Entrepreneur, Transformational Coach, Keynote Speaker, Facilitator, and Business Psychologist.
By nature, humans are emotional creatures. From the tiniest of gestures to the grandest of actions, emotions dance within us, thereby shaping our thoughts, behavior, and communication.
It is through emotions that we experience the highest of highs and our vulnerable lows. It allows us to connect to one another, one that transcends logic and touches upon the very core of our shared humanity.
Within this intricate tapestry of emotions lies the transformative power of emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence encompasses the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions, as well as navigate the emotions of others in an effective manner.
Standing out as one of the pioneers in this space is Robin Hills, a seasoned expert in training, coaching, and personal development focused on emotional intelligence, positive psychology, and neuroscience.
Robin has over 40 years of business and commercial experience helping executives and leaders develop business performance with increased self-awareness and understanding of others. Moreover, Robin is the founder of Ei4Change, a company specializing in educational training, coaching and personal development focused on emotional intelligence.
Recognized internationally for specializing in emotional intelligence, Ei4Change tailors blended learning through live and online workshops as well as coaching that creates positive change at the personal level, the team level, and at the organizational level.
According to Robin, “We have experience of working with people at all these levels within organizations to align people enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills that lead to improvements in performance inside and outside of work.”
Fittingly, Robin features on the Cover of our Transformational Leaders to Follow issue. In this Cover Feature, we look into the journey of Robin Hills and his ideas related to emotional intelligence.
The Early Direction
Over the years, Robin has established his name in the EI space as a leading coach and trainer. However, surprisingly, he didn’t start his career focused on emotional intelligence. He recalls, “At the time, it hadn’t even been heard about as it was in the early stages of research in academia.”
Robin graduated with a degree in Biology from Durham University. Following which, he started his career as a medical representative selling products to general practitioners and hospital doctors in London.
While working in this role, Robin noticed something particularly interesting. “I noticed that their (doctors and practitioners) attitude towards me and my role varied considerably, also people’s reaction to their own jobs differed greatly from person to person.”
He mentions that some people were in constant states of stress and anxiety, while others behaved more calmly and had better relationships.
“I was interested in why these differences occurred, especially when the job role was similar in many instances.”
When Robin read Daniel Goleman’s book on Emotional Intelligence, he realized this to be the answer to his question. Moreover, he also realized his own success in this area was primarily due to his own emotional intelligence.
Soon after, Robin left the medical representative role, and relocated to the North-West of England to take up a leadership role within the pharmaceutical industry.
“After a few years and a few changes in my job and a few redundancies, I decided to set up a business specializing in emotional intelligence focused on its application in the workplace,” he explains. And thus began Ei4Change.
EI – A Power Skill
Robin mentions that there’s a lot of misconceptions or misunderstandings when it comes to emotional intelligence. A common misconception being that EI is about being kind and nice, or even about suppressing any emotions that are unpleasant, one which can lead to negative reactions or behaviors.
In reality, Emotional Intelligence is about being able to understand, manage, and express emotions appropriately.
He explains, “Emotions contain data so emotional intelligence means working with emotions as they surface and using this data to make better decisions and build authentic relationships.”
He further notes another common misconception that ‘emotional intelligence is all about common sense’. “To a certain extent it is, but common sense is not that common.”
For many, emotional intelligence is often referred to as a soft skill. To which Robin asserts “It is one of the hardest skill sets to train people in. Rather than considering emotional intelligence as a soft skill, it should be considered as a power skill.”
With Ei4Change, Robin helps leaders unlock this power skill and allows them to become the best version of themselves, whether it be at work or at home. For this, Robin Hill uses internationally recognized profiling tools to assess type, trait, behavior, and emotional intelligence.
As a transformational leader, Robin Hills has created over 30 courses with over 400,000 learners enrolled across 195+ countries.
Emotions over Artificial Intelligence
One of the most interesting developments recently has been the emergence of AI tools. Unsurprisingly, it has caused a lot of panic and fear among people, to an extent that many governments are seeking to restrict or ban its use. This is based on emotion!
According to Robin, “What AI lacks is a human brain capable of working with emotions. Our brains are incredibly complex and dynamic systems, made up of hundreds of billions of neurons continually communicating and interacting with one another. AI is program based around statistics and so it cannot gain knowledge like we can through experience.”
He adds, “A good book that I recommend to have a deeper understanding on these topics is “The Emotional Life of your Brain” by Richard J. Davidson with Sharon Begley.”
Evolving Skill Sets
Since beginning his work in the emotional intelligence space, Robin has had to learn and develop a whole new set of skills.
This includes pedagogical and content knowledge with a thorough understanding of adult learning, instructional design, and content. This also includes keeping up to date with the latest research and trends.
To create his online courses, Robin had to also develop video production skills, editing and presentation skills, and technical skills related to online platforms and software.
He notes, “You will notice that all these skill requirements have arisen over the last few years and, certainly, weren’t considered as a fundamental part of my degree or early job roles last century!”
Robin sets high standards for himself and strives to do his best to attain the same. ‘I am aware that I can’t meet everyone’s expectations in a timely manner and that I make mistakes along the way. However, as long as what I produce is fit for purpose, I can go back and change it and make it better.”
He sums up this approach with one of his favorite quotes – “Imperfect action is better that perfect inaction.”
Ei-matters
Most recently, Robin Hills has launched a webzine named ei-matters, under the umbrella of Ei4Change.
ei-matters is a digital magazine focused on emotional intelligence sharing news, views, articles, podcasts, and more around the topic of emotional intelligence. It has a global reach and can be accessed from any device anytime and anyplace and has attracted a lot of attention.
The webzine provides readers with greater insight into the power of emotional intelligence Through the available resources, they can learn more about how to develop the skills needed to better manage and work with emotions to make effective decisions and build authentic relationships.
Podcasts have proved to be a very popular resource as people like to listen to them when it is convenient for them. ei-matters features a range of free podcasts covering topics associated with emotional intelligence in greater detail, making them ideal for people looking for in-depth information. The podcasts featured are all in the top 2% of global business.
Robin claims, “As ei-matters grows and becomes further established, we are hoping that it will become the valuable resource that people turn to when they want to find out more about emotional intelligence.”
Beyond Work-Life Balance
When asked about how he ensures work-life balance, Robin Hills points out “If you think about this concept, work-life balance is a counterproductive idea. It’s a debilitating phrase because it implies that work is bad and life is good, and there’s a strict trade-off between the two.”
According to him, the issue with the phrase work-life balance is that it compartmentalizes everything into work activities – meetings, clients, trips, conferences – and life activities – family commitments, holidays, hobbies, keeping healthy.
“Life isn’t at one end of a fulcrum with work on the other. Work is an integrated part of life. You only have one life, and you just happen to live some of it while working and some of it engaged in other activities.”
In conclusion, Robin states “Rather than seeking to get a balance right, I try to integrate my work activities into my life and to be as emotionally intelligence about this in the most appropriate way possible.”
