Emotional Intelligence is not just Warm and Fuzzy Stuff

Often when I work with organisations people ask me about what I do and I talk about end to end business transformation using intellectual technologies such as Emotional Intelligence (EQ). The response that I often get initially is - "Oh - All that warm and fuzzy stuff". Well I have some interesting news - all that EQ warm and fuzzy stuff can be clearly linked to both individual and organisational performance.

I was working with someone the other day in a sales environment who had trouble understanding why it would be important to place any focus on the emotional elements related to increasing the "Feel Good" factor during a sales conversation. I quickly realised that this person does not appear to spend much time focussing on their own emotional state and how this impacts on their work performance, so it is not surprising that they would not really think about the emotional state of the person that they are engaging with. It seems in this day and age that not many people take a break from their day to day activities to think about their own wellbeing from an emotional intelligence perspective, particularly in relation to how they think, act and behave at any given moment.

If you think about the emotional state that you start the day in, you will soon be able to identify how this sets you up for responding to the opportunities and challenges that will undoubtedly present themselves. If you think about the fact that every individual may deal with a variety of emotional states then you can soon see how emotional intelligence factors can be connected right through to the cultural level and all the way to key performance indicators.

- Scott Dargan