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Capitalizing on Your Political Savvy 131

Social Intelligence

A key component of political astuteness is something I refer to as
social intelligence—the ability to get people to like, respect, and
cooperate with you. It comes more naturally to some people than
others, but for everyone it is to some extent an acquired art. It’s
the ability to be aware of what’s going on around you, and to
read, adapt, and engage with others in such a way that they want
to align themselves with you. It comes into play during one-to-one
conversations, while presenting to a key stakeholders’ group (as we
saw in the last case study), in handling difficult situations, or in
seeking out the information from the right people to always be
tapped into the big picture at your organization.
Social intelligence is a big part of what I’m talking about in this
chapter, so I’m going to take some time to delve into it here. Below
are four guidelines for cultivating your own social intelligence.

Learn How to Read Situations

Being able to walk into a room and instantly know what the dynamic
is, who is influential, who you need to impress and steer clear of,
and what everyone’s individual and collective agendas are is some-
thing that heroes like Sherlock Holmes or Robert Ludlum’s Jason
Bourne can pull off. In the real world, people who seem to have this
great radar are actually just people who have done their homework.
To have situational awareness you have to do the background
work. Essentially, you have to take the time to get to know a person
well enough that in any situation you can perceive their emotional
state, their motivations, their willingness (or lack thereof) to interact,
their intentions, and so on. You do this by having formal and infor-
mal conversations, reading e-mails, listening during meetings and off-
the-cuff interactions, and taking in verbal and nonverbal cues.