Emotional Intelligence

‘Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy’
Aristotle – The Nicomachean Ethics

Ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the center of intelligence and emotion. They also thought so little of the brain that during mummification, they removed the brain entirely from bodies. Little did they know how powerful our brains are and how by harnessing its power we can achieve so much more.

I can remember as a child, several decades ago, how emotions impacted for me in so many different areas. Memories of parents arguing, anxiety at the thought of exams, the exams, the dentist, the first interview, girls, fights (not something I readily looked for) and so on.

Through our words and our actions do we empower others or hold them back?
We experience and witness emotion in so many different areas and the impact can be extreme. Does it need to be that way? No.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence is relatively new coming more onto the landscape in the early 90’s with research by Mayer and Salovey and others.
For me, my Emotional Intelligence journey commenced with my introduction to Daniel Goleman’s book, ‘Emotional Intelligence’ published in 1998. One of the sections at the beginning of the book describes ‘the different way of being smart’.

‘Emotional Intelligence’ refers to the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. Goleman’s adaptation includes five basic emotional and social competencies:

  • Self awareness: Knowing what we are feeling in the moment, and using those preferences to guide our decision making; having a realistic assessment of our own abilities and a well grounded sense of self-confidence
  • Self Regulation: Handling our emotions so that they facilitate rather than interfere with the task at hand; being conscientious and delaying gratification to pursue goals; recovering well from emotional distress
  • Motivation: Using our deepest preferences to move and guide us towards our goals, to help us take initiative and strive to improve, and to persevere in the face of setbacks and frustrations
  • Empathy: Sensing what people are feeling, being able to take their perspective, and cultivating rapport and attunement with a broad diversity of people
  • Social skills: Handling emotions in relationships well and accurately reading social situations and networks; interacting smoothly; using these skills to persuade and lead, negotiate and settle disputes, for cooperation and teamwork.

The good news, Emotional Intelligence can be developed. Take each of these competencies and ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is the worse and 10 is the best, where am I? In our next blog let’s look at how we can develop our Emotional Intelligence.

Workplace Mediation – Dispute Resolution

‘Mediation is a structured process whereby an impartial mediator facilitates communication between those in dispute in order for them to understand each other better and to come up with mutually acceptable solutions which will improve the working relationship in the future.’ The emphasis in this situation is that of win / win, problem solving where the solutions are offered by the disputants. The mediator will not judge. It is a confidential, safe and non-confrontational method of resolution, and it is of course far more cost effective than litigation.

  • Conflict costs employers 350 days of management time every year
  • 1.7 million employees report that they’ve been unfairly treated at work
  • The average costs associated with employment tribunal claims amount to £90,000 per company per year.
  • £172 million is spent by companies every year settling claims

‘Managing Conflict at work report’ – CIPD

Mediation has the potential to be particularly effective in the context of employment disputes… it is a pragmatic, flexible and informal way of providing both parties with positive outcomes.

‘Better dispute resolution report’ – DTI

According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) the cost of workplace conflict is an estimated annual £33bn to UK businesses. It is also a drain on precious time, taking up 20% of leadership time and resulting in 370 million lost days.

The effects of workplace disputes are more wide ranging than just that, these unresolved conflicts can also:

  • undermine effectiveness and productivity
  • increase sickness absence
  • destabilise teams and create depressing workplaces with poor employee engagement
  • drain goodwill

and so on.

Mediation is now being used to speedily and effectively resolve workplace disputes. The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development have found that almost 60% of companies using mediation see a significant reduction in formal grievances overall and a reduction of employment tribunal claims by almost 50%.

ACAS have gone on to say that mediation has a positive effect in over 90% of cases.

Businesses such as the Arcadia Group and BT explained how workplace mediation has not only resolved their workplace issues but also saved them money. Arcadia reported that mediation had an 85% success rate and had halved costs for the company as the process took six and a half hours rather than the average nine days of administration and management time spent on a typical grievance issue. Similarly, BT have said that mediation resolved nearly 90% of workplace disputes that would have otherwise been progressed as a formal grievance. This resulted in a 34% reduction in grievance costs within the first four months. This would suggest that cost being the key reason as to why employers don’t use mediation is perhaps unfounded?

Business and Executive Coaching

The Coaching for High Growth programme is designed to help ambitious and forward thinking businesses unlock and sustain their high growth potential.

The programme consists of a Growth Pathfinder master class and up to 4 days of one to one Business Coaching, tailored to meet your company’s needs. The master class will help you identify barriers to growth and develop a tailored action plan. Thereafter, a coach will be allocated to work alongside you and your management team.

The Programme is designed to be action orientated – in other words, the coach will help with structure, direction and defining targets or milestones but you implement the recommendations and work towards the targets between each meeting. You therefore take ownership of a progressive growth plan which is developed and kick-started over a period of 3 – 5 months. Areas to be addressed may include:

  • leadership and management capability
  • market understanding
  • operational issues
  • innovation
  • supply chain management
  • skills development

The Coaching for High Growth programme is being delivered by the highly experienced team at St John’s Innovation Centre on behalf of the East of England Development Agency. The coaches are experienced business coaches who have hands-on experience of growing businesses. They understand the challenges you face so are well placed to help you unlock the issues and forge a path to sustainable increases in turnover and profit.

The Master class is free and the coaching is offered for a nominal fee of £250 (+vat) for 4 half days coaching.