How’s your emotional intelligence?

If you"re acting - or speaking - before you think, then your emotional intelligence may well need a little attention. Dave Waller looks at the relevance of EI in the workplace

It"s nearly 400 years since RenÉ Descartes coined the phrase "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"), and this little nugget has formed a cornerstone of western philosophy ever since. But proponents of emotional intelligence (EI) will tell you that Descartes missed a crucial step - there are many feelings that drive your thinking in the first place. Fail to get a handle on your emotions and you may never be quite the person you thought you were.

If this all seems a bit "pipe and beret" for a magazine with finance and business at its core, then consider the findings of occupational psychology consultant JCA Global. JCA recently published a report on EI based on 10 years of research, which found the financial sector generally scoring lower in EI than other sectors. Its employees were often found to be over-critical, less flexible, defensive when stressed, and less people-oriented.

“Under pressure, there"s always a tendency to cut into survival mode, rather than focusing on the long term,” says Jo Maddocks, Co-founder of JCA. “You stop being open to possibilities or solutions. But now we know more about how the brain works - emotion precedes thinking. And in finance as much as anywhere we need to manage our feelings - not keep them in a box.”

While there"s no common agreed definition of EI, the same elements tend to crop up all the time. In short, it"s about understanding yourself at a deeper level, using your emotions and talents intelligently so you can better manage your behaviour, alone or in an empathetic relationship with others, while also consciously working on any blind spots.

“When you"re emotionally intelligent you"re thinking about what you"re feeling, and you get a feel for what you"re thinking before you decide what to do,” says Liz Wilson, Co-founder of The Work Playground, a behavioural change consultant. “It"s about tapping into both sides to make a conscious decision. Emotional intelligence comes from habitual practice - this is what I feel, this is what I think, and that"s what I do.”

Being mindful

The subtext of the JCA research is that businesses should be more conscious of EI and how it affects their employees and their leaders. Practice helps with influencing people, communication, and getting the best out of others. People with strong EI also tend to be better at managing their emotions, so they can think clearly and deal with stress. Even issues that seem disconnected from people, and thus beyond the realms of EI, often aren"t.

“NASA"s Challenger shuttle blew up because of a technical issue,” explains Maddocks. “But that was allowed to happen because the team weren"t willing to share information - because of pride, and a fear of being seen as foolish.”

When EI is playing a potentially life-or-death role, it should come as no surprise that top business schools like Yale and Harvard have begun introducing an EI score for students. Such centres have always aimed to produce the most intellectually brilliant people. To that they now add those who can demonstrate resilience, empathy, adaptability and self-awareness.

But it"s not quite as simple as it may seem. It"s not that health workers have EI while hard-nosed managers don"t. Yes, some bosses may need to be shown why adopting
a like-it-or-lump-it approach may not sit brilliantly with their staff, but equally those with high degrees of empathy may suffer low self-confidence. Nurses have been found to be so used to putting others first that they can lack self-belief, and so may struggle to get deserved promotions.

As for why finance scored low, the reasons are varied. Of course it"s never been the cuddliest of industries. It could simply be that such self-reflection is not as required in finance as it is in, say, services or nursing, and that each industry attracts its type. Yet the overall picture appears to be changing.

Post-recession there"s more requirement in finance to show integrity and become more customer-focused. In fact, in some of the interpersonal areas of the JCA survey - such as awareness and connecting with others - those in finance actually scored higher than other job sectors.

People skills

It appears that large companies are starting to realise that investing in EI is fundamental to developing their people and leaders, but it"s not just big firms that are benefitting from EI. Self-employed people tend to score highest in EI tests, and again this may raise issues for bigger business.

“You"re starting to see people moving to portfolio careers because the values of one company doesn"t match theirs,” says Conor Moss, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Sheffield Hallam University. “If the organisation isn"t providing the opportunity to grow, they"ll move to other places and find their own path. So EI matters massively to business today. A job and salary for life is the model of yesteryear - employees, especially younger ones, want to feel engaged and motivated, and that they"re driving towards something meaningful.”

In JCA"s research, it was financial companies that showed the greatest problems in retaining the best people. Yet there are steps they can take to measure and improve their EI. As usual with these things, there aren"t any short cuts - EI deals with the emotional limbic brain, which operates at a deeper level and requires learning through experience. Taking a quick-fix assertiveness course? That won"t get you anywhere if you don"t work on the fundamentals of why you"re a pussycat in the first place.

A consultancy will work with individuals, small groups or the organisation as a whole, running EI measuring programmes to create a score and providing tools to work on areas that need work. It"s all about safe environments and feedback, about being able to give and take. But it"s not all about the individual - on an organisational level, there"s always work to be done making the place more open and tolerant of mistakes, and less about blame.

Despite all the open-hearted talk, the critics will always argue that EI lacks the scientific rigour to really be of any value. So how do the experts feel about that? “There"s lots of research into the returns you get from EI programmes,” says Wilson. “Plus, thanks to developments in thermal imaging in the brain, there"s evidence of how our emotions affect how we think. With people who have worked on self-development, you"ll see different thermal patterns. This really takes away the touchy-feely, airy-fairy element.”

While EI may at first seem to be merely one peripheral part of conducting business, it may actually underpin the whole enterprise. And if that"s the case, it"s probably a worthy investment. What do you think about that?

And now ask yourself why...