June 12, 2010

I’ve thought a lot about emotional intelligence and how it factors into individual and organizational success. It’s something I always consider when I have a consulting or coaching project, even though I don’t always label it as such with clients. Some people find it a little squishy and don’t take it seriously, yet if I speak about its principles virtually everyone agrees on their importance. That’s OK, it’s the results I’m after and so is the client. And EQ ties in very well with culture, and of course I believe that in culture you find the root causes of most company concerns.

Whether it’s teamwork or interpersonal skills, there are qualities we all want in our co-workers that are components of EQ. For example, how many of us have worked with someone who is obviously smart with high cognitive abilities yet can’t handle his (or her) emotions in the office, is uncooperative and seems oblivious to the feelings of others? I sure have! And that’s the definition of someone with a low EQ. There’s ample research that shows EQ is a much better predictor of star performance than IQ or any measure of intellectual prowess. And it also seems clear that EQ is not fixed at any particular age as is IQ, but that we can all develop it and make long-term improvement.

Let’s say you’re hiring. What exactly do you want from a candidate? The skills and experience to do the job? Yes, absolutely, but you also want that person to fit in, to have the social and emotional maturity to monitor and control their feelings while being able to monitor the feelings of others and make adjustments. They need to fit into the culture and the higher the EQ the greater the odds they will.

Culture and EQ are linked together, and have enormous effects on performance. The more you read about it the more sense it makes. Every one of us can do better and by doing so we’ll help each other and consequently the organization, too.

February 11, 2010

Managing the cultural environment should be an ongoing goal in every organization. Leaders should keep a constant lookout for ways to change and improve the entire working environment. The needs of individuals and the entire organization change over time for a variety of reasons, and leaders need to recognize and  respond appropriately. Sometimes there are external forces that cause internal discomfort or fear, such as the economy has done over the last few years. Some companies then and now put their heads down and blindly move on, hoping to tough out the pain. That’s almost never the right response, and I saw a story, seemingly unrelated, that contains a lesson for us here.

I was intrigued to read of a new treatment for burn patients that has shown dramatic results in reducing the pain of their treatments. Victims need grafts, debriding and other procedures that cause excruciating pain that drugs can never fully alleviate. Now they can use a virtual reality game called SnowWorld in which the patient dons a VR helmet and with the help of a mouse can navigate through a snowy world of icy canyons and mountains. They can throw snowballs at the various creatures they encounter, from mammoths to penguins, and become so immersed in their new virtual world that the pain of their wounds and their treatments are minimized to an astounding degree. Physically they feel better overall, and the worse they felt initially, the better they got.

I became excited at all the ideas I began to have as I read this. Most of all, it’s that if you can change the environment, the culture, you can improve individual attitudes. Attitude influences a person’s belief at work, which in turn influences their behavior. And of course, it’s behavior that determines results. The VR helmets changed patients’ perspective and consequently they felt better in spite of their wounds and they began to heal. In the workplace, employees may feel virtually wounded and hurting due to a variety of reasons. The entire work environment may be wounded! We can alleviate those issues by changing not the virtual, but the actual reality of the workplace. Improve the culture, improve the performance.