Emotional intelligence has taken the business world by storm. By and large, this is a good thing – we should always be working to understand people on a deeper level, not just use resume filters to categorize them. But with its emergence have come a lot of misunderstandings about what it is, misapplications of it, and a lot of missed opportunities to benefit from it the right way.
Let’s start by putting to rest one myth about emotional intelligence: that you either have it or you don’t. I have heard too many people say off-handedly that a job candidate seemed to lack emotional intelligence and so they did not get the job. More often than not, that is just a PC way for people to say the candidate was a bad cultural fit or they lacked social graces. I know this because there is almost no such thing as a person who lacks any kind of emotional intelligence.
David Miller, founder and CEO of PeachCap, authored the book Wealth Kryptonite in which he describes financial decisions through the lens of emotional intelligence. According to Miller and his co-author Ridgely Goldsborough, there are in fact seven distinct types or avatars. These include connectors, givers, problem solvers, masters, and so on. Each of these types of emotional intelligence can be attached to any number of personality profiles, meaning your first impression of someone is with their demeanor, not their operating system.
“I have spent several years organizing my team into seven groups, or avatars, of emotional intelligence,” Miller explains. “These seven archetypes are connected to a core strength (superpower) as well as a weakness (kryptonite). As a result, it is possible to know from day one of a new team member’s journey with my company which employees they will work well with, what subgroups they will bring the most value to, and what support we need to provide to help them excel. We know from the beginning how to put the right butt in the right seat.”
A methodical approach to emotional intelligence in the workplace should result in something organized and intentional. Here are three ways such an endeavor can change your company:
1. Team Cohesiveness
How often do you organize teams in your company based on who gets along? It is tempting to put people together who will not clash, but sometimes that means making a trade off. Sometimes the people who like each other are all creative types, but not hard workers. Sometimes the least dramatic team you can make will be diligent workers but poor communicators.
The problem here is organizing by personality instead of capacity. When you identify individual team members by their emotional intelligence strengths and weaknesses, you rearrange the chess board entirely. Now you can build teams that have an appropriate mix of creatives, communicators, and problem solvers. Will they get along? Add someone who excels in conflict resolution. Organizing by capacity becomes a self-fulfilling paradigm after your team buys into the concept. They will value being placed on a team because they individually bring an essential ingredient.
This unit structure has been used for thousands of years in military organizations. Elite units are comprised of different skill sets and leadership functions, not personality types. In the end, competence will carry the day.
2. Conflict Resolution
However you run your business, it will be impossible to avoid conflicts between employees. This is a natural occurrence when people are under pressure, cohabitating in an office for most of the week, or jostling for political position.
But a team that operates with emotional intelligence at the forefront will approach conflict resolution differently. Dave didn’t get his work done on time. Is that acceptable? No, but Dave is a creative and his project lead was not a communicator, so maybe there was just a lack of clarity that caused the mistake. Understanding that, it is possible to correct Dave and check with the team leader without feeling like everyone intentionally dropped the ball.
Miller explains, “if you have identified and shared each team member's avatar with the other, then the Innovator can understand why the Perfectionist responds so tentatively to suggestions and the Perfectionist knows why the Innovator keeps challenging systems that already work. By equipping your whole team with a deeper understanding of one another’s internal programming and emphasizing the value in each profile, everyone can actively work to compromise instead of clash.”
3. Sense of Belonging
When a company switches from a behavior-based organization to a capacity-based organization, team members approach their work differently. Too often employees think they have their job because they need to perform a function instead of contribute to the organization. Making it clear that their emotional intelligence profile is a unique and important ingredient to the entire organization challenges that perception.
Numerous studies over the years have shown how employee engagement and purpose translate into higher profits, greater productivity, increased customer loyalty, and astounding increases in overall quality. A major aspect of achieving that outcome is identifying why each employee belongs – not as an HR stunt, but as an actual practice of hiring and management.
This is how methodically approaching emotional intelligence can change your company.