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The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence

The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence

Business Case for Emotional IntelligenceIn the time period “between 2016 and 2030, demand for social and emotional skills will grow across all industries by 26 percent in the United States.”(1)

If you want to dramatically improve employee engagement, productivity, and profitability within your organization, you really need to intentionally hire emotionally intelligent people and then train and develop them to be even more so.

Why?  Today it’s our “people skills” which are more important than ever before in our ever-changing complex business world.

Furthermore, researchers have found that our emotion awareness and ability to handle feelings, rather than our I.Q., determines our success and happiness in life.  Daniel Goleman (co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning and who popularized the term, Emotional Intelligence in his 1996 book of the same name) says, “The rules for work are changing.  We’re being judged by a new yardstick – not just by how smart we are, or by training and experience, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other.

Further, Dr. Ben Palmer (the CEO and founder of Genos Emotional Intelligence) says, “Emotional Intelligence is about making intelligence responses to negative feelings and using specific skills to generate positive emotions in self and others through being present, empathetic, genuine, resilient, and empowering in our behavior as often as possible.  Emotional Intelligence is neither the opposite of intelligence nor the triumph of the heart over the head; rather, it is the unique intersection of both.”

Emotional Intelligence is not new.  In 350 BC Aristotle wrote, “Anyone can become angry; that is easy.  But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way; that is not easy.”  Today’s business gurus agree.  According to Jack Welsh, “No doubt emotional intelligence is rarer than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader.  You just can’t ignore it”.

Did you know that Emotional Intelligence drives superior performance?

  • Daniel Goleman’s research found that Emotional Intelligence is responsible for “more than 85 percent of star performance in top leaders”.
  • More than two decades of research prompted the Harvard Business Review to report that “Emotional Intelligence … accounts for nearly 90 percent of what moves people up the ladder”.
  • Peter Salovey, a social psychologist and current President of Yale University, claims, “EI has twice the power of IQ to predict performance. EI is also a better predictor than employee skill, knowledge, or expertise”.
  • Egon Zehnder (the world’s largest privately held executive search firm) concluded that managers who derailed all had high levels of expertise and intelligence, but many were arrogant and had a disdain for team work – they lacked Emotional Intelligence.

Did you know that Emotional Intelligence raises employment engagement?

According to Gallup, teams with high engagement are:

  • 51% more likely to have lower employee turnover
  • 56% more likely to have higher than average customer loyalty
  • 39% more likely to have above average productivity
  • 27% more likely to report higher profitability

Aon reported, “A five point increase in employee engagement is linked to a 3 point increase in revenue growth in the subsequent year”.

And yet, many business leaders fail to engage their direct reports because of their own lack of emotional intelligence.

Do you know why do people change jobs?

Historically, between 65% and 75% of workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their bosses and not the position itself. (2)

According to Gilles E. Gignac, an Australian psychologist and senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Western Australia, “Leaders who demonstrate high levels of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace drive higher levels of employee engagement in the organization as evidenced by the individual engagement levels of their direct reports”.

A 2014 Head & Freedman case study (“Emotional Intelligence for People-First Leadership at FedEx Express”) concluded “Emotional Intelligence was also correlated with increased organizational engagement with 76% of the variation in engagement predicted by the managers’ Emotional Intelligence”.

Bottom line:  No Emotional Intelligence, no employee engagement!

Did you know that Emotional Intelligence increases stress resilience?

According to The Regus Group (a multinational corporation that provides a global workplace), “In a recent global survey of 1,000 corporations across 15 countries, it was found that the levels of workplace stress have risen over the last two years.  The survey found 6 in 10 workers experienced increased workplace stress.  Additionally, the Huffington Post (an American news and opinion website) reported, “The number of cases dealing with employee depression increased 58%, employee anxiety increased 74%, and employee stress increased 28%

However, the good news is that employees with high emotional intelligence are able to respond appropriately to workplace stress and to the emotional behavior of their colleagues.

Did you know that Emotionally Intelligent sales people sell more?

  • In her book, Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success, Colleen Stanley quotes Gallup consultants Benson Smith and Tony Rutigliano who conducted research that shows “customer satisfaction and recommendations for future business are based on an emotional connection with the salesperson and that customers who like their salesperson are twelve times more likely to continue to repurchase.”
  • At Sanofi-Avenetis (a pharmaceutical company) a group of salespeople was randomly split into a control group and a development group. The development group received emotional intelligence training and increased their EQ scores by 18% (on average), after which they out-sold the control group by an average of 12%, or $55,200 each times 40 reps which resulted in a $2,208,000 sales increase per month. The company calculated that they made $6 for every dollar they invested in the training. (3)
  • At L’Oreal sales agents selected on the basis of certain emotional competencies significantly outsold salespeople selected using the company’s standard selection procedure. On an annual basis, salespeople selected on the basis of emotional competence sold $91,370 more than other salespeople did for a net revenue increase of $2,558,360. (4)

Quite simply, Emotional Intelligence isn’t a luxury you can ignore; it’s a basic tool, when deployed with finesse, is the key to professional success.

If your organization is trying to accomplish any of the following:

  • Increase Employment Engagement
  • Improve teamwork, productivity, or profitability
  • Manage a multigenerational workforce more effectively
  • Increase sales performance
  • Improve customer service
  • Enhance job satisfaction
  • Create a positive environment for a major change initiative

… perhaps we should talk.

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