It is a well-worn adage that when trying to get a sports team to perform, players can be divided into two categories – those that require an arm around the shoulder and those that need a kick up the backside.
While best not interpreted literally, the sentiment that different team members need to be managed with different techniques to get the best out of them is a good example of the use of emotional intelligence (EI).
Although the concept of EI has been around for more than two decades (and the principles behind it even longer), it has taken time for businesses to take notice.
However, a survey carried out by recruitment website CareerBuilder this summer among 2,600 hiring managers and HR professionals in the US found 71 per cent value a candidate’s EI more highly than their IQ. Those with a high EI were better at staying calm under pressure, could resolve conflict effectively and could empathise with their team members and react appropriately.
And the traits recruiters were looking for included the ability to admit and learn from mistakes, keep emotions in check during tough discussions, listen more than they talk and show grace under pressure.
The theory of EI was formulated by psychology professors Peter Salovey and John Mayer in the early 1990s in a series of academic papers. It was popularised in a number of books – most notably by Daniel Goleman, whose 1995 title Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ sold more than five million copies worldwide.
One definition, employed by Mayer, describes it as “the ability to recognise the meanings of emotions and relationships and to reason and solve problems on the basis of them”. Although the core areas that make up EI continue to be amended, Goleman’s selection is widely in use:
- Self-awareness (understanding yourself, including strengths and weaknesses).
- Self-regulation (controlling your impulses and thinking before you act).
- Motivation (the emotional tendencies that drive us).
- Empathy (awareness of the needs, feelings and concerns of others).
- Social skills (managing relationships and communication).
Many of the competencies and traits that make up EI are included in other soft skills training and development, such as influencing and persuasion techniques. “You tend to see EI as one big pot, but actually there are 15 to 18 competencies behind that and they’ve been on competency models in organisations for years,” says Suzanne Ross from coaching business 2thrive.
But as the survey found, bringing them under the umbrella of EI allows companies to target them all at the same time. “Rather than doing negotiation or presentation skills [training], departments are looking for something more long-lasting or deeper that can be integrated into appraisal processes and review meetings,” says Robin Hills, director of training and coaching organisation EI4Change.
Attracting attention
Experts note that companies are placing greater focus on EI qualities in order to differentiate their talent – especially in positions of leadership.
“I have started to see [EI] as a fundamental component of talent,” says Ross. “From the research I have done on defining talent, there is always an aspect of EI in that definition, which tells me it is still fundamental to successful leadership.”
According to Zoé Lewis, a director at leadership and management development consultancy Harvard Lewis, it is not more important than IQ, but must complement it. “EI and IQ have equal value and it’s equally important for leaders to have a high IQ because in that position they need to be able to make certain decisions,” she says. “They say that in order to get into the leadership ranks you have to have a high IQ. Once you are in the leadership ranks, the differentiator then is EI, and the higher the EI coupled with IQ, that’s the more high performing leaders.”
Many firms already use some form of psy- chometric testing – especially for senior positions – and assessing emotional intelligence is an evolution of that. But there is concern that using such tests to distinguish between candidates is excessive.
“They will work, but it requires the hiring manager to have a really comprehensive understanding of the emotions involved in the role,” says Hills. “It is a bit of a steam hammer to crack a walnut.
They can give a whole library of information about the individual, when you only need the introduction. And if you don’t understand it, it will be an expensive waste of money.”
The growing relevance of using EI in procurement is attributed to the changing nature of the profession over the past few years, with much greater focus on supplier and stakeholder relationships and engagement. “Emotional intelligence has really come to the fore in a buyer’s toolkit, determining the successful ones from the less successful ones,” says Cary Rigler, an interim manager who has held a number of senior procurement roles. And, he adds, this will continue to be the case. “With the skillset we are using to assess a buyer over the next 10 years, the dynamics will continue to change much more along the way of relationship management.”
Nicolas Kourim, president of purchasing assessment, recruitment and training firm Big Fish, says that while companies were looking for 80 to 90 per cent hard skills seven or eight years ago, this is now down to around 30 to 40 per cent.
“The more you move up the value creation ladder, the more you need to work with people,” he says. “You have to motivate and utilise internal and external resources. And the more you use soft skills the more you have to dig into what we mean by emotional intelligence – the more you have to listen, have the ability to identify and understand motivations and hidden motivation and have the ability to manage the motivation of the different stakeholder to move toward results.”
He also believes economics are behind the shift. If traditional methods of working with suppliers and stakeholders achieved three to four per cent improvement a year, a radical overhaul of the way you deal with people is necessary to achieve the 30 to 40 per cent improvement targets now placed on some buyers.
“I think this is probably the single biggest revolution we are facing over the next 10-15 years, not just for procurement people, but for whole organisations,” he says.
The Co-operative Group has recognised it is important for buyers to develop their EI. The “Advantage” procurement development programme, launched earlier this year, covers three development areas – core procurement skills, subject matter expertise and personal and behavioural skills.
“EI is an important underpinning concept that features in each of these components,” says Shaun Evans, procurement strategy and relationship manager. “Not only is it an important part of the behavioural skillset, it also helps unlock further learning in the other more procurement or business-focused components.
“Helping individuals to understand themselves and others, being aware of this and demonstrating it every day is critical to the success of procurement and individuals within the team going forward, especially in the rapidly changing environment procurement deals with.”
And in senior positions there is an even greater reason to develop it, advises Ross. “EI is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you’ve got it, it causes you to be more successful. If you haven’t, it can cause you to derail. Which is why it is so important to develop it in leadership capability.”
“I think a challenge is where leaders have come through a functional route or technical expert route, their careers have progressed based on their expert knowledge,” she adds. “But as they accelerate their development, there is a real need to develop leadership capability as opposed to technical competency. Where EI comes in is that is has such a strong focus on building self-awareness and the social aspects, and leadership is very much about social intelligence.”
Emotional evolution
But do not despair if you think you lack EI. “The good thing about EI is that it’s highly developable,” says Andrea Reynolds, managing director of training consultancy Cordie. “It’s not like IQ, where you are stuck with it. With EI you can develop it with experiences over time and get better.”
But while areas such as influencing, self-awareness and interpersonal skills can be improved relatively straightforwardly, “the difficult stuff to actually change is stuff that is embedded in your personality, like emotional resilience”.
“The first step to any sort of development is self-awareness,” says Lewis. “Knowing what you are good at and what development areas you’ve got.”
There is a variety of tools available, including self-assessment and 360 assessment. “It really just holds a mirror up and gives you a starting point to understand what EI looks like and what it looks like in yourself,” adds Ross. “I would always recommend that as a starting point because otherwise you are just really working with words and definitions.”
Find a learning style that suits you is the message from the experts. This could be training, one-to-one coaching or mentoring, reading around the subject or trying out different approaches with colleagues. For each individual, development areas will be different, but experts raise influencing and persuasion techniques as key for buyers to enhance to foster better relationships.
Reynolds also highlights emotional resilience – the ability to overcome setbacks - as an area that “tends to be on the low side for most purchasers”, compared to counterparts in sales for example.
However, she cautions against generalising across the profession. Instead she notes that trends in strengths and weaknesses often appear in sectors. Those in marketing and advertising, for example, tend to display higher levels of intuition – relying on instinct – because it is often encouraged. “Organisations often try to get rid of [instinct],” she says. “And if you are not in an environment where it is encouraged, it can be wiped out of you.”
This is a reminder that senior leaders in the profession have a role to play in building EI in their staff and developing the right atmosphere in their teams.
Hills relates a tale of a chief executive at a paint manufacturer who was having trouble building rapport with his employees. “One of the main issues was that he was the chief executive,” he says. “When he walks into a room the atmosphere is going to change because of who he is. But he can work on building a more empathetic environment, not being seen as a threat, but as a support, but he has to change the culture of the organisation, which takes years.”
And you can’t develop the necessary soft skills in staff just by telling them what to do, says Kourim. “You move from a training organisation to a learning organisation,” he says. He suggests creating an ambition for the team, rallying staff around it and encouraging them to work out what skills they need. “They become the driving force in asking you to develop their skills,” he says “You transform a hierarchical top-down organisation to a bottom-up, entrepreneur-led organisation, where people work against a target. You give them the skills they ask for to complete the project.”
Rigler comes back to the theme of recruiting the right people. “My mantra is ‘hire the smile, train the skill’. I believe you can’t do it differently.”
Not wishing to minimise the importance of technical skills, he says EI is going to continue to appreciate in importance. “Relationships with internal colleagues are going to become so vitally important that it is the relationship side that is becoming a USP of a buyer. The difficulty when recruiting somebody is to determine how they will get on with colleagues and how they will handle that relationship.”
Application Using EI in negotiation
A common application of EI techniques in procurement has been in negotiation. The ability to control your own emotions, and understand the motivation and empathise with the other side can be a powerful tool.
“EI helps us to respond appropriately to different personality profiles rather than reacting from instinctive behaviours and making poor decisions or capitulating too quickly on hard issues,” says
Sue Preston, head of Negotiation Resource International. “Negotiators with a higher level of EI drive better deals than those with high IQ. Knowledge may be power to some, but without EI, knowledge is not enough.”
But the adversarial approach often taken by procurement does not immediately lend itself to this. “Just think of the words we use in buying,” says interim manager Cary Rigler. “I’m calling you into the office – not inviting you in for a cup of tea.”
He adds one of the major problems is buyers fail to draw the line between business and personal issues. “Successful negotiations occur when you are hard on the business issue because the other party has respect for you, but are engaging and warm and recognise there is a real person on the other side of the table.”
Who’s who in emotional intelligence
Peter Salovey and John Mayer – This pair of academics were the first to use the term “emotional intelligence” in their research paper of the same name in 1990. The article suggested that EI could be divided into three broad areas: appraisal and expression of emotion; regulation of emotion; and utilisation of emotion. Their later research expanded this to a model with four branches.
Along with fellow academic David Caruso, their analysis is the foundation of the
Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), a popular assessment tool.
Daniel Goleman – A psychologist, journalist and author, Goleman’s 1998 article ‘What makes a leader?’, published in the Harvard Business Review, was described by the publication as the “definitive reference on the subject” of EI.
This followed the success of his international bestselling 1995 book, which adapted Salovey and Mayer’s four-branch model. He too has designed an EI measure – the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory – to assess leadership qualities.
Reuven Bar-On – Also a psychologist, Bar-On coined the term “emotional quotient” in 1985. He also developed one of the most popular EI models used by assessors, the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) in 1997. This has recently been revised and a new version – EQi 2.0 – and released this year.
He has also authored a number of books, including The handbook of emotional intelligence and Educating people to be emotionally intelligent.
Further reading
- Emotional intelligence by Peter Salovey and John Mayer
- What makes a leader? by Daniel Goleman, Harvard Business Review
- Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman
- The emotionally intelligent manager by David Caruso and Peter Salovey
- The EQ edge: emotional intelligence and your success by Stephen Stein and Howard Book
