People Management Through Emotional Intelligence

Starting bi-monthly new series for the CEOs to address the most pressing issue of the 21st century: People Management.

Extremely important factor, beyond any doubt, to achieve and to sustain business growth is attracting and retaining talent. The only asset which appreciates on a daily basis if managed well, is your team – else it becomes a liability. Top companies in most sectors claim to be ‘young’, having more than 50% of their employees below the age of 40. Unfortunately, the finding of the Assocham Survey (2015) on the mental health of Indian Inc. about this age group is very ALARMING, as shown in the box.

20th CEO Survey-Inside the minds of CEOs in India by PwC, 71% of CEOs in India are very confident about growth prospects vs. 38% for global counterpart. At the same time, “Availability of key skills” is a top concern at 87% of those companies. This year, 64% of CEOs have stated that it is difficult for their organisations to recruit people with ‘problem-solving skills’. Similarly, 74% find it a challenge to recruit talent that is ‘innovative and creative’while 66% have said that it is difficult to recruit talent that is ‘adaptable’ and 73% find it difficult to recruit talent that has ‘leadership’ skills. These data points reinforce the fact that availability of a skilled workforce in terms of necessary behavioural and leadership traits— continues to be a pressing issue in India.

All four main concerns of Indian CEOs with regards to getting talent with competencies of – Leadership, Problem-solving, Innovative & creative, Adaptable can be addressed with common underlying competence: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI or EQ).

No wonder why, World Economic Forum and Sodexo 2018 Global Workplace Trend has included Emotional Intelligence as one of the top ten essential competences required at the 2020 workplace. Ironically, research findings of Prof. Daniel Goleman suggest that the new generation entering the workforce is falling behind in Emotional Intelligence. He has also found that ‘Mindfulness’ practice is a powerful tool for improving many EI competences.

Prof. Goleman notes that there is less patience nowadays with leaders experienced as “bad bosses”—that is, bosses who do not connect, listen, respect, guide or share credit. This is especially true among Millennials and Gen Z, who represent a significant and rapidly growing proportion of the workforce.

Research by Gallup found that 87% of employees are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’. Teams with higher engagement are more likely to have: 50% lower turnover, 56% higher than average customer loyalty, and 38% above average productivity.

Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote has put it beautifully;

“Product is the current product. Culture is the next hundred products.”

There are innumerable models of emotional intelligence, each with its own set of competences. I have re-developed an enhanced version of EI model developed by Prof. Daniel Goleman, namely Emotional Well-being Model, which focuses on the emotional well-being as its goal. There exists five main domains – Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Management and Emotional Well-being - comprising of 19 learnable sub-competences that ensure improved performance without compromising on happiness index.

This is a unique and comprehensive model offering profound yet simple tips to develop Emotional Intelligence of the practitioner.

The outer most circle offers one tip focusing on what to ‘start’ doing by the practitioner and the second tip focusing on what to ‘stop’ doing, to build the particular competence. 

I suggest cultivating a habit of being aware of the breath and thoughts to build Self Awareness. Next, method suggests not to slip into time zones, i.e. past or future. It clouds the thought process with either conditioned tendencies or imaginations (mostly negative). ‘Taking pause’ and ‘stop reacting’, are powerful tips, which need a very highly alert state of mind, can help expand Self-Management. Social Awareness is all about how well we connect with others. So, listening well without passing judgement and respecting differences, are keys to building a strong connect both at the workplace and in social life. The penultimate is Relationship Management, which requires putting personal interest last and having care and concern for others at the core of communication. A person having great Relationship Management ability will always build trust among others and establish himself/herself as a source of inspiration for others. The fifth and last domain of the EWB Model focuses on the very purpose of our existence- “Emotional Well-Being”.

Next five articles in this series will be focusing on developing each of above five competencies in the self and in others.

Article By: Prof. Vipul Vyas, Ph.D., HR Facilitator and Life Coach, Director, Mann – The Mind, Mumbai