What is emotional intelligence or EQ?

Why is it difficult to manage change?   A decade ago in his influential book, "Emotional Intelligence", Daniel Goleman surveyed recent human brain research and explained why people tend to become irrational when their emotions are aroused.  He explained why you’ll be more successful in getting the best out of people if you know how to deal effectively with emotions.  He defined "emotional intelligence", as a set of learnable skills.  They're taught on the London based "Skills with People" course.  It's never too late to learn or improve them.  Even a small increase is beneficial.

The practical relevance of emotional intelligence

The relevance of this concept for a manager in times of change is obvious.  People's emotions are aroused by change.  They're worried and threatened by it.  The familiar conditions on which they rely for their sense of well-being, self-esteem and security are perceived to be at risk.  Whether the risk is real or only imagined, it evokes an involuntary emotional reaction.  You don’t need to interpret this natural defensive reaction as a sign of poor motivation, weakness or negativity.  It’s how a normal person instinctively responds to perceived threat.  But managing it calls for the skills of emotional intelligence. 

The problem is that although these skills are simple and learnable, they go against most people's life-long habits.  Most of us have been conditioned to bottle up our feelings:  "there, there, don't cry", "pull yourself together", "let's be rational - let's not get emotional", "men don't cry".   Behind these common and probably well-meant phrases is an emotionally repressive assumption, namely that the more you express a bad feeling the worse you feel, and that if you stop expressing it you'll feel better - in other words that the way to stop people resisting change is to prevent them from expressing their negative feelings.  But emotional intelligence research suggests this approach is wrong because it's based on an incorrect understanding of how the human brain and mind work.  The following are much nearer the truth:

• The more you express feelings the more rational you become.
• Bottling up feelings makes people less, not more, rational.

Therefore a good way to make people more receptive to change is to encourage them to let off steam, in other words, to give voice to their emotions – to express feelings verbally – and that’s a big part of what the "Skills with People" course teaches you to do.

See also: A Practical Emotional Intelligence Test