EQ - From "Fluffy" Term to Indispensable Skill Set

Our “broken record” thesis? “We have to normalise doing “the human work” if we expect performance”, you read it here every week. This week I invite us again, to think of Emotional Intelligence. We wrote about it often and as a company, we spent a long time thinking about the topic and its relevance to the work we do with teams.?

For a while, at PeopleNotTech we even started developing something called an “EQ Trainer” but that was back in the day when we erroneously thought a lot of the work rested with the team leader in lieu of the team. We then realised that was, of course, wrong, admitted that and pivoted away from that product-wise as it dawned on our team that it is only the group that can change group behaviours so it isn’t any one individual's EQ in isolation that matters. In essence every team activity and play in our playbook ends up doubling as an EQ-enhancer by its very nature that allows teams to go deep, hear each other and empathise but the goal is not emotional intelligence in itself but the team dynamic. This we have found to be manyfold more effective than the most honest and vulnerable of well-intentioned individual modelling there is.?

The topic of emotional intelligence is often lumped with all the other “fluffy” topics under “soft skills” - previously firmly seen as an afterthought if not even as a silly and unprofessional nuisance, is finally taking its rightful place in the public discourse of the business world thanks to the same accelerator we have mentioned before: the pandemic. There is no doubt that the dramatic episode we traversed has changed the face of work as we knew it and that with the changes a tsunami of support for the “humanity at work” topic has risen. Today, terms that used to be shunned or met with eye-rolls as if they were useless in a professional environment are very much being debated, discussed and worked on. So much of the vernacular of the people topics now features on strategic agendas that we can not deny the net wins that the pandemic has given the human topics and that is what makes us optimistic when it comes to the future of work. That said, while we talk about “empathy” and "listening" a lot, not much of the discourse focused on the overarching context of having to have emotional intelligence.

A relatively new notion, EQ’s oversimplified definition is the ability to understand our emotions and the emotions of others and while its counterpart, intellectual ability benefits from years and years of formal education formulated in ways that aid its development, the emotional ability is not being formally trained during either our formative years or, at the very least in a higher educational setting when it becomes clear that the students are on a leadership path. With scant exceptions there are but few educational providers to even offer specialised courses leave alone are there places where it is, as it would make sense, discussed and taught as part of the overall curriculum.?

So if education doesn’t train it how do humans acquire and increase EQ? Through social norms and life experiences and that serves?us perfectly well in a non-professional environment where those norms recognise the existence of feelings and their effect on us. When it comes to the world of work though, things are not so simple and little is naturally developing in the way of emotional intelligence due to how the topic of emotions at work had been all by banned in most workplaces at least prior to the pandemic.?

Having spent the past 20-30 years denying the existence or the appropriateness of emotions at work, is it any wonder we have little ability to recognise and understand them?

And in today’s world where the only catalyst is collaboration, co-creation and teaming, can we function as teammates if we are blind to the emotions of the others?

Can we deliver on our work if we don’t know how we feel and can’t understand how our teammates may feel?

The answer is a resounding “no” - the truth is that today’s work is fundamentally different and people’s expectations of their state of mind being understood are exponentially higher so realistically, whenever we attempt to ignore that and continue muddling through with very little EQ, we will not be able to perform. And every day that we ignore the topic of EQ and with any eyes still rolling and lack of serious organisational investment we are creating even more HumanDebt?.

How will you know how your own company is doing concerning the emotional intelligence of their employees? The same way you'll know how they feel about command&control and how, if there is no gigantic program to change towards "servant leadership" then it is still being condoned. Look around you and consider how much time is being officially invested in the human work and the training of EQ and is it being measured and rewarded either in recognition or remuneration. If there's no such thing you should worry.

Daniel Goleman (the father of the modern definition of EQ) famously said “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence” and I put it to us that this is no longer about CEOs (although in tomorrow’s video and article we will speak more about the position leaders are in) but each and every one of us. No one is exempt from having to build the skill set needed to recognise and regulate emotions. We all have a duty to be keenly aware of the importance of EQ and of the human work needed to improve it to be successful in this new world of work.

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At?PeopleNotTech?we make?software?that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams, come see a DEMO.

To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon?link?