Chris Golis of Practical Emotional Intelligence On Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Uncertain & Turbulent Times

One, have regular meetings. Two is to get out in front of customers. Every time you talk to a customer at a meeting, basically you tend to learn something. And in uncertain times, that’s when you need to get feedback on what’s going on. Are there gaps in the market, et cetera? That’s the best way of doing market research. Go out and talk to customers, and go out on sales calls with the salespeople. Be sure to say, “I’m just here to look,” and then shut up.

As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Golis.

Chris Golis is a graduate of Cambridge and the London Business School and now lives in Sydney. His first career was in IT where he progressed from systems engineer with IBM to a salesperson with ICL, to a Divisional General Manager with TNT. He then switched careers to Financial Services becoming an investment banker with BT Australia and then a venture capitalist for 25 years where he was the director of some 30 private and public companies following the raising of five venture capital funds.

In 2007 Chris semi-retired and decided to pursue a vision of lifting people’s emotional intelligence by teaching them that the secret is to learn a model of temperament (your genetic emotional pre-disposition) that is practical, scientifically valid, easy to use, and trait-based. Since 2007 Chris has developed the 7MTF model of temperament publishing eleven books, writing over 200 blogs, and developing practical EQ courses in Sales, Management, and Leadership taken by over 20,000 people. In 2020 he used the lockdowns to produce three online video courses on Practical Emotional Intelligence using the 7MTF technology for Leaders, Managers, and Salespeople.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I did my first degree at Cambridge. But then worked for four years with IBM as, effectively, a system engineer. Then went to London Business School and I ended up getting a distinction. But basically, my tutor was a guy named Charles Handy. And I was flown twice to McKinsey’s for interviews and got the job at the head office. Charles asked me if I had gotten a job yet. I said, “Yes, I’ve got one with McKinsey’s.” And then he said, “I don’t know if I’d take it if I were you.” And that was the sort of meeting that changes one’s life. And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “I’m thinking about what makes success in a business career, and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s being good at one-on-one meetings.”

And he said, “We don’t train you to do that as an MBA. The best training I think you can do is become a salesperson.” He said, “You won’t be a bad consultant with McKinsey’s, but there’s a lot of competition and there’s a lot of very bright people. On the other hand,” he said, “there aren’t that many good salesmen.” So that’s what I did. And I ended up joining ICL, the British computer company. They were desperate to hire me because at that time there were not many people who understood IBM computers well and had an MBA from a business school. So that started my career. So I worked as a salesman and ended up as a divisional general manager.

Then I had my midlife crisis. “Is this is as good as it gets?” I decided to change careers. And I became an investment banker basically on the advice of a young graduate I had hired. He said, “You’d be perfect for it.” And I ended up joining an investment bank and then becoming a venture capitalist and raising five venture capital funds. I mean, it was a lot of fun and I basically made enough money to survive. That’s the simple story.

But probably the other claim to fame that I’m sort of known for is I’ve been a published author. The book that made me the most money and it helped me raise five venture capital funds, went through five editions. And the story of how I convinced the publisher to publish the book is a legend.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I had closed about five sales in my first year, which was 150% of quota. In fact, my very first sale as a sales trainee was the only account that IBM lost to ICL. So that was a great win. My biggest mistake was I had another client I was working on who rang me up on Friday and said, “We’re going to go with you. Come round on Monday and we’ll sign the contract.” And on Monday morning I rang up just to make sure and he said, “We signed with IBM over the weekend.”

And that was just unbelievable. When a client says he wants to buy and sign the contract, you drop everything and you just go and see him then and there. And I didn’t. And I take my hat off to IBM. How they turned it around, I don’t know. But it was a fantastic sales job. But that was a lesson to me that, when it’s close time, don’t hesitate. Go for the close. That’s when it becomes important. So that was my biggest mistake. And I never forgot it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

As I’ve already mentioned, one was Charles Handy. And the second big one was taking a course which was on emotional intelligence, by Kevin Chandler. They had this technology, which I think is the best people profile and technology available. It’s fantastically useful for lifting your emotional intelligence. The first day they introduced the technology, which absolutely blew me away because I then realized that, deep down, we’re not all the same. We are very different. What are our emotional biases and our temperament components?

It’s a brilliant model. It’s practical, trait-based, and scientifically valid, which are three things that I like very much. And that was probably the bigger thing in my life. So though I had a great career in computers and investment banking, I’ve got this side hustle now on what I call practical emotional intelligence. I think, in my usual heterodox way, I think the direction that most people have gone in talking about emotional intelligence is completely the wrong direction. But I’m like an iconoclast or a heterodox, somewhat said to describe me. And I just think it’s a brilliant system.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your organization started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

When I created our venture capital firm, on Fridays at 4:00 pm, we would open a bottle of wine, or take out some beers, and we’d ask each other, “Are we ahead of the game this week or have we lost ground?” And we’d talk about what went on. We had a regular Monday morning meeting at 10:00 am with the rest of the staff. But the three founders of the venture capital, we’d have a quiet drink on Friday and just go through and discuss it frankly. We’d discuss it and we’d decide on directions we’d go as strategy.

The thing was, we’d set our goals for the week on Monday, and we analyzed how we did on Friday. That would inform our strategy going forward.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?

In mid-1977 I joined TNT, then Australia’s largest transport company, as a divisional general manager in charge of Payroll Management Systems (PMS) which was allied to the Armoured Card Division. PMS employed around 50 people.

I had been there for two weeks when I was told to retrench 15 people. I had no choice and that was what I did. Naturally, morale among the rest of the team collapsed.

I then discovered at TNT there was a selling system developed by Keith Stevenson based on the number 7. There were 7 basic objections, 7 ways of handling objections, 7 closes, etc. According to Keith 7 was the magic number because that was the limit of your short-term memory and he was correct.

Keith’s main focus was if one close failed try another one till you found one that worked with the prospect.

I said, “No. Each of the 7 closes matched one of the 7 Humm factors.” Thus Empathy Selling was born where I merged the two systems. I spent the next year teaching all the remaining staff this new system. It gave the staff a new language and a new secret tool which gradually rebuilt morale.

The division was very successful. In four years we doubled volumes, quadrupled revenues, and increased the bottom line tenfold. In my fourth and final year, the divisional ROI was 240%. And I rehired many of the staff I had to retrench.

In the last 18 months, the division was involved in 15 tenders. On a market share basis, we should have won perhaps 2. We won all 15!! In one tender we were 4 times more expensive than our nearest competitor.

So I decided to write a book which I called Psycho-Selling. I sent it off to around a dozen publishers, all rejected it so I put it in the bottom drawer. I left TNT in 1981 and ten years later the manuscript was published, Empathy Selling: The New Sales Technique for the 21st Century.

I learned two things.

One, a good way to restore morale is to teach your team a new tool which means learning a new language that is secret to the group. (This is a technique used by many cults).

And two, don’t throw away your manuscripts.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

I joined this investment bank and what happened was I got laterally arabesqued. They put me in a position basically where I wasn’t visible anymore. I never quite understood why. I got headhunted, so I left. But the thing was afterward someone said, “Do you ever remember your meeting with the CEO Chris Corrigan?” And I said, “Yes. I remember it going quite well.” I met him at about 8:00 and we talked for about two hours. And then at 10:00 he said, “I’ve got to go to our executive committee.” This was the Tuesday morning executive committee meeting. He said, “Well, you don’t know, but when he walked into the executive committee, he destroyed your career at BT.”

And I said, “What do you mean?” “Well,” he continued, “we had two deputy managing directors. Chris Corrigan walked into the meeting and said, ‘I think I may have met the next managing director of BT Australia.’ And these two guys never agreed on anything. Suddenly they agreed on one thing and that thing was they were going to kill you.”

I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Do you have a book in your life that impacted you and inspired you to be an effective leader? Can you share a story?

The one I wrote, the Humm Handbook. In the first section of the book, I describe the emotional intelligence model. In the second section, I describe how to lift your emotional intelligence and how to use it. And then the third section of the book is from what I still think is the most interesting course I’ve ever done. Charles Handy had organized it, and basically, we read a play every week and then discussed the implications of the play towards basically making management decisions. It was fantastic.

In the third section, I apply Humm’s seven types of emotional intelligences to famous plays. So King Lear was about succession planning. Antigone, which is a fantastic play written by Sophocles, was about what you owe the most duty to, the organization or your beliefs. And Hamlet, which was about not being able to make a decision — a double checker, par excellence, in action. And Julius Caesar, one of the greatest politicians in the sense of my model. His desire to win was unmatched, particularly with his generals’ wives. And Death of a Salesman.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

Keeping cool, optimistic, and not panicking — basically, controlling your emotions.

In one position I was headhunted for, I had 300 people working for me. And in the first two months, I had to fire 100 of them face-to-face to get the company to profitability. It was terrible. Grown men were crying. But that’s what I call the ring of fire. You have to go through it. And I always had two questions. I always asked prospective managers two questions. How many people have you fired face-to-face?

My wife walked past me at the airport and didn’t recognize me because I’d lost something like about 30 kilos.

Grown men crying. It was terrible. Terrible. And afterward people, venture capital, there are always crises. I mean, people say, “How do you manage to keep calm?” And I said, “You don’t know what shit is. You just haven’t been there,” I said. Now, I’ll tell you the story, so what happened… But that was an amazing time. But that’s what I call the ring of fire. You got to go through it. And I always had two questions. I always ask prospective managers two questions. How many people have you fired face-to-face?

I mean now, a lot of multinationals slough it off to the HR department. No, it’s your back. And then I say, “How many people have you fired who you’ve hired?” Because that day you knew there were two idiots in the room. And that’s the acid test. That’s the hardest one, firing someone you recruited. To do that is never easy.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

As I said above, a good way to restore morale is to teach your team a new tool which means learning a new language that is secret to the group.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

You do that basically in two sets of meetings. One is the weekly team meeting. In that meeting, you’ve got to just be upfront and unemotional and say, “This is where we are.” And then the question is, “What can we do?” You’ve got to set a goal. And then once a quarter you should have a strategic review. Often it’s best to invite independent people to come in and give you a bird’s eye view of what’s going on. But in the weekly review, you’ve just got to just be upfront and unemotional and say, “This is where we are.” And then the question is, what can you do? You’ve got to somehow set a goal so people feel it’s worth moving on, et cetera. And that’s what happened. To me, that’s the secret.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

At TNT I taught everyone the Humm people profiling technique, which became the language that we shared. It was as if we had a club. We were the only people in TNT that knew our secret language. That made us different, et cetera. And when it started working with people, people would come back saying, “I’ve just closed this business. I used the right closing technique, blah blah, blah.”

This technique spread by word-of-mouth we were the ones who knew it. And then we had, this dream run of basically winning 15 tenders. I mean, we were just on fire. I mean, Sir Peter Abeles, who was the head, rang me saying, “Chris, your figures are fantastic. What you’re doing? What’s going on?” He said, “You must come and tell me sometime what you are doing.”

Often, the secret to really growing a business, if you do have a winning format, is to stick to it and effectively use it. Successful companies just do it. Steve Jobs at Apple is a wonderful example. There’s no doubt about it, Jobs didn’t use marketing or focus groups, he used his gut instinct, but he said, “I’m going to design IT products for the consumer market.”

And it was unbelievable. He revolutionized four industries. That’s just unheard of. And I think the other secret is knowing yourself — I know what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are, and I accept that.

Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

The leader has to have authenticity and integrity. Warren Buffet said it best, “It takes 50 years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it.”

Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

The first mistake is losing diversity in the team when hiring and firing people. After all, you don’t fire the people you like. And the people you like are just like you. Secondly, always calculate the breakeven point of the business every month and effectively realize what the breakeven curve looks like. And you’ve got to be ruthless on fixed costs. Costs are variable on the way up and fixed on the way down. Even in tough times — especially in tough times — you’ve got to continue to make a profit.

Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.

One, have regular meetings. Two is to get out in front of customers. Every time you talk to a customer at a meeting, basically you tend to learn something. And in uncertain times, that’s when you need to get feedback on what’s going on. Are there gaps in the market, et cetera? That’s the best way of doing market research. Go out and talk to customers, and go out on sales calls with the salespeople. Be sure to say, “I’m just here to look,” and then shut up.

Afterward, have a discussion with the sales team like a ham sandwich. “You did this brilliantly. Next time you do it, watch out for this.” And then finally say, “It was great meeting you. You did very, very well. Fantastic.” Basically, give the salesperson a pat on the back.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Well, my great quote is, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” What this means to me is that giving people personal freedom is probably the most important thing you can do. And a good environment where the rule of law applies. Western society has got it right.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Sign up for my newsletter at https://www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com/ and read my book The Humm Handbook.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!