Topics in this section;

• Theory of EI
• EI Research
• Using EI
• Competitive edge

Theory of EI

EI is a combination of the intelligence we have that helps us both know and manage ourselves well, and the intelligence we have that helps us understand, motivate and relate effectively to other people.

Intrapersonal intelligence:
This is the name of the intelligence we have that enables us to make sense of the things we do, the thoughts we have, the feelings we feel - and the relationships between all these things. With it you can learn how to stay in charge of yourself and your emotions. No more counterproductive outbursts or unhelpful emotional withdrawals that leave you misunderstood, furious and unsupported by your staff.

Interpersonal intelligence:
This is the name of the intelligence we have that enables us to tune into other people, to empathise with them, to communicate clearly with them, to inspire and motivate them, to understand the relationship between you both. With it you can inspire other people, develop their trust in you very quickly, create a tam that performs rather than storms, get innovative projects completed to deadlines.

History of emotional intelligence

There are several strands to the current state of knowledge and development of Emotional Intelligence. It has grown out of the rapid advances in scientific research over the last 20 years on several key subjects such as brain functioning, human intelligence, human performance and neurophysiology.

Peter Salovey, John Mayer and Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional intelligence was the name that Peter Salovey of Yale University and John Mayer, of the University of New Hampshire, called the collection of personal, emotional and social abilities that they were trying to measure when they began their research some 10 years ago.

Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences:
This coincided with work that Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard Graduate School of Education had been doing on human intelligence during the last twenty years. Professor Gardner has developed a theory about the number of intelligences we have. He says there are seven different types - and probably more. He developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences. This was a radical departure from the previous widely entertained theory, which held that there was only one kind of intelligence- and that it was at a fixed level from birth throughout our lives.

The Multiple Intelligences:
Firstly there are the two we know about - the ones that get measured in school as IQ:

• Logical/rational
• Linguistic

Then there are three specialist intelligences:

• Musical
• Spatial
• Kinaesthetic

Then there are the two that together make up what we now call Emotional Intelligence:

" Intrapersonal - this is the capacity to manage ourselves through knowing and understanding our feelings, wishes, needs, wants and purpose. With it we can motivate ourselves, delay our impulses if that will benefit us and keep persisting even when it's a hard patch. It is difficult to think of a field where this intelligence isn't an asset.
" Interpersonal - with this intelligence we have the ability to be sensitive to other people's emotions and psychological states. It also enables us to choose appropriate responses. We can 'read' the subtle undercurrents in relationships and be empathic and clear communicators. Examples of this are top sales people, managers, counsellors and teachers.

Daniel Goleman and his book:
Finally, in the history of Emotional Intelligence, we come to Daniel Goleman, Harvard taught professor of psychology and behavioural and brain science journalist for The New York Times. He picked up Salovey and Mayer's phrase 'emotional intelligence' and wrote a book called 'Emotional Intelligence: why it is as important as IQ'. This book became an international best-seller within two years. Obviously Daniel Goleman had tuned into a concept that made sense to people. A concept that pulled together some truths about our experience and expressed them more clearly than ever before.

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Emotional Intelligence Research

Many research projects have been undertaken to explore and understand emotional intelligence but the most important research is to do with the correlation between high job performance and EQ. This is where knowledge of your own EQ profile gets to be really invaluable. Here are a couple of real life examples.

Metropolitan Life:
At Metropolitan Life they had great trouble in keeping sales staff. It cost them $30,000 per person to recruit and train a new representative and they recruited around 5,000 per year! Half of these would leave within one year and 80% would be gone in four years. Metropolitan Life decided to look at the emotional intelligence aspect of optimism in their prospective recruits since this quality had been shown to equate with success. They recruited people who scored high on this EI scale.

The test paid off big. The optimists outsold the pessimists by 21% in their first year and by 57% in their second. They stayed because they were doing well and could easily ride the rejections that are part of the job.

American Express:
In American Express they decided to do a test. They took a group of their sales people and put them through a 20 hour training on only one aspect of emotional intelligence. This was on coping skills. They also selected a control group who didn't do any extra training. After 6 months they measured the sales of the sales people in these two groups. The results: the trained group had outperformed the control group by 10% adding significantly to the American Express bottom line.

Canadian Airforce:
In the Canadian Airforce actually finding recruiters who could handle the pressure of quotas, the loneliness of travelling and the many rejections was very hard. Even harder than finding the fly-boy recruits themselves! The Airforce began to use the EQ-i to profile their existing top recruiters. They soon had a template 'norm' profile that they used to compare new potential recruiters against. This has transformed their selection procedure. They are now using it to modify their training practices too.

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Who uses their emotional intelligence?

Business owners:
If you are the owner of a small business then you and all your team need to be flexible and multi-skilled.

This means that you have to be able to:

• get the best out of everyone
• know how to motivate them
• know how to make them dedicated to you and your company
• give them constructive feedback
• understand their motivators and feelings.

They need to have emotional intelligence too, so that

• the team functions smoothly and productively
• they can solve conflicts together rather than involving you
• they can manage their stress levels creatively and stay well.

This means measuring their EI when you are recruiting - this will immediately show you the recruits' strengths and weaknesses and whether they will suit your team.

Professional men and women:
As a professional your clients or patients look to you for guidance and expertise. They need to trust you to take care of their affairs, financial, physical . . . To inspire trust you need to be trustworthy as well as technically expert. To be trustworthy means you are acting congruently, honestly and clearly. To do this you need to know yourself and be able to convey your commitment to your clients in every communication with them. This means knowing your EI profile and using the emotional strengths you have everyday.

Managers:
If you are a manager you need to get your team working together. You need to pass on your company's goals to the team, to inspire them into working enthusiastically towards those goals and support them to do it every day. You need to mediate between what they want and what your company's executives or shareholders want, you need to meet targets and you need to manage your own stress levels. You need EQ to do this.

Where you can use your emotional intelligence best

Workplace:
Teams, departments and individuals can become locked into conflict very easily in the workplace. Or they can become disaffected, bored and unmotivated. Teams, department and individuals all have different needs and aspirations in the workplace. Each set of needs and problems can be dealt with through using your EI effectively. Of course, if you develop your staff's EI too, you will get even better results.

Getting promotion:
When you use your EI on an everyday basis you will soon be noticed by management. They will see you as the person who keeps the team ticking, who doesn't invite conflict but who can manage it when it's happening. They will remember the person who remained optimistic and understanding when the company went through a downturn. Having your managers and company executives be aware of you and your worth is the way that you can get promoted quickly. They will not want to lose such a good team player.

Staff reviews:
Most managers hate doing staff reviews, unless they have good news to give their team members. With high emotional intelligence you won't have to worry again about these potentially sticky interviews. You will be able to conduct them respectfully and positively no matter what feedback you have to give. Your staff will appreciate that and will learn how to appraise themselves effectively too.

Recruitment:
Recruitment is one area where emotional intelligence measurement really is invaluable. Because there is such a high correlation between EI and successful job performance the more you test and recruit for this the better your staff pool is going to become - remember the Metropolitan Life example. There are Ei profiles that show the optimum measurements for many different kinds of role. For instance for professionals, executives and - a favourite this - sales managers and sales people. By recruiting people who show a similarity of profile to the 'high performance norm' you get people on board who will be up and running, generating profits for you, within a very short time.

Peer relationships:
Have you ever thought of how much of your job you get done through good networking? A lot - if you are aware of this valuable way to do business. Too often networking is seen as just using other people, but having high EI means that you have a mutually beneficial approach to other people. You will help them and they will be glad to help you. Another great advantage to this use of your EI is that good networkers are the ones who get the great jobs before they are even advertised.

Commercial negotiation:
Emotional intelligence really pays off in this area of your life. Whether you are looking to buy something at an advantageous price, dealing with a neighbouring company, a competitor or a customer, being able to listen, empathise and be creative about finding a win-win solution gives you an edge.

Why choose to develop EI?

• It has great benefits in every area of your life.

• It does not take long to complete an EI profile and then set up a development programme that will start to have a powerful effect.

• It is far less expensive for your company to recruit people who are high in this intelligence in the first place than get good technicians with low EI and hope they'll grow.

• It helps you in all your working relationships, whether horizontal or vertical.

• Although you can be born with a higher or lower potential in either intrapersonal or interpersonal intelligence you can improve them both significantly at any age.

• You can take charge of your own EI development. There is no need to wait for your organisation to wise up. The sooner you start exhibiting your EI the faster you will be noticed and make a positive impact. An impact that will affect both you and your company's bottom line.

• Having high EI makes you a superior performer. This is shown clearly by the research on performance and EI.

• People with high EI are optimistic and realistic. They tend to envisage good outcomes, which they then make happen.

• People with high EI are far less likely to suffer badly from stress related illnesses or depression.

• A personal transformation can take place when people undertake a personal development programme such as EI development.

How else can I use it in my organisation?

Creating trusting teams:
Emotional Intelligence measurement and development is a practical method to build teams that work co-operatively and productively. Because Emotional Intelligence encompasses the capacities involved with maintaining good relationships it makes sense to focus on it in teams.

Benefits -
• The team members learn how to communicate with each other so that the task isn't slowed down by misunderstandings.
• They learn how to support one another in order to get the task done in the least stressful way.
• The project gets finished in time.

How it works -
There are two complementary approaches because the effectiveness of a team depends partly on the individual emotional intelligence of each member of the team, and in particular that of the team leader, but also depends on the nature of the team culture, climate or ethos. Some teams allow people to act at their emotionally intelligent best, and others inhibit them from doing so.

The first approach is therefore a team-oriented one. Each member of the team is asked to fill in the Team Effectiveness questionnaire (see under "EI PROFILING" - internal link), and these are then fed back to the team at a meeting under the guidance of the consultant. Because the measure is problem-oriented, this process usually leads to a lively discussion as to the nature of the problems in the team, moving onto a debate about what to do about them.

Alternatively, or preferably simultaneously, team members are each asked to generate their own individual EI profile by completing the Individual Effectiveness questionnaire (see EI Profiling). This is computer scored and a team profile produced from the individual scores. The consultant feeds back the composite and individual results to the team and together they identify the team strengths and weaknesses.

Specific training in areas that need higher skills is given. Those members who are already stronger in these become internal team coaches to help maintain the learning in the group.

Ongoing support is provided by the consultant with regular team coaching sessions that focus on constructive communication.

Recruiting people with the 'Right Stuff':
The cluster of abilities that forms Emotional Intelligence has been shown to be strongly correlated with Superperformance at work. We all know people who are intellectually very bright but just don't work well with other people. Or their personal lives are so chaotic that it becomes difficult for them to work. On the other hand there are the people who don't show much evidence of intellect but whose lives are happy and successful. They have warm relationships, make good leaders, work productively and are financially stable. Now we know that it is their emotional intelligence that makes this happen.

Benefits -
• The new recruit gets up and running faster than usual
• They integrate easily into a new team
• They quickly learn the 'political' networks in the organisation and negotiate for resources effectively
• Significant savings are made through not having to give excessive training or spending on rehiring when the person leaves before you have broken even on their recruitment costs.

How it works -
Once the selection procedure has come down to a short list the applicants are given an EI profile to complete. This is then discussed with them during the final interviews. The levels of their intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, adaptability, stress tolerance and general mood can be seen from the profile. This can also be compared with the team profile of the group they will be joining, if there are mismatches that do not bring a new and needed strength into the team the recruit is unlikely to settle in productively.

In your organisation there will be top performers who are just 'naturals' at their jobs. These people can be profiled to find out what aspects of their Emotional Intelligence are contributing to their success. Once this is established you can then select new recruits who are near this profile.

Developing Executives who Excel:
Individuals in senior positions who are not making the grade cost companies a lot of money. They cause problems with other staff and slow down any project they are involved with.

The cluster of abilities that forms Emotional Intelligence centres on an individual's ability to have a good relationship with themselves and also effective relationships with other people. We all know people who are intellectually very bright but just don't work well with other people. Or their personal lives become so chaotic that it becomes difficult for them to work, at all. Supporting them to develop their Emotional Intelligence gives them a way to recoup and come through as valuable workers.

Benefits -
• Profiling these individuals for their EI helps to give a structure to any development plan for that individual.
• It gives a method for solving 'problem people'.
• It saves money because it means your investment in the person so far is retained.
• It boosts the creativity, problem solving, effectiveness and management skills of anyone who undertakes it and they can pass their learning on to the next level.

How it works -
The executive(s) begins a personal development plan based on their Emotional Intelligence profile. They develop this together with their personal coach and this ensures that they are working on the things that they are most committed to changing. They then have regular meetings with the coach as they work through the goals they have agreed upon.

Focusing Sales competency programmes:
Sales people are crucial members of an organisation. They are the interface with the customer and if the customer doesn't like them - or trust them - the company won't make sales.

The cluster of abilities that forms Emotional Intelligence centres on an individual's ability to have a good relationship with themselves and also trusting relationships with other people. We all know the stereotypical salesperson - brash, arrogant, assertive and so sales focused that they forget the person behind the money. This won't do anymore. Relationship selling is the current movement and for this the sales person needs to be better than ever; able to manage themselves well when they are rejected, able to form and maintain a good working relationship with each of their customers and also be as assertive as necessary to make the sale.

Their Emotional Intelligence holds the key to these abilities.

Benefits -
• Profiling these individuals for their EI helps to show which salespeople already have the talent for relationship marketing.
• It gives a quick way of determining the development needs of any sales person.
• Focused training produces fast results.

How it works -
Salespeople are tested for their capacity to empathise, be assertive and form interpersonal connections. A development plan is made from the results and a coaching programme supports any workshop on skills training.

Supersalesperformers are profiled to establish the most desirable set of scale scores and then new recruits are checked against this. Similarly internal staff members can be checked against this too and extremely focused programmes developed to support them developing the skills they need and showing them how to maximise their existing strengths.

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Why paying attention to Emotional Intelligence gives you a competitive edge

Intelligent people who perform well are the ones with EI as well as IQ. We all know people who have been very successful in life without being particularly clever. And we often know someone who is very, very bright but who just hasn't got it together and made a success of their lives and career.

What is it that makes this difference? What is it that differentiates the high performers from the others?

Studies have shown it is a combination of particular personal and interpersonal skills that makes the difference. A pioneer study undertaken by Manila University in association with Reuven BarOn, the designer of the EQ-i, the first scientifically validated EQ test, showed that EQ accounted for 27% of the job success of front line bank employees, whereas IQ scores were shown to account for less than 6%.

According to Daniel Goleman, author of the most influential books on Emotional Intelligence, emotional intelligence becomes more and more important as people progress up the career ladder in their organisations. He estimates that in jobs in general it is twice as important for outstanding ability as technical skill and cognitive ability combined, but in leadership jobs four times as important. People who are able to be adaptable, to feel and project self confidence and to be internally motivated are vital at the head of organisations.

The most encouraging aspect of Emotional Intelligence is that it can be measured and changed. This is unlike IQ which stays about the same throughout life. EQ actually improves with age. It is a new term for old fashioned maturity, but because it is trainable maturity is now attainable earlier than ever before!

The Implications

High Emotional Intelligence is a necessity for a company's leaders, but it is also vital at every level since people skills and the ability to manage and motivate oneself make a significant difference in any role.

Being both measurable and trainable, EI can be developed in all the people in an organisation, thus making everyone more productive and creating an emotionally intelligent organisation.

New recruits can be tested for their Emotional Intelligence profile and their scores on the different scales compared to in-house star performer scores. Recruiting therefore becomes much easier and more highly targeted.

The EI profile created for each person or team becomes the basis for a tailored emotional competence development programme which can fast track an employee to maturity and productiveness far faster than has previously been possible.

The CAEI Approach

Based on our belief that there are certain emotional meta-skills and key attitudes that are essential to having a successful life, we have developed our expertise in Emotional Intelligence development programmes. This has taken place over more than 20 years of working with people and using the material from over 10,000 hours of work with individuals and groups.

Through listening to our clients' and students' challenges and struggles we have come to understand the key principles and skills they needed to stop struggling, release their energy and potential, start problem solving, and take control.

These skills and attitudes are encapsulated in the concept of 'emotional intelligence'.

We have combined this professional experience with the latest research on intelligence and job-related 'superperformance', and now offer the most focused effective programmes for human performance and leadership development available.

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