behaving. You don’t necessarily have to agree with them. You just have to understand.
WENDY GROUNDS: Very good answer. I think you wrapped up that podcast.
BILL YATES: That was good.
ROBIN HILLS: Oh, you’re not going to invite me back now.
The Impact of AI
BILL YATES: It was good. Robin, you probably are like me. You’re using some form of AI or having it used on you every day. And we look at the changes that that’s bringing about. And from your perspective with this really game-changing technology in artificial intelligence, what is the impact that that has on us in our emotional intelligence? Does it raise the stakes? Or does it make life easier for us in terms of being emotionally intelligent? What is your take on how is AI impacting us?
ROBIN HILLS: I think AI is going to impact us even more than we realize for the future. Many of your listeners will not want me to say this, but I think it is vitally important to say it. AI is going to take over a lot of the task-focused things that drives projects. It’s very good at analyzing data. It’s very good at writing reports. It’s very good at doing very, very complicated mathematics. It’s very good at reading stuff, far better than we can as humans.
So, what we’ve got to do is to realize what are the human elements of projects and project management? What are the things that we do as human beings that AI cannot do? And that is underpinned by emotional intelligence. So really, just to make it a lot clearer and a lot simpler for everybody, what AI cannot do is it cannot empathize.
We’ve just talked about that. It doesn’t understand things from people’s perspectives. It doesn’t understand different perspectives. It is not very good at building up relationships. It has no understanding of how to motivate people. It has no understanding of how to influence and persuade people to improve their performance. That’s where leadership is going to be vital. And I think the other things that AI cannot do is it cannot take risks. It cannot innovate. And it cannot be creative.
So, these are all core components of project management. Recognize them, and work with those, and build up a future based around those. And then the other vitally important thing is why are we doing it? What is our meaning? What is the spirituality behind what we’re doing? And I don’t mean it in terms of religion. I mean it in terms of purpose. I think these are the things that we as leaders and managers can work with, work with our people.
And we’ve talked about it as we’ve gone through the podcast. How do we tap into that? Because that is the vitally important part of project management. It’s going to be less about the tasks and more about the people and the people delivery aspect of it. Work on it. That’s going to be the future. And if you start looking at it now in 2025, going towards the end of the decade, you’re going to future-proof yourself.
BILL YATES: I agree 100%. There are times when something bad happens, something on our risk register happens, and we have to go tell the sponsor of the project, “This happened. There’s going to be this financial impact.” Or “This happened, and it’s going to delay.” It’s tough news to communicate to that sponsor. But, it’s expected; right? A project manager should be on top of these risks and that kind of thing.
AI is a powerful tool to help us both through the whole risk identification process and proper approaches to take if the risk occurs. So, you know, the risk occurs, we can use AI and use our tools to come up with what is the financial impact. You know, kind of statistics; right? It’s given us some of the science.
But then I need to go communicate that to the sponsor and not freak her out, or not communicate to her that the house is on fire, you know, everybody run for your life kind of thing. Something terrible has happened. You know, I need to communicate it in a way that I’ve got the facts, I’ve got the statistics from AI, but now I need to connect with her on her level. I need to be empathetic. I need to know what’s most important to her, what’s her biggest stress points or concerns about the success or failure of the project and how to communicate it.
So, yeah, I see it as a powerful tool. I can’t sit back and let it do my job because, it doesn’t get relationships. It doesn’t build that connection with the client, with the vendors, with the team. That’s my responsibility.
ROBIN HILLS: It is. And this is where your experience and, indeed, if I can mention them again, your gray hairs come in. But one of the things that I’d like to add to that, this is the way in which I use AI. If I have a contentious email that I do not want to write to somebody, you’ve been talking about a sponsor or a client, I will construct it, and I will put it into AI and say, “Can you write this for me in an empathetic manner?” Then I’ll look at the output, and I’ll think, yeah, I can use this; or, okay, right, that’s clarified my thinking.
Now I need to Robinize it. I need to put it in my voice. So, I need to change bits of it. And some bits I need to make a lot harsher, and some pieces I think, ah, that’s softened it up in a really nice way.
So, the great thing about AI is that it helps clarify my thinking, and it helps me make better decisions. But it’s still me putting my name at the bottom of that email, and it’s still me taking responsibility for pressing the Send button.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm. That’s so good. Yeah.
Begin a Habit
WENDY GROUNDS: To end off, if you had to recommend an emotionally intelligent habit for every professional, what would that be, and why?
ROBIN HILLS: Whoa. We’ve all got one of these; haven’t we?
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm.
WENDY GROUNDS: Yes.
BILL YATES: Yes.
WENDY GROUNDS: The cell phone.
ROBIN HILLS: Learn to switch it off.
BILL YATES: Let’s say I was working for you, Robin, and you needed to have an important conversation with me. And I bring my smartphone, and I put it on the desk where I can see it while we’re talking. And as you’re having that important conversation with me, I keep looking back at it. It’s like, what message am I sending my manager?
ROBIN HILLS: I get it all the time when I’m training people on emotional intelligence. And I actually have to say to them, “Look, you’re not being emotionally intelligent when you’re looking at your smartphone.” When I set them a task to do, a training exercise, I have to say to them, “The answers to this do not lie on the Internet. So please do not look at your smartphone. And also, I’m going to walk out of the room once you’re doing this. If you look at your smartphone, or if you access your phone or take a call while you’re doing this, you’re actually denying your colleagues a learning experience. They’re not getting the value of your inputs and your discussion here. So please put it away.”
Well, I might as well talk to next door’s cat on occasions for the notice that they take of it. So, I think the critical answer there is just learn to switch it off. The world is not going to implode because you don’t take a call, or you don’t answer a WhatsApp message. Put yourself in control.
Get in Touch
WENDY GROUNDS: If our audience wants to get in touch with you, find out more about what you do, where should they go?
ROBIN HILLS: Well, the best thing to do is to either find me on LinkedIn – you put in “Robin Hills” in in LinkedIn; and, ping, up I come. I was on LinkedIn in the very early days, so I got the LinkedIn URL. Also, you can find me at Ei4Change.com. That’s Ei4Change.com. And then I have a range of emotional intelligence courses that are available for people to buy and partake of. And you can find those at emotional.intelligence.courses. Also, I have the magazine, EI‑Matters.com.
WENDY GROUNDS: All right. I will put links to all of that in the transcript so that any of our audience that’s following on the transcript can find you.
BILL YATES: Robin, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s practical. It’s applicable to every day for a project leader. This is a skill set. To your point, it’s a soft skill, but it’s a hard soft skill. And I really appreciate your explanation and the benefits that you’ve given us and the challenges, the thoughts that you put in my head just about areas that I could improve in. So, thank you for this conversation.
WENDY GROUNDS: We learned a lot, yeah.
ROBIN HILLS: It’s been brilliant. Thank you.
Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: That’s it for us here on Manage This. Thanks for hanging out with us today. It’s always a pleasure to have you along for the ride. Don’t forget, you can visit us anytime at Velociteach.com to subscribe, catch up on past episodes, or read the full transcript of today’s show.
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