Developing Emotional Intelligence with Business Simulations

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            [post_title] => Being an Authentic Leader: The Emotional Intelligence Connection
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            [post_content] => Recent research has proven that there is a quantifiable link between the level of management practice in a firm and its productivity. McKinsey and LSE have shown that a one-point increase in an organisations management practice effectiveness score, on a scale from 1 to 5, is associated with a 25% increase in labour productivity.

But how do emotional competencies affect workplace productivity?

To answer this question I investigated it among Irish middle managers working across a large variety of Irish organisations who undertook the IMI Core Skills of Management / Advanced Skills of Management.

Correlating Bar-On EQi responses with management practice adoption, I found that:

 1. Managers who can tune into the reality of the immediate situation are more likely to define clear performance metrics, review performance against such metrics and address poor performance

2. Managers who care about what happens to other people are more likely to address poor performance by taking action and implement re-training in areas of weakness or realigning talents to where they can deliver better performance

3. Managers who have difficulty in controlling strong impulses are less likely to define the right balance between financial and non-financial metrics. They are also less likely to continuously track the right metrics

The McKinsey / LSE work mentioned earlier identified three key areas of poor adoption in Ireland, these are:

1. Defining the right metrics

2. Reviewing Performance against these metrics

3.  Addressing poor performance

So, developing the emotional competencies of Irish managers, especially in the areas of adaptability, empathy and impulse control are essential in order to improve how Irish managers adopt  management best practice and in turn increase productivity.

In practical terms, models like the ‘6 Seconds’ approach, can help develop emotional competence through quick and easy to use strategies such at the six-second challenge.

Joshua Freedman and Max Ghini of the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence network will be in Ireland in May to help managers learn how to use such critical strategies.

For more information please click here.
            [post_title] => EQ Does Matter – How emotional competencies influence the adoption of Management Practices
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            [post_content] => [caption id="attachment_22612" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Jack Welch was CEO of GE for 20 years. In a changing world, is he still the model for leadership?[/caption]

 

When discussing the challenges facing business leaders it seems almost de rigeur nowadays to talk about the level of change organisations are facing.

The challenge to equip leaders to build the future in these uncertain times is certainly daunting, with seismic geopolitical shifts (in this context the Trump administration seems to be the gift that keeps on giving), disruptive technological change (how many of us even fully understand the implications of bitcoin, blockchain and whatever new technology will be unleashed on us next) and even severe climate and weather events.

The very ubiquitous nature of these challenges may however inure us to their real potential as both a threat and an opportunity to affect a true paradigm shift in how we view leadership, a classic case of an issue being undervalued through overuse.

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The Concept of Leadership

From the perspective of the 21st century the development of our concept of leadership is a little clearer than it may have been in the past.  From this remove we can see how the largely male, heroic models of leadership have greatly influenced the literature and teaching in this field.

The business leaders who are most often cited, Jack Welch, Steve Jobs etc. are broadly from a similar mould and the models of leadership, with the exception of Servant Leadership (as a servant leader you put the needs of others, particularly team members, before you even consider your own, but how many executives really model themselves on this type of leadership?) extol an assertive, confident, out-going and mainly extroverted style.

In fact, the Myers Briggs type most associated with leadership is the ENTJ (extraversion, intuition, thinking, judgment), which is described as the ‘general’, again exposing the military underpinnings of the leadership canon. We can clearly see this bias in the continuing popularity of books like Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”, the pseudoscience of NLP and programmes that teach executives how to create the right ‘impression’.

Given the genesis of the leadership concept it is understandable that people might misconstrue the notion of leadership presence as the ability to impose oneself (and influence people), but there is real hope that we are about to experience a genuine shift in the paradigm.

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Unhappy Influencers

[caption id="attachment_22617" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Richard Boyatzis studied how leaders influence those around them and how that effected their lives and careers[/caption]

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Recent research conducted by Richard Boyatzis and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University examined the relationship between the extent to which people adopted an ‘influencing’ leadership style and their later satisfaction with both their careers and their life in general.  Interestingly they found a very strong negative correlation between these factors, i.e. the more people adopted an influence style the less satisfied they were with their careers and lives.

Boyatzis and colleagues did not have an objective measure of career success, so one could still argue that the ‘influencers’ did better in their careers, but Boyatzis’ research does tell us that irrespective on how well an outsider might judge your career progress, the ‘influencers’ are less happy about their situation.  The researchers concluded that those who adopt an influencing style are pushing on their environment and trying to get more from others, e.g. they tend to show a high need to control social situations.

The crux of the problem, especially in the context of a VUCA world, is that pushing on or trying to control an environment that is in a constant state of flux, verging on chaos is unlikely to be very effective and will certainly lead to people being highly dissatisfied and unhappy in their work and indeed their lives.

Now would be the perfect time for the leadership movement to learn the lessons of evolutionary psychology that success in a changing environment falls to the most adaptable, those who can outlearn their competition.

 

The Adaptable Generation

This will require a cadre of new leaders who are less ego-identified with success and winning, who don’t see problems as opportunities to impose themselves and demonstrate mastery of the environment.

Rather we will see the emergence of leaders who can go with the flow, adapt to new realities quickly, work through and with others as either leader or follower and pivot gracefully as cherished paradigms fall away and hard-earned experience proves ineffective as a guide to new problems.

There is no doubt that the idea of women in leadership is in the current zeitgeist and may or may not create a fundamental shift in how we see leadership in the future.  I am however hopeful, that as the new model emerges we will see less emphasis on the old machismo of the ability to impose oneself on others and on the environment and more emphasis on the willingness to adapt, change and ‘flow’ with emerging realities.

Bruce Lee used to tell his students to ‘be like water’, perhaps that is not a bad metaphor for what leaders will need to become.

 

Dr Colm Foster is Director of Executive Education at the Irish Management Institute. He has acted as a leadership development consultant to organisations in the US, Asia and Ireland, particularly specialising in Emotional Intelligence.

The next IMI Diploma in Leadership starts on 2nd May, 2018.
            [post_title] => 21st Century Leadership: The Shifting River
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In my opinion there are three organisation wide people focused initiatives that I have found particularly helpful in creating high performance cultures:
 



The result: A workforce with the right capabilities, willing to go the extra mile (engaged) and enabled to perform at their best. An organisation where strategic priorities and culture are aligned and working together to deliver an exceptional customer experience and, in turn, impact / profits and shareholder value.
Building Capabilities:
Capability building is central to organisational performance. There is a need to identify and focus development interventions on those competencies that add the most value to the organisation’s business performance i.e. those that enable the effective execution of the organisation’s strategy. A recent Economist study reported that “61% of respondents acknowledge that their firms often struggle to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation".

Moreover, in the last three years an average of just "56% of strategic initiatives has been successful.”1. Companies can improve on this track record by paying far greater attention to the capabilities they need to successfully implement their strategy.

C.K. Prahalad and G Hamel, in their HBR article “The Core Competence of the Corporation” argue that “the real sources of advantage are to be found in management’s ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities”. They go further to state that unlike products, technology and processes which can be easily copied and replicated, core competencies are difficult for competitors to imitate and therefore can become a unique source of long term competitive advantage.
Caution:
A common mistake organisations make is to over-focus on today’s capability needs at the detriment of important longer-term capability needs that might end up not being addressed. This requires organisations to look into the external environment to identify future threats, challenges and opportunities and their impact on the capability requirements of the organisation going forward.
Engagement
There is a growing body of evidence over the past decade that validates (1) that engaged employees outperform their non-engaged co-workers and (2) the quantifiable relationship between levels of organizational engagement and financial performance

Engagement is an employee’s willingness to expend discretionary effort / to go the extra mile at work

Towers Watson’s Global Workforce Study 2014 found that only 4 in 10 employees are highly engaged; that close to a quarter (24%) are disengaged, and another 36% can be described as either unsupported or detached. A full 60% of employees lack the elements required to be highly engaged.

This engagement gap presents a great challenge but also a great opportunity to improve organisational performance

Organisations need to make engagement an organisational priority led from the top, assess current employee engagement levels and, develop and implement engagement plans.
Supportive Work Environment
Capability building and staff engagement, however, can take a company only so far. Factors specifically related to the work environment also play a critical role.

That is, organisations need to provide employees with the support they need to do their work efficiently and effectively. E.g. providing people with the tools, resources and support to do their job effectively, giving them meaningful work and creating an environment that promotes employees’ physical, social and emotional well-being. In these environments:

	
People are clear on the strategic direction of their organisation and what they are expected to deliver and the way in which to deliver it (Role Clarity)
	
People understand how their job contributes to the success of his/her department and organisation (Task Identity)
	
People understand the positive impact their work has on others within or outside the organization (Task significance)
	
People are trusted, empowered and given the right level of autonomy to perform their role (Autonomy)
	
People are given enough on the job learning and growth opportunities to improve themselves and achieve their potential (Mastery)
	
People receive on-going constructive feedback on performance from customers, colleagues and the manager for development

 

While an organisation’s culture can become its main source of long term sustainable competitive advantage, proactively managing, improving or changing is one of the most difficult leadership challenges.
Can your organisation’s leadership opt out?
If so, do they run the risk of their organisation becoming less and less attractive to employees and shareholders? Becoming irrelevant?
What do you think? Would love to hear your views on this blog as well as your thoughts on things / initiatives that can enable the creation of a high performance culture.
 

1“Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite,” Economist Intelligence Unit, 2013, http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Publications/WhyGoodStrategiesFail_Report_EIU_PMI.ashx

 

Pedro Angulo is the new Programme Director of the IMI Diploma in Strategic HR Management and contributes on the IMI Diploma in Executive Coaching.

Pedro is an Organisational Effectiveness Business Partner in AIB and Chairperson of the Irish EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council).

He is a motivational speaker and regular presenter at HR, coaching, change and business conferences / events.
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Tanya Sheehan

9th Nov 2017

Tanya Sheehan is an IMI associate on the IMI Diploma in Organisational Development & Transformation.

Related Articles

Being an Authentic Leader: The Emotional Intelligence Connection

EQ Does Matter – How emotional competencies influence the adoption of Management Practices

21st Century Leadership: The Shifting River

And the result: A workforce with the right capabilities & willing to go the extra mile

Developing Emotional Intelligence with Business Simulations

A vital factor in organisational performance and success, emotional intelligence refers to a set of skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.

What are the elements of emotional intelligence necessary for organisational development and transformation?  And how can we highlight and develop them?

A vital factor in organisational performance and success, emotional intelligence refers to a set of skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.

Dr. Steven Stein, best-selling author of The EQ Edge and The EQ Leader, describes an emotionally intelligent organisation as one which has an ability to accomplish its goals and successfully and efficiently cope with change while being responsible and sensitive to its people, customers, suppliers, networks and society.

But what does this look like each day in the workplace?

It looks like self-actualisation; the willingness to persistently try to improve yourself and your organisation.  It looks like optimism; a strategic approach to dealing with difficult situations and remaining resilient in overcoming challenges.  It looks like social responsibility; being willing to contribute to your organisation and to your industry.  It looks like flexibility; adapting to unfamiliar, unpredictable or dynamic circumstances.

For organisational development and transformation, how can these skills be explored and enhanced?

Finding Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

Emotional intelligence soft skills such as listening abilities, self-actualisation, collaboration, optimism, adaptability and stress management can be hard to measure but can more easily be seen during a business simulation; an experiential learning activity where participants deal with challenges similar to those found in the workplace.  These are incredibly valuable in providing insights into an individual’s emotional skills and attitudes. Simulations can help to highlight the gap between our intent and impact; between what we say and what we do – especially under pressure.  An effective simulation challenges our knowledge, emotions and skills, just as any work environment would.

Within minutes of starting a simulation, participants are immersed in an experiential learning environment that helps them derive immediate, applicable meaning for their real-world organisations.  In simulations, participants experience the common tasks of communicating with customers, managing budgets, developing stakeholder relationships, changing markets, etc. Participants work as individuals and in teams to consider and discuss possible solutions to the challenges they face. Immediate debrief sessions ensure that feedback is provided in a timely manner and is easily linked to behaviours and actions.

Well executed simulations can reduce the time required to engage in behaviour and then see and understand the consequences of our actions. The reality and complexity of many modern workplaces mean that the connection between learning and consequences can often be blurred or missed, without the time to reflect and assimilate. They offer instant opportunities for feedback and reflection in a way that traditional classroom or online training cannot. This allows for immediate insights into our behaviour and the impact it has on those around in our workplace.

Simulations also provide a safe learning environment, where we can develop by stepping outside of our comfort zone to try new ideas, experiment with behaviours, take risks and make mistakes, all without endangering ourselves or our organisations.  In terms of emotional intelligence, this can mean trying new styles of communications, new ways of building relationships, new methods of decision-making and problem-solving.

In offering experiential learning in a safe environment with an opportunity for immediate feedback and reflection, effective business simulations can provide a powerful and effective tool to explore how we express ourselves, develop social relationships, cope with challenges, solve problems and accomplish our goals.  And, in doing so, develop and transform emotional intelligence; in both the individual and the organisation.

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Tanya Sheehan is an IMI associate on the IMI Diploma in Organisational Development & Transformation. Tanya is a Business Psychologist, certified trainer and accredited coach who works in the technology, pharmaceutical and finance industries.

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