How can Emotional Intelligence be used to improve performance at work?

Based on the book, Working with Emotional Intelligence

by Daniel Goleman

Introduction

I had heard a little about Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the past I decided that I would chose this book for my assignment as I was interested in learning more about it and how it could help improve performance. I had heard that his first book Emotional Intelligence, his focus was primarily on education, and it did not tie in enough to the work environment. So I decided to read his second book ‘Working with Emotional Intelligence’.

This topic was particularly interesting to me as I have had some experience in training skills and knowledge, but when approached by manager on how to give additional training to our staff, I did not know. We have a through 3 month training for all new staff where they learn all the skills and knowledge about the reception but when I looked at further training I decided to turn to the key competencies that we use in out performance reviews. These are and include sub topics like: Drive for results, Implementation, Thinking, Working with people. I did not know how to train on these but the book provides an answer and how this ties in to life long learning

I have started this review by giving a brief overview of Emotional Intelligence and then have focused the rest of this review on Chapter 11 of the book 'Best Practise.' In this chapter Goleman gives guidelines for training Emotional competencies. Finally I have given my over all feeling of the book.

Summary of the book

Goleman observes that “the rules for work are changing. We're being judged by a new yardstick: not just by how smart we are, or by our training expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other. This yardstick is increasingly applied in choosing who will be hired and who will not, who will be let go and who will be retained, who passed over and who promoted."

Goleman defines emotional competence as a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work, and EI as a potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its elements. Goleman explains, emotional intelligence is not simply "being nice" nor does it mean giving free rein to feelings -- "letting it all hang out." Rather, "it means managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals." Goleman's purpose is to explain the importance of having "the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships."

Throughout the book, he has discussed the relationship between the five dimensions of emotional intelligence and the twenty-five emotional competencies that are listed below:

Personal Competence

These competencies determine how we manage ourselves.

Self-Awareness-

Is about knowing one's internal states, and what our preferences, resources, and intuitions are. They include:

1. Emotional awareness: Recognizing one's emotions and their effects.

2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one's strengths and limits.

3. Self-confidence: A strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities.

Self-Regulation

Is how we managing our internal states, impulses, and resources. They include:

4. Self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.

5. Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.

6. Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance.

7. Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Personal Competence

These competencies determine how we manage ourselves.

Self-Awareness-

Is about knowing one's internal states, and what our preferences, resources, and intuitions are. They include:

1. Emotional awareness: Recognizing one's emotions and their effects.

2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one's strengths and limits.

3. Self-confidence: A strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities.

Self-Regulation

Is how we managing our internal states, impulses, and resources. They include:

4. Self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.

5. Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.

6. Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance.

7. Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change.

8. Innovation: Being comfortable with novel ideas, approaches, and new

information.

Motivation

Is about our emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching our goals. They include:

9. Achievement drive: Striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence.

10. Commitment: Aligning with the goals of the group or organization.

11. Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities.

12. Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

Social Competence

Empathy-

Is about having an awareness of others' feelings, needs, and concerns. They include:

13. Understanding others: Sensing others' feelings, and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns.

14. Developing others: Sensing others' development needs and bolstering their abilities.

15. Service orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers' needs.

16. Leveraging diversity: Cultivating opportunities through different kinds of people.

17. Political awareness: Reading a group's emotional currents and power relationships.

Social Skills-

Are the adeptness of inducing desirable responses in others. They include:

18. Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion.

19. Communication: Listening openly and sending convincing messages.

20. Conflict management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements.

21. Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups.

22. Change catalyst: Initiating or managing change.

23. Building bonds: Nurturing instrumental relationships.

Collaboration and cooperation: Working with others toward shared goals.
Team capabilities: Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

The ‘good news’ is that emotional intelligence can be learned. Therefore, at the individual level, elements of emotional intelligence must firstly be identified, assessed, and upgraded. Only then can the "emotionally intelligent organization" be established and sustained. In his final remarks, Goleman observes: "But apart from the emotional intelligence of the organizations we work for, having these capabilities offers each of us a way to survive with our humanity and sanity intact, no matter where we work. And as work changes, these human capacities can help us not just to compete, but also nurture the capacity for pleasure, even joy, in our work."

Guidelines for Emotional competence training

This chapter has put the enterprise of improving soft skills on an sound and scientific footing It provides a sate of the art blue print for training and learning EI. Taking form the examples Goleman has used of two organisations, American Express and Weatherhead School of business that had been successful in developing EI in their people, I have analysed the process and looked how it can fit in to my organisation.

Access the Job

The first aspect to start with is to look at the job. The question, what does it take to do a superb job? has to be asked. We can then focus training on the competencies that are needed the most for excellence in a given job or role.. It is important that we design training based on a systemic needs assessment, as training for irrelevant competencies is pointless. We will have to carry out an analysis of the top performers at work and average the performers, and see what distinguishes them. Once we have identified the competences, we have to break the competencies in to smaller ones.

Asses the individual

After looking at the job we should look at the individual filling the position. Their strengths and limitations should then be assessed to identify what needs improving. Introducing 360 feedback and performance reviews at my work will assist individuals have a clearer picture of their true performance levels. There is no point in sending people for training in competencies they already have or do not need. The information gathered can be used to tailor the training to the individual's needs.

Delivering assessment with care

Our managers will have to keeping mind while carrying out the assessment on the individuals that, feedback on a person’s strengths and weaknesses carries emotional charge. Skill full feedback is motivating but inept feedback can be upsetting. They have to remember to use their own emotional intelligent in delivering initial evaluations of a person’s emotional competence.

Gauge readiness.

Not everyone in my organisation will be ready to under go this development. People are at different levels of readiness and when there is a lack readiness, training is more likely to be wasted. We have to asses for readiness, and if some one is not ready make cultivating readiness the initial focus.

Motivate

We have to ensure that our people realize that a competence is important to doing their job well, and making the competence a personal goal for change. People learn to the degree they are motivated and if people are unmotivated, training will lack effectiveness. We will have to make clear how training will pay off on the job or for the individual’s career or be otherwise rewarding.

Make change self directed

We will have to give individuals a certain amount of ownership of their own learning. When people direct their learning programs tailoring it to their needs, circumstances, and motivation, learning is more effective. One size fits all training programs fit no one specifically. Have people choose their own goals for development and help them design their own plan for pursuing them.

Focus on clear manageable goals.

We will some times have to direct our employees as clarity is needed on what the competence needed is and the steps needed to improve it. Poorly focused or unrealistic programs for change will lead to fuzzy results or failure. We may have to spell out the specifics of the competence and offer a workable plan to get there.

Prevent relapse

After training we should keep in mind that habits change slowly and relapse and slips need not signal defeat. People can become discouraged by the slowness of change and the inertia of old habits. We can help people use lapse and slip-ups as a lesson to prepare them selves better for next time.

Giving performance feed back. It is important that we remember that fuzzy feedback can send the training off track and therefore, design into the change plan, feedback form supervisors, peers or friends. Basically anyone who can help coach, mentor of give appropriate progress reviews as ongoing feedback encourages and helps direct change

Encourage practise. Lasting change requires sustained practise both on and off the job. A singular seminar of workshop is the beginning, but not he sufficient in it self. Use the naturally arising opportunities for practice at work and at home and try the new behaviours repeatedly and consistently over a period of months.

Arrange support. Action learning sets can be developed at this stage to build a network of support and encouragement. Like-minded people who are also trying to make similar changes can offer crucial ongoing support as going at it alone makes change tougher.

Provide models

This may be the challenging part in implementing, as it may be difficult at first to find supervisors that will be good models. It is important therefore to encourage supervisors and trainers to value and exhibit the competence being learned. High status, highly effective people who embody the competence can be models who inspire change. A ‘do what I say and not what I’ do attitude in supervisors undermines change.

Encourage

Change will be greater if our organisation’s environment supports the change, values the competence, and offers a safe atmosphere for experimentation. When there is no real support, particularly from bosses, the change effort will seem hollow or to o risky. We will have to encouraging change that fits the value of the organisations as well as showing that the competence matter for job promotion, and performance reviews.

Reinforce change.

We will have to remember that people need recognition to feel their change efforts matter. A lack of reinforcement is discouraging. We will have to ensure we shows we value the change in a consequential way such as praise, a raise, or expanded responsibility.

Evaluate

Finally we will have to establish ways to evaluate the development effort to see if it has lasting effects. Many or most development programs go unevaluated, and so mistakes or pointless programs go unchanged. We will have to find measures of the competence or skill as shown on the job, ideally before and after the training, and also several months(and if possible , a year or two )later. Then used these measures to see if our initial desired out comes were successful

I began this book with great interest with his extensive use of anecdotes; I quickly became fully convinced of the value of working with emotional intelligence. Instead of going on to give specific suggestions as to how a person could improve their own emotional intelligence, or how to help employees/managers in this area, he continued on and on with more anecdotes, until the end of the book. I was hoping he would give more concrete advice and more practical guidelines about implementation, which he didn't give. The book would have been better with the used of appropriate illustrations and figures. The anecdotes were interesting but after a while I found they could have usefully been shorter (or as a sidebar) A fuller and more theoretical/scientific framework to structure the book would have helped as well as I was surprised with his scientific or psychologist approach.

Overall, an interesting book it was very interesting and the use of global business examples (and not just US as so many books in this field use) as well as the use of many examples across sectors and organisation size/life-cycle .I found the great summary tables on the framework (pages 26-27) and training guidelines (pages 251-253) particularly useful.

The over all lesson learnt was that even if your organization is unwilling and/or unable to become "emotionally intelligent", this book can be of great value to our efforts to recognize and understand your feelings as well as those of others, to motivate yourself, and to manage your emotions more effectively, especially in your relationships with others. I enjoyed the reinforcement of something we all know quite well and that is “clever people are not always the most successful.”