How to achieve organisational resilience through emotional intelligence - Lessons from Airbus’ group project “+ Emotional energy @ work”

The 2020 pandemic has shown us that change is the only constant. But with change comes a great need for agility and managing our emotions, especially at work. As much as it seems appealing, we aren’t able to switch off our emotions when entering the workplace. This means that our emotions can significantly affect our work, and may also affect our work methods and colleagues. We can master EI and become resilient, however. On May 18th, 2021, The Resilience Institute Europe hosted a webinar with Airbus’ Head of Quality Transport & Logistics, Hervé Doan: the founder of the + Emotional energy@work initiative, which is geared at fostering Emotional Intelligence / Emotional Energy within Airbus Group. By training and educating its employees on EI at individual and group level, Airbus illustrated how to create organisational resilience, a more human-centred workplace and increase business performance.

This article highlights how Airbus achieved organisational resilience through its + Emotional energy@work initiative. Those who missed the webinar or want a summary can read it for key insights or watch the replay via this link. The article starts off with an overview of EI and how it is tied to our human needs. Next, it addresses how Airbus implemented this initiative across its self-organised team, and which results it generated for the company. Lastly, it describes 10 key success factors for fostering resilience in a self-organised team. 

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they're feeling, what their emotions mean, and more importantly, how these emotions can affect other people. It is said that 50% of EI is attributed to genetics and about 40% can be consciously cultivated. (source: www.mindtools.com)

What is Emotional Resilience?

We function at physical, cognitive, spiritual and emotional level, and are greatly affected by what happens around us. Research [1, 2, 3 ] suggests that EI can be helpful in achieving positive work outcomes, and emotionally intelligent persons are often better performers than their counterparts. Being emotionally resilient means to be able to bounce back from difficulties with ease and perform well in a range of situations. We can become resilient by learning how to respond calmly, become agile, and manage our emotional energy (see image by the resilience institute on the resilience spiral). 

How Are Emotions Tied to Human Needs?

It may come as a surprise, but emotions are not a direct result of a situation. Instead, they capture our evaluation or response to a situation. That’s precisely what the + Emotional energy@work team in Airbus wanted to bring across in their workshops: When we have negative emotions, we often have unmet needs, which can result in conflict and miscommunication at work or in our personal life. Since our needs are individual and can be hidden, they are surrounded by high ambiguity. During the peak of the pandemic e.g., the need of the workforce (or humanity in general) was to feel safe and secure. With this in mind, the leadership team at Airbus decided to create a safe and welcoming environment at work. Their thought process was: “A giver’s mindset increases growth and collaboration. By taking care of others, we also grow. Secondly, when we give without expecting anything back, we demonstrate that we are emotionally intelligent.” 

How Airbus Implemented this Initiative Across the + Emotional energy@work Self-Organised Team

Like most other industrial companies, Airbus has traditionally been a logically-oriented organisation with a workforce geared at rational thinking. (Think KPIs, charts and processes) This EI initiative brought together the company’s self-organised teams of (mainly) engineers who work across different time zones in Germany, France, the UK and India. Its team members and leaders had long felt that something was missing in the workplace. They also wanted to learn from their own failures, and the consequences of their decisions.

What stood out was how Airbus didn’t want to witness disengaged colleagues, and lose talent coming into their company because of the high emphasis on procedures and processes. The company truly aspired to increase engagement in the current workforce and deeply motivate its teams. With this in mind, the + Emotional energy@work initiative was launched in 2015. It was aimed at increasing the collective performance, productivity, creativity and wellbeing in the workplace.

What did their + Emotional energy@work initiative consist of? 

This programme spanned a good 6 years (2015-2021). It consisted of several activities and events, such as:

• University talks on resilience;
• 15 market place events;
• 16 conferences (across Germany, France and Spain)
• 114 workshops with teams where Emotional Energy was addressed and worked on. The company presented the 6 basic emotions to the workforce and asked them to identify their emotions. Employees were also familiarised with the energy quadrant (see image: Emotional Mood Meter), and were asked to look at others’ facial expressions. Guessing the emotions behind the expressions was often hard for them to do. Emotional needs were also addressed. During these sessions, it came to light that engineers especially struggle with emotions, as it is not their main area of focus;
• A dedicated intranet support system was set up to exchange information and support employees on their EI journey, amounting to 3750 followers; 

What Did a Typical Workshop on EI at Airbus Look Like?

While delivering the very first workshops, Hervé heard a lot of prejudice on emotions. Some of the responses to the question “What do you think about (showing) emotions?” were:

• “Emotions are topics for women rather than men.”
• “Smiling is for clowns, it looks fake.”
• “Emotions show weakness, so I must hide them to seem strong.”

When Hervé asked his audience how they felt during the first workshop, they answered: “We feel good” or “we feel bad.” He noticed how colleagues were limited in naming their emotions, perhaps because they were not completely in touch with them as yet. One employee asked how to optimise their time, and achieve their deadlines despite experiencing strong emotions. To this, Hervé replied: “Instead of focusing on time, try to focus on your energy.” He then asked employees to:

• Better name the emotions that they are feeling right now;
• Name which are the good and bad emotions according to them. For more than 80% of the engineers, the answers were: Joyful, inspired etc. (those in the upper right corner of the quadrant) were acknowledged as good ones. Fear, disgust and anger e.g., (those on a lower left corner) were identified as bad emotions;
• He then reminded his colleagues that all emotions are useful and helpful and how one must not judge them. For this reason, acknowledging what one feels is important;
• He illustrated that every emotion can be appropriate as per the situation. (Feeling fearful while facing a lion is not a bad emotion, as it may save your life, e.g.);
• He also shared a strategy to move up on the emotional scale, from unpleasant to pleasant, and from low energy to high energy. He did this by emphasizing that all energy, such as: mental, physical and spiritual energy is linked to each other;
• We can switch our emotional state when engaging in exercise. This way, he encouraged movement to change emotional states;
• He also emphasized how our environment influences us. Surrounding yourself with positive, uplifting people will help you feel better.

 Which Results Did Airbus Generate?

Energy is intangible, but it is still noticeable. When a supervisor enters a room, their energy is felt instantly, even though we can’t measure it. During Covid, Airbus had to reduce its production significantly. Some of their employees were afraid to go back to work, and Airbus managed to accompany its people through the process. After attending the + Emotional Energy@work workshops, they captured employee moods and engagement through a survey and employee feedback forms. They asked participants to share their actions with team members, and act on the values in their leadership model. Here are three testimonies presented during the + Emotional energy@work conferences with a strong focus on “Resilience”:

• Testimony 1: One employee had cancer during his childhood, due to which he’d lost one leg. He changed his perspective in life, and used his love for humanity to create a prothesis with light. He went on to perform at TEDx. This is an example of Airbus empowering people to give back to their community with social impact projects. He has inspired thousands of colleagues within Airbus Group.
• Testimony 2: One colleague was very intelligent, but he was an introvert. At the age of 7, he was able to read very sophisticated documents but wasn’t confident to speak in front of audiences. He was coached to leverage his strengths and emotional challenges, and this helped him to illustrate his full potential at work and in life. He successfully held a speech on stage in front of 200 participants thereafter.
• Testimony 3: Airbus sponsored sports events such as the “Run between the seas” in North Germany, which attracts more than 10 000 runners annually. The Airbus Design2Run team, included engineers from various engineering teams and managed to win the 1st place in the “Company Category” 3 years in a row (2016 – 2018). The company applied EI to improve team spirit in this example, and reached high collective performance through it. 

With the + Emotional energy@work initiative, Airbus has created a culture of psychological safety, assertiveness and a non-judgmental environment. Safety and trust were also one of the biggest outcomes, while positive energy, emotional agility, creativity, and open communications became bigger indicators of becoming a resilient organisation. 

10 Key success factors of the + Emotional Energy@Work initiative for a self-organised team (Highlighted by Hervé during the digital conference)

1.   " Walk the talk": The most important factor is having personal and leadership experiences in the field, and not just theoretical knowledge. It would be best if you have lived what you wish to promote. If you wish to promote EI and resilience in your company, it would be helpful to share your vulnerabilities with your audience.

2.   Start small and improve step-by-step: The results presented in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. Hervé and his team started with a small group of 5 people, which over time, increased to 30 people. They have a positive mindset, learn from each other with a constant drive to improve and become better.

3.   Don't seek perfection, seek progress: Most engineers seem to target perfection from the beginning. To achieve progress, however, one needs to "take action" and start small with the initiatives you wish to launch. This way, you will improve step by step and enjoy every small victory along the way.

4.   'Like attracts like': Proximity with the targeted audience: Most of the + emotional energy@work team members work in Operations areas, and they are engineers themselves. However, this team worked closely with the HR members, because HR is a critical player in any cultural transformation with their deep knowledge.

5.   Manage your energy first, not your time: Volunteer initiatives like these require high energy, otherwise you cannot undertake them on top of your daily job.

6.   Select your team members wisely: We need to select the people carefully and focusing on their positive energy, courage and ability to "give" to others. It is not because the team is composed of volunteers that selection process does not apply.

7.   Use the “word-of-mouth” strategy: Since communication is key, Hervé suggested using the “word-of-mouth” method. Whenever you post news on social media, it makes the news spreads easier and faster and reach more people. You can leverage this through your employees: Satisfied employees who attended the conferences informed hundreds of other colleagues of their positive experiences.

8.   Include other initiatives and promote a "We are One" philosophy: Another vital matter to mention is ensuring unity and inclusion in the organisation. The team acted on this initiative by including a leading University in each of the marketplace events during the +Emotional Energy@Work conference. 

9.   Have strong stakeholder management: Ask yourself those questions: Who has the power in the organisation? Who are the ones interested? It is not enough to desire a significant company transformation with only a bottom-up approach. The initiative could not have proceeded if the team did not have support from higher management in the company. You need to find some key sponsors to finance the conferences, e.g. Since the initiative has zero budget of its own, it is essential to find key people at management level who trust in and support these events.

10. Don't be afraid to fail: We all know that failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. If you are humble, and you are here to give, people will follow in your footsteps.

The fact that more than 1250 participants had registered on LinkedIn alone demonstrates a high interest for resilience-oriented programmes in organisations. What also amazed me was how the + Emotional energy@work initiative is fully driven by volunteers, without dedicated budgets or extra time. Yet, they managed to attract more than 3700 followers within Airbus Group. Not only did they speak of a giver’s mindset, they also illustrated how giving creates mutual success and empowers others.

Airbus’ + Emotional energy@work initiative spreads a message of hope to both employers and employees with its potential to break barriers, improve connections and increase positive energy at work. If a large engineering corporation such as theirs can flourish when investing in emotional intelligence for its human capital, surely other companies can follow suit to reap similar benefits. After a trying year like 2020, we can all agree that connection, high energy and emotional wellbeing are a priority in the workplace.

A special thanks goes to the Resilience Institute Europe for hosting this digital conference, and to Hervé Doan for giving me the opportunity to write this article with his sincere and helpful feedback.

Have you got more tips on EI for organisational resilience? Share them with us in the comments below.

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Sources:

[1] Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

[2] Law, K.S., Wong, C.S., & Song, L.J. (2004). The construct and criterion validity of emotional intelligence and its potential utility for management studies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 483-496. doi: 10.1037/0021- 9010.89.3.483

[3] Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2000). Emotional Intelligence. A review and evaluation study. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 15(4), 341– 372. doi: 10.1108/02683940010330993

Additional Reading:

• https://hbr.org/2020/11/building-organizational-resilience
• https://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/ijpr/v9n1/v9n1a02.pdf