The Dumbest People You Know Are Really Smart

There are days when I see myself in the mirror and wish that I looked differently. Not that I am displeased with the way that I have aged over the years, but rather, that I was looking in on the face of a wiser man. I once believed that wisdom comes from what we know deep down inside. With time I have come to learn that wisdom is actually the ability to apply what we have learned in our lives.

Sometimes you run across a term or phrase and you say to yourself “I wish I had thought of that”. Inherent in that statement is your acceptance of the uniqueness or perhaps the brilliance in what you heard or read. That is exactly how it was for me when I first heard the term “E-cubed”. E-cubed stands for Emotional Energy and Edge. This is the “E” in finding your V.O.I.C.E. What is most amazing to me looking back is that I first heard this term in the summer of 2000 while attending a conference of Pastors just outside of Chicago, Illinois. I need to quickly clarify something here; I myself am not a Pastor or a religious leader of any kind. I actually had the good fortune of being sent to this conference in my role as the Director of Operations for a large congregation in Pittsburgh. This was an amazing experience given my background and as I learned that week, this conference would mark the turning point in my pursuits and my career.

The leader of this conference was a man named Bill Hybels who is the Pastor and Founder of Willow Creek Community Church. In the opening session Hybels talked about what he called the 360 degree leader. These pages will have more on that subject later. During his talk Hybels mentioned the work of a number of business leaders, business thinkers, and business writers that I knew and admired. That is when he hooked me. This was the first time in my life that I heard a “Preacher” talking about business models and business thinking. This concept grabbed me in a way that I had never been grabbed before. I always believed that the concepts in business had practical application in a church setting, and I even believed that the principles of business had their roots in the church. But, this is a digression. Hybels began to talk about the work of Daniel Goleman related to Emotional Intelligence. Goleman is a Harvard Ph.D., that has researched and written about the ways in which emotional intelligence (what he describes as EQ) is a greater determinant of future success than IQ. His work suggests that IQ only accounts for 20% of the factors that determine life success. The other 80% are other forces such as social status to even luck. Among those factors that comprise the other 80% is EQ. Here is the take away, “Emotions and self-awareness determine success”.

Bill Hybels went on to talk about the work of Dr. Noel Tichy, who once was in charge of leadership development at GE’s Crotonville facility. Working along with Jack Welch Dr. Tichy developed what he called E-cubed (upon hearing this I wished I had thought of it myself) and described this as one of the three essential traits of leaders that successfully teach other leaders. These two concepts introduced to me by a “Preacher” helped to form and to stimulate my thinking on the subject of leadership, which ultimately led to the creation of V.O.I.C.E. The second take away, “Energy and Edge are essential components in finding your V.O.I.C.E.”.

In finding your V.O.I.C.E. each of the individual components (Values, Objectives, Integrity, Choices, and E-cubed) are important. It would be difficult for me to choose one component and say that single component is the most important. Yet, I have found that there has been considerable discussion of the first four components in every book I have ever read on leadership. Every writer has approached these four from a different perspective, but it is generally accepted that values, clear objectives, having integrity, and understanding the choices a leader must make are essential qualities. Thus, E-cubed is by no means the most important component in finding your V.O.I.C.E., it simply is the one component that has not been explored enough. It is precisely because of this lack of exploration that I believe that talking about V.O.I.C.E. is essential learning for every person, leader, volunteer or worker. This is truly vital stuff.

This week my writing will be focused on exploring E-cubed. I will help you to understand the value in developing your E-cubed abilities. I encourage you to check back daily as I describe how vital the sense of Emotional Energy and Edge are to you finding your V.O.I.C.E.