Recap: Emotional Intelligence

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Social intelligence, social competence, emotional competence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, emotional adaptiveness, emotional quotient, emotional intelligence, EQ, and EI.

There are many schools and many thoughts about what is and is not emotional intelligence.  And just as many tools that attempt to measure, monitor, and predict the impact of emotional intelligence.

For me, Emotional Intelligence boils down to:

1. the way I motivate myself,
2. the way I motivate others, and
3. focusing my intentions to result in correct consequences

If being smart or a high IQ was all that mattered than only those with the highest IQ would ascend to the C-level or highest public-sector positions.  Every valedictorian would be successful.

There is something more to knowledge.  Something more than being a valedictorian to get along and to succeed.  This something includes self-awareness and relationship awareness.  Below are a series of blogs I’ve written on EI  and the importance I see to how people, organizations, and cultures succeed or fail.

Is emotional intelligence (EI) more important than IQ?  I won’t claim that, but in today’s world we rely on teams and on each other to get things done and being smart is not enough to motivate someone else to work with you.  Someone with high EI has an ability to adapt to social demands and stressors – all very welcome in today’s workforce.

1. Culture war —

What good is it to hire for culture fit when we work and live in a dynamic world where change is constant?   People who don’t fit your culture are the people who keep your business and your team sharp, challenge the status quo, drive new conversation, and stimulate cognitive diversity.

2. Emotion versus intelligence – the tortoise and the hare —

IQ intends to measure the ability to reason deductively or inductively.  However, thinking, behaving, and communication skills, also known as emotional intelligence, might just provide a higher set of behavioral competencies vital to success.

3. The VC’s missing formula: human capital discounted cash flow —

Without human capital financial assessments, there is no accurate financial picture or ability to factor expected payoff. Only talent designs and delivers strategic plans. Only talent leverage assets at the operational and functional talent. It takes talent to design, implement, and follow processes. All these are merely conditional to if and when talent is motivated.

4. Innovation, the technical risk to IQ —

Emotional Intelligence is the bedrock for an innovative culture and for developing innovative people.  Innovation is not an earned degree, it is both a skill and an ability.  Professionals in a knowledge economy are not innovative only from the hours of 9 to 5.  Innovation is largely reliant on motivation and without Emotional Intelligence you can’t hope for innovation.

5. The cost of human capital is emotional intelligence —

Relationship management is where emotional and social intelligence manifests most visibly.  For obvious reasons your ability to identify and understand relationships is vital for motivation and team.  More than 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that a bad boss or supervisor is the number 1 reason people quit their jobs; now that is real cost.

6. The NFL draft and your company recruiting strategy (round 2) —

You need to look beyond someone’s technical skill, as technical skill does not indicate future success, it indicates how to perform a task. Unless you are a hermit, you need to interact with others and how someone manages their emotions and manages relationship. This skill is often referred to as Emotional Intelligence (EI) and EI highlights the importance of how people interact with others and perform in a team – there’s a connection to an NFL team for every organization.

7. Human capital risk, now that’s real risk —

In many evaluations there is a disproportionately low due diligence around human capital risk compared to financial, market, and legal due diligence. Too often the human capital due diligence focuses on industry experience, work history, and academic education, which has little positive correlation to successful ventures.

8. Discounted risk is human capital risk —

In my 15 years work in, multiple, post-merger environments that were the result of post-merger triage or life support, human capital risk is the real risk to returns and is every bit as important at the valuation stage, front end, but rarely gets there in as serious a discussion as market, legal, and financial valuations.

The firm that has a human capital risk model identifies and builds mitigation strategies that offer higher market returns and higher investor rates of return.  Human capital risk models are a competitive and comparative advantage.

9. Hiring the right person is more emotional than rational —

Technical skills do not correlate to an effective employee and do not lend insight into someone’s ability to work well with a team, to fit in culturally, to manage, or to lead.  Technical skill does not indicate future success, technical skill indicates how to perform a task.

In the current state of affairs driving more with less, demanding more integration and cooperation, and working across cultures, language, and borders, any focus on self-awareness, relationship management, social awareness, and self-management values.

The book What We Know about Emotional Intelligence: How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, and Our Mental Health, pictured above, is a sober source to cut through the hype and promises of too many within the Emotional Intelligence field: