Emotional ineptitude costs businesses dearly. Emotional competence can make the difference between a business thriving, surviving or failing and emotional intelligence is more important than IQ in determining outstanding job performance.
That's according to Mr Daniel Goleman in Working with Emotional Intelligence, the Bloomsbury paperback edition of which was recently published (price £7.99 sterling [€11.98]). His earlier book, Emotional Intelligence, sold more than 300,000 copies and was translated into 25 languages.
Emotional intelligence - based on self-awareness, motivation, self-regulation, empathy and adeptness in relationships - determines our potential to learn workplace skills. Emotional competence, on the other hand, is the degree to which we manifest that potential in the workplace. Mr Goleman's good news is that workplace emotional competency can be learned so "if we are deficient in one or another, we can learn to do better".
He says a survey of employers found that specific technical skills are less important than the ability to learn on the job. Thereafter, the candidates to employ are good listeners, who respond creatively to setbacks, with good personal management and motivation; good team players with skills at negotiating disagreements; and who show leadership potential.
He divides emotional competence into personal and social competence. Personal competencies include self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation.
Self-awareness involves the ability to recognise our emotions and their effects. To discern these, it's important to take time out to "do nothing". But we should "do nothing productively" to open our minds to a "deeper, quieter sensibility", rather than just watching TV. Time out can help us to rekindle our guiding values. Star performers make career choices "that let them work with their sense of meaning intact or enhanced". Says Mr Goleman: "The less aware we are of what makes us passionate, the more lost we will be. And this drifting can even affect our health; people who feel their skills are not being used well on the job, or who feel their work is repetitive and boring, have a higher risk or heart disease than those who feel that their best skills are expressed in their work."
We are urged to be aware of our "interior landscape", to feeling how we're feeling deep down and to look within and reflect on our journey. Simmering feelings must be brought into self-awareness. He cites a study which found that of a group of managers who were laid off, those who wrote their deepest feelings and reflections on what they were going through in a journal for 20 minutes a day for five days found new jobs faster than those who didn't.
"Unflappability" isn't all it's cracked up to be, he suggests. People known for that trait can simply mask negative feelings, with a high cost to themselves and be in danger of imploding, holding it in and suffering.
On the need for accurate self-assessment, he includes among managerial weaknesses compulsive work, where the manager neglects all else in life and is left vulnerable to burnout. Mr Goleman applauds self-confidence, a strong and healthy sense of one's self-worth and capabilities, such as when you are willing to confront even when your own job is on the line. Self-confidence is a certain "presence" and can bring with it an attitude, and the courage, to break rules and procedures. Emotional intelligence matters even more the higher up you are in an organisation. While seeing the bigger picture, discerning trends and strategic thinking distinguishes star performers, emotional competence is what distinguishes mediocre leaders and the best.
Looking at a study of star performers, he says that close to 90 per cent of their success in leadership was attributable to emotional intelligence. He cites one salesman with high emotional competence whose annual sales were more than $1 million (€934,000) "compared to an industry average of around $80,000".
Even in relatively simple jobs, people with high emotional competence are three times as productive as those most lacking in it, he says. In jobs of medium complexity "a single person in the top 1 per cent was worth 12 people in the bottom 1 per cent", while for the most complex jobs "the added value of a performer in the top 1 per cent was 127 per cent more" than average performers.
Mr Goleman cites a study of salespeople in 44 top firms which found that the top 10 per cent of the sales force each sold $6.7 million worth, compared to a $3 million norm.
"Given that the typical salary of the sales force at the time was around $42,000, that meant the top performers' value-added of £3.7 million was about 88 times their salary!"
