Emotional intelligence - mind games for the future of work

Mayer and Salovey's model of emotional intelligence has been adapted in different ways by other writers. Daniel Goleman developed their model into a set of five emotional and social competencies that he included in Working with emotional intelligence - his second book on EQ (Goleman, 1998). Later, he reduced his model to four domains (see box 1) and used these as the basis for a questionnaire that he developed in conjunction with the Hay Group (Watkin, 2000).

Dr Malcolm Higgs and Professor Victor Dulewicz, both from Henley Management College, identify seven elements of EQ in their book Making sense of emotional intelligence (1999). These are broken down into the following three areas:

There are a number of other such models, such those of Reuven Bar-On and of Robert Cooper and Ayman Sawaf - several are described in Testing times for EQ (Rankin, 2000).

How does EQ transfer to the workplace?

Blessed with high self-awareness, emotionally intelligent employees can monitor themselves in action - for instance, being aware if their voice is becoming louder and they are becoming increasingly angry and thus recognising the need to lower their voice and defuse their anger.

Being able to manage their emotions, individuals with good EQ can understand why they are feeling as they do and use that understanding to deal with situations productively. Thus, in a distressing situation - the restructuring of a department, for example - the emotionally-intelligent employee will be able to think productively and use problem-solving skills to come up with a course of action.

Using their powers of self-motivation, high-EQ employees will begin a task, persevere and move to completion, continually dealing with setbacks as and when they arise.

Such employees will also use their effective social skills to be able to resolve workplace conflicts. Indeed, such model employees will be able to help their emotionally-deficient colleagues manage their own emotions, communicate effectively, solve their problems, resolve their conflicts and become motivated.

The importance of such skills for organisations has, of course, long been recognised. However, what is new is the rationale. Rather than using vague, imprecise terms such as "people skills", emotional intelligence provides an understanding based on neuroscience of the importance of these character traits for employees. Crucially, subsequent research has demonstrated the value of emotional intelligence precepts to the bottom line.

Just how important is EQ?

Emotional intelligence writers differ in their views as to the importance of emotional intelligence for organisations in the modern-day economy. Daniel Goleman (1998) has stated that emotional intelligence within organisations will emerge as one of the key factors determining which companies survive - and thrive - and which companies die. In a less hyperbolic fashion, Higgs and Dulewicz (1999) point to the numerous benefits that emotional intelligence can yield for organisations: improved leadership, more effective dispute handling and resolution, improved negotiations, more cost-effective decision-making and better-quality problem-solving.

John Mayer, on the other hand, strikes a more cautionary note about the importance of emotional intelligence. In his view, not every manager or leader needs to have emotional intelligence, though managers should be aware of that understanding in others and value it (Pickard, 1999).

One of Mayer's collaborators, David R Caruso (on his emotionalIQ.com web site), says that EQ "does not, and should not, be thought of as a replacement or substitute for ability, knowledge or job skills. Emotional intelligence - people skills - enhances your success; it does not guarantee it in the absence of suitable skills."

Time will tell which of these interpretations proves most accurate.

Certainly, both Higgs/Dulewicz and Goleman have amassed a wealth of evidence demonstrating the utility of the emotional intelligence concept for organisations. In Working with emotional intelligence (1998), Goleman describes his research into the relative importance of emotional competence for success as compared to the traditional emphasis upon technical skills and intellect.

Using the competence frameworks for 181 different positions drawn from 121 companies and organisations worldwide, Goleman compared which of the competencies listed as essential for each position could be classed as a purely cognitive or technical skill, and which were emotional competencies. He found that 67% of abilities deemed essential for effective performance were emotional competencies. In other words, he argues that, compared to IQ and expertise, emotional competence matters twice as much.

An analysis of data from 40 different corporations by Hay/McBer (with whom Goleman is now associated) supported the finding that emotional competencies are considered twice as important in contributing to high performance as pure excellence and expertise.

Using data purely from the UK, Higgs and Dulewicz have also discovered "a very clear relationship" between a competency-based measure of emotional intelligence and managers' rates of career advancement over a seven-year period (Higgs and Dulewicz, 1999).

Advocates of emotional intelligence have also provided numerous examples of how emotional intelligence can have a positive impact on the bottom line. The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations (chaired by Goleman and Cary Cherniss of Rutgers University) describes the experience of the L'Oreal cosmetics company. Among its sales agents, those who were selected on the basis of certain emotional competencies significantly outsold sales people selected using the old selection procedure. On an annual basis, salespeople selected on the basis of emotional intelligence sold $91,370 more than other salespeople, yielding a net revenue increase of $2,558,360.

Goleman has also related how at American Express Financial Advisors, financial advisers who went through an emotional competence personal development programme had sales gains of 8% to 20% (Goleman, 1998). Further, sales gains were significantly more than for the comparison groups who did not get the training, and also more than the average company-wide.

The case for the use of emotional intelligence seems to have been won in the USA. A 1997 survey of benchmark practices conducted among major corporations by the American Society for Training and Development found that four out of five organisations surveyed were trying to promote emotional intelligence in their employees through training and development, when evaluating performance and in hiring.

Uses and non-uses of EQ at work

There is no consensus about how emotional intelligence theory should be applied in the workplace. Many different areas of working life have been proposed, including recruitment, selection, reward, team-building, executive coaching, leadership and management development, and career development.

Using EQ concepts for selection purposes is perhaps the most contentious area. Buckholdt Associates, a UK-based emotional intelligence consultancy and training provider, says: "Recruitment is one area where emotional intelligence assessment is invaluable. Because there is such a high correlation between EQ and successful job performance, the more you test and recruit for this, the better your staff pool is going to become." (Taken from its web site: www.emotionalintelligence.co.uk)

Certainly, as illustrated above, there is some evidence of a high correlation between EQ and successful job performance. There are also illustrations of a link between the use of emotional intelligence assessments in recruitment procedures and a lower labour turnover rate.

The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations describes how a large beverage firm used standard methods to hire division presidents and 50% left within two years, largely because of poor performance. When they started selecting on the basis of emotional competencies, such as initiative, self-confidence and leadership, just 6% left in two years. The L'Oreal case study mentioned above also includes details of turnover rates among the sales agents. Agents selected for strengths in emotional competence had a 63% lower wastage rate during their first year than those whose selection process disregarded their EQ competence profile (Goleman, 1998).

However, in an interview with Competency & Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman said that he is against the use of emotional competencies in recruitment (Adams, 1999). While employers should be alert for these qualities, they should not use his model for any kind of selection test (this is also his view in respect of reward decisions: performance alone should determine pay).

Goleman's concern is shared by most in the emotional intelligence world. In a forthcoming article in Competency & Emotional Intelligence, assessing emotional intelligence tests in the market (Rankin, 2000), just two of the eight reviewed are intended for use in selection: the EQ-I from Pro-Philes - the North American emotional intelligence consultancy founded by Dr Reuven Bar-On - and the OPQ32 EI, launched by the UK-based, international occupational psychometric consultancy Saville & Holdsworth.

There is, however, more of a consensus regarding the acceptability of the use of emotional competencies in areas such as team-building, the identification of leadership potential and in personal/career development.

EQ and team-building

Research has suggested that the single most important element in teamwork is not average IQ but emotional intelligence. Higher quality decision-making in management teams has been shown to result from people who have high cognitive capabilities, diverse perspectives and expertise. But important as intellect and expertise are to effectiveness, team members also need to have healthy interactions with each other.

It is this quality of interaction that is key to the eventual success of the group. Too easy a consensus risks a poor decision, while too much contention can result in a lack of unity. It is the presence of emotional intelligence that allows the team to debate heatedly and productively, but conclude with a strong consensus.

Robert Steinberg and Wendy Williams from Yale University have found that the single most important factor in maximising the excellence of a group's product is the degree to which members are able to create a state of internal harmony.

This echoes the study of Vanessa Drukat, professor at Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in the USA (cited in Goleman, 1998), that analysed 150 self-managed teams at the German chemical company Hoechst-Celanese. Ten emotional competencies emerged as the distinguishing capabilities of successful teams (see box 2 ).

EQ and effective leadership

Emotional intelligence is also recommended as an effective way of identifying leadership potential among employees. Qualities commonly recognised as constituting good leadership include decisiveness, empowering others, managing change and openness to change - all of which reflect components of emotional intelligence.

Goleman also notes that the importance of emotional intelligence increases the higher that an individual climbs within an organisation. Hay/McBer analysed its own competencies database to assess the importance of emotional competence for executive and leadership positions in business. This yielded the finding that just one cognitive ability distinguished star performers from average - pattern recognition, or "big picture" thinking. This is an ability that allows leaders to select significant trends from a mass of information, and to think strategically into the future.

With this one exception, intellectual or technical superiority played no role in leadership success. While everyone requires cognitive skills at top management levels, these cognitive skills are the entry-level criteria for such positions. They do not, of themselves, determine excellence in leadership. Rather, Goleman has found that emotional competence made the crucial difference between star performers and the rest. Successful leaders exhibited significantly greater strengths in a range of emotional competencies, among them influence, team leadership, political awareness, selfconfidence and achievement drive. On average, Goleman calculated that approximately 90% of star performers' success in leadership was attributable to emotional intelligence.

A number of emotional intelligence questionnaires are specifically designed to identify such leadership potential, among them Mayer, Salovey and Caruso's MEIS Emotional IQ Test, which will be launched later this year, and the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, developed by Higgs and Dulewicz and launched in spring 1999.

Can EQ be developed?

There is a consensus among experts that emotional intelligence is a trait capable of development; certainly, the tests aiming to promote emotional competence development that many of the same experts have devised would be of little commercial use if this were not the case.

Emotional intelligence seems to be deeply embedded from a very early age. Goleman cites an experiment designed to assess the impulse control of a group of four-year-old American children (Goleman, 1996). The "marshmallow challenge" was devised by psychologist Walter Mischel during the 1960s. The children were told by the experimenter that if they waited until he had completed an errand, they could have two marshmallows as a treat. If they weren't able to wait until his return, they could have just one, but they could have it straight away.

Some of the children waited 20 minutes for the experimenter to return. Others, considerably more impulsive, grabbed one straight away.

Mischel then tracked down these four-year-olds some 12 to 14 years later, as they were leaving high school. Those who had resisted temptation at the age of four were more socially competent, personally effective, self-assertive and better able to cope with life's frustrations. In general, they were self-reliant, confident, trustworthy and dependable.

However, the third of the sample that had grabbed the single marshmallow straight away tended to have fewer of these qualities and were also more likely to have a troubled psychological portrait. These teenagers were more likely to shy away from social contact in adolescence, and tended to be stubborn, indecisive and easily upset by frustrations.

Yet while temperament is, to some degree, a given trait at birth, emotional intelligence writers argue that emotional make-up can be changed by experience. In the context of personal development, they consider that it can also be changed by learning and practising the capabilities and skills that make up emotional intelligence.

The workings of the human brain are by no means fully formed at birth. They continue to take shape through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood. Indeed, several brain areas critical for emotional growth are among the slowest to mature, and continue to develop into late adolescence. Thus, as an infant you might be prone to tantrums but, because of the way you are brought up and the experiences you encounter along the way, you learn to manage and control this tendency.

Indeed, studies conclude that people get better at these capabilities as they go through life and learn from their experiences. As we become more aware of our moods and learn to handle distressing emotions, and as we learn to listen and to empathise, emotional intelligence levels increase. Mayer carried out a comparison of adults and adolescents, where adults were found to be better at emotional intelligence across the board. Similarly, in a study conducted by Ronald Ballou of the Weatherhead School of Management of how well MBA students - ranging in age from their early 20s to their 50s - were able to master new levels of emotional competence, the most improvement occurred in those aged 29 or older, compared to those students aged under 25.

In this respect, emotional intelligence development is simply a new way of describing the considerably more old-fashioned term - maturity.

How should EQ be measured?

There is a variety of methods available for assessing emotional intelligence, with no consensus on the most preferable one. A self-completion questionnaire is the method favoured by Higgs and Dulewicz, where the emphasis is placed upon the individual to reflect upon the behaviour he or she tends to show in certain situations and, where necessary, to practise different behaviour. They recommend that participants actively seek feedback and advocate the use of a trusted mentor or guide.

However, self-report questionnaires have their critics. People are often not good judges of their own emotional intelligence, and they may also succumb to the temptation to answer questions in a way that makes themselves look good.

To try and counter these problems, Goleman recommends 360-degree instruments that incorporate ratings from superiors, peers and subordinates alongside input from the individual concerned. He does see potential flaws in this approach, acknowledging that evaluations by other people are susceptible to the machinations of office politics: evaluations can be used as a weapon in political in-fighting, or as a way for friends to exchange favours. Noting that any evaluation will always reflect the evaluator, Goleman believes that the only way to ensure the most accurate assessment is to have multiple evaluations from multiple sources. The overall score is likely to even out any imbalances.

Indeed, Goleman has recently mooted the idea of 550-degree feedback, where, on top of the assessments from superiors, peers and subordinates, assessment of emotional competencies is solicited from family members (Adams, 1999). Aside from the problems of how reliable such information might be, the questions of intrusion in personal privacy means that this is one assessment method that is unlikely to take off in the UK.

Mayer, on the other hand, is a critic of both self-report questionnaires and 360-degree evaluations. He notes that people are not very good judges of others' intelligence and are "horrible judges" of their own (Pickard, 1999). The MEIS/Emotional IQ Test, which he is developing with Salovey and Caruso, will accordingly consist of a series of practical ability tests.

Developing EQ versus IQ

Daniel Goleman has argued that trying to teach emotional competencies on a course in the same way as, say, teaching a new computer programme, is fundamentally flawed. He draws a distinction between declarative knowledge - knowing a concept and its technical details - and procedural knowledge, which involves being able to put these concepts and details into action. Knowing does not equal doing.

For Goleman, helping people to master an emotional competency demands nothing less than a new understanding of how people learn (Goleman, 1998). His view of emotional competence teaching is shaped by an understanding of how the brain works. He believes that as we acquire our repertoire of thoughts, feelings and actions, the neural connections that support this repertoire are strengthened and become the dominant pathways for nerve impulses. Connections that are unused become weakened or even lost, whereas those that are used again and again become increasingly strengthened.

Thus, given a choice between two alternative responses, the one that has the richer, stronger network of neurons will win out, he says. And the more a response occurs, the thicker a neural pathway grows to support it. So when habits have been well learned, the underlying neural circuitry becomes the brain's default mechanism.

Describing competencies as a coordinated bundle of habits, Goleman writes that changing a dysfunctional habit and replacing it with a more effective one requires enough practice of the better habit - and inhibition of the poorer one - to ensure that the neural circuitry for the old habit withers and the circuitry for the better behaviour grows stronger. Eventually, this will lead to the better habit replacing the old habit as the person's automatic response in key situations. Evidently, this cannot be achieved on a two-day course.

Goleman says that conventional training and development efforts in industry have confused the methods required for cognitive learning with those that are required for emotional learning. They have failed to recognise that capacities such as empathy or flexibility differ crucially from cognitive abilities, as they draw on different areas of the brain.

Purely cognitive abilities are based in the neocortex, but emotional competencies bring additional brain areas into play - mainly the circuitry that runs from the emotional centres deep in the brain up to the prefrontal lobes, the brain's executive centre. Learning emotional competence re-tunes this circuitry.

So, whereas cognitive learning is essentially a question of adding information and understanding to the memory banks of the neocortex, learning an emotional competence involves all that and more as it requires the engagement of our emotional circuitry. To change social and emotional habits that are deeply embedded is a far more complex task than to add new information to old.

As well as the underlying neurological differences between cognitive and emotional learning, motivational factors also come into play. Emotional learning will involve ways of thinking and acting that are more central to a person's identity. Someone who is told they require training to learn a new software package is less likely to become defensive than if they are told they need to develop better interpersonal skills or that they need to be better able to control their temper. The prospect of emotional learning is thus more likely to generate resistance to change.

What is good practice?

Goleman's approach involves a few days away from work, taking people through 360-degree feedback. Based on this, participants are helped to produce an action plan. Back at work, they are encouraged to practise the new behaviour immediately, with day-to-day support from a mentor or immediate manager.

Goleman believes that it can take "a couple of months at least" (Adams, 1999) to successfully unlearn old behaviour patterns and replace them with new ones.

In their treatment of emotional intelligence learning, Malcolm Higgs and Victor Dulewicz make a distinction between its different categories. They argue that their emotional intelligence components divide into two categories. The first comprises those that people can clearly learn through established learning activities, such as personal development strategies - sensitivity, influence and self-awareness. The second group, by contrast, relates to more enduring elements of an individual's personality that are clearly more difficult to learn - motivation, decisiveness, emotional resilience and conscientiousness/ integrity.

For this latter category, the approach to development should consist of training strategies that exploit each individual's characteristics to the full and on developing "coping strategies" that minimise the impact of potential limitations.

The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations is undertaking research into best practice in developing EQ. It has drawn up a model programme (published on its web site at www.eiconsortium.org) - see box 3.

Examples of learning programmes

The consortium has also recommended as models some programmes that have successfully raised the level of emotional competence for employees in the workplace. To qualify as a model, programmes had to meet the following criteria:

(i)Replication - programmes have been delivered more than once;

(ii)Sample size - the programme has been provided to, and evaluated for, more than just a few individuals;

(iii)Control group - evaluation research has included a control group;

(iv)Outcome measures - data on competency measures, performance or financial outcomes must be available; and

(v)Multiple data points - pre- and post-development measures are available.

The programmes meeting these criteria include executive and management development, supervisory training, individual coaching, achievement-motivation training, self-management training, interpersonal skills training, stress-management training and emotional-competence training. Two examples are outlined in box 4 on this page. For further information, visit the consortium's web site at: www.eiconsortium.org

Conclusion

Clearly, organisational culture will have a key impact on whether employees possessing high emotional intelligence - or wanting to develop their EQ levels - will be recognised and allowed to prosper. While emotional intelligence, as a discipline, is still in its initial phases, the potential impact of emotional intelligence on performance at work outlined above gives personnel professionals a powerful message to deliver to their organisations about the importance of personal development and the methods used to achieve it.

References

Adams, Katherine, "Interview with Daniel Goleman", Competency: The Quarterly Journal, vol. 6 no.4, Summer 1999, pp.33-38.

ASTD Benchmarking Forum, Member-to-member survey results, American Society for Training and Development, 1997.

Ballou, Ronald et al, Fellowship in lifelong learning: an executive development program for advanced professionals, Weatherhead School of Management, 1997, cited in Goleman, 1998.

Goleman, Daniel, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, Bloomsbury, 1996.

Goleman, Daniel, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury, 1998.

Higgs, Malcolm and Dulewicz, Victor, Making Sense of Emotional Intelligence, NFER-NELSON Publishing Company, 1999.

Mayer, John D, Salovey, Peter and Caruso, David, "Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence", unpublished paper, 1997, cited in Goleman, 1998.

Pickard, Jane, "Sense and sensitivity", People Management, 28 October 1999.

Rankin, Neil, "Testing times for EQ", Competency & Emotional Intelligence Quarterly, vol. 7 no.3, Spring 2000 (forthcoming); details from Graham Hanson, tel: 020 7354 6746.

Salovey, Peter and Mayer, John D, "Emotional intelligence", Imagination, Cognition and Personality, vol. 9 no.3, 1989/90, pp.185-211.

Watkin, Chris, "Developing emotional intelligence", Competency & Emotional Intelligence Quarterly (forthcoming); details from Graham Hanson, tel: 020 7354 6746.

Williams, Wendy M and Steinberg, Robert J, "Group intelligence: why some groups are better than others", Intelligence 12, 1988, cited in Goleman 1998.

1. Daniel Goleman's model of EQ

These competencies determine how we manage ourselves

Self-awareness

Knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources and intuitions

Emotional self-awareness: recognising one's emotions and their effects

Accurate self-assessment: knowing one's strengths and limits

Self-confidence: a strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities

Self-management

Managing one's internal states, impulses and resources

Self-control: keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check

Trustworthiness: maintaining standards of honesty and integrity

Conscientiousness: taking responsibility for personal performance

Adaptability: flexibility in handling change

Achievement-orientation: striving to improve or meeting a standard of excellence

Initiative: readiness to act on opportunities

These competencies determine how we handle relationships

Social awareness

Awareness of others' feelings, needs and concerns

Empathy: sensing others' feelings and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns

Organisational awareness: reading a group's emotional currents and power relationships

Service orientation: anticipating, recognising and meeting customers' needs

Social skills

Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others

Developing others: sensing others' development needs and bolstering their abilities

Leadership: inspiring and guiding individuals and groups

Influence: wielding effective tactics for persuasion

Communication: listening openly and sending convincing messages

Change catalyst: initiating or managing change

Conflict management: negotiating and resolving disagreements

Building bonds: nurturing instrumental relationships

Teamwork and collaboration: working with others toward shared goals. Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

Source: Emotional Intelligence Services/Hay Group, 1999.

2. Emotional intelligence in successful teams

Vanessa Drukat's study of 150 self-managed teams in the German chemical company Hoechst-Celanese identified 10 emotional competencies that emerged as the distinguishing capabilities of successful teams:

Source: cited in Goleman, Daniel, "Working with emotional intelligence", Bloomsbury, 1998.

3. A model EQ development programme

The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations has drawn up a model programme for the development of EQ among employees and managers. It involves four basic phases in the learning process:

1. Preparation phase

Crucial here is the motivation of participants to take part in the development programme. This can be a challenging admission. All the competencies required for success in the job should be identified. The personal strengths and weaknesses of the participant should be identified, and feedback should be provided with care. The learner's choice about his or her particular training programme should be accommodated as far as possible.

2. Training phase

Motivation during the learning phase continues to be a crucial element to counter any threat to the learner's self-esteem. A good relationship between the learner and trainer is crucial; the trainer must be genuine and empathic. Clear goals are required; these should be broken into manageable steps. There should be frequent opportunities to practise the learning. Experiential methods, such as role-plays, group discussions and simulations, are preferable to lecturing or reading. The use is recommended of live or videotaped models that show clearly how the competency is to be used in particular situations.

3. Transfer and maintenance

Transferring and maintaining learned skills is always the key challenge from training. Back in the familiar environment, there are likely to be many cues that support the old neural pathways the learning was designed to weaken. Using the learned skills on the job is to be encouraged, and support from management is essential.

4. Evaluation

Ongoing evaluation research should be conducted. Pre- and post-360-degree assessments of those who have gone through the training programmes are advocated, as are follow-up courses after one year.

Source: The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, published on its web site: www.eiconsortium.org

4. Two development programmes

Examples of two EQ development programmes that meet the criteria developed by the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. The criteria are shown in the text above.

Interaction management is a programme designed to improve leadership skills in areas such as productivity, handling employee conflict, performance improvement, delegation and overcoming resistance to change. Participants learn and practise skills that are demonstrated through videotaped models. Over three million managers have been trained.

The Emotional Competence Training Programme has been under development at American Express Financial Advisors since 1992. The training is designed to help managers fully appreciate the role that emotion plays in the workplace, and develop a greater awareness of their own emotional reactions and also those of their colleagues. The programme includes training in self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and social skills.

The company has completed an evaluation study which suggests that participation in the programme contributes to an increase in sales revenue. Advisers whose managers had received the training expanded their businesses by 18.1% compared with 16.2% for those whose managers were untrained. In monetary terms, the difference in increased sales revenue has been estimated at $247,000,000 over the 15-month period covered by the study.

Source: The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, published on its web site: www.eiconsortium.org