In recent years, we have received more and more requests from The Organization Development Institute International, Latin America in relation to the contributions that this interesting researcher has made in the discipline of Emotional Intelligence.
He is the author of one of the best-selling books, characterized by the fact that very few of its buyers have finished reading it. Hence, we received many inquiries that have been especially linked to its practical applications within companies and organizations.
This researcher who has been characterized by his curiosity has surveyed a large number of field work and research carried out by others to find support for his conceptual framework.
On the other hand, some academics and researchers - and particularly those who have excelled in the Behavioral Sciences - sometimes wonder if Goleman's conception is really distinctive.
They are based on the fact that their main key variables have been studied in detail by experts in Behavioral Sciences long before Daniel Goleman's work, such as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Interested readers can visit www.gestiopolis.com to familiarize themselves with material that is strongly related to these variables.
They have to find different theoretical frameworks for the main contents that we have mentioned, a bibliography with more than 350 contributions on books and articles for each of them, and also a biography of each of these main specialists.
Daniel Goleman's success is not the product of chance. His successful work in a world-leading multinational company in consumer products - Jonson & Jonson - helped him catapult his fame by moving from the category of "consultant" to that of "guru". And there are really very few chosen who belong to this last category.
And here a question arises: If Goleman really relied heavily on the works of others, why did he achieve such tremendous fame for himself? There are many researchers who have previously spent a lifetime studying a single variable
Organizational “independent” such as McClelland (motivation), Tannenbaum (staff participation in decision-making), March & Simon (decision-making), having excelled in their particular conceptions that were not always easy to put into practice and operationalize as many analysts emphasize.
And, instead, Daniel Goleman manages to ride on the work of third parties - including some of those mentioned - and manages to suggest a method to introduce improvements through emotional intelligence.
This consists in the application of the 5 practical skills, and here we see again that none of them is “new”. Self-awareness has been treated by many authors within the Behavioral Sciences such as Jack Gibb, Chris Argyris, among others and has been crowned through a practice that has been known under the name of Johari window.
Self-regulation has been covered extensively by authors who have privileged to study the variables of stress, control and different aspects related to the establishment of objectives (Locke, Drucker) and the formalization, reduction of uncertainty through the design of the task and definition of roles.
Not to mention the motivation variable; In addition to McClelland, we must take into account Skinner, Fiedler, Adams and all those who have also made important contributions regarding the processes of energizing people in companies.
Empathy is at the very heart of what many experts in the behavioral sciences privileged in the second half of the last century in the mother Institution known as NTL (National Training Labs).
Sensitization laboratories (T-Groups) were pioneers in the field. And finally, within social skills, the contributions of experts and scholars in Behavioral Sciences have been many, especially in relation to what is known under the name of “• management” and leadership.
The Ohio State University and University of Michigan work on the subject was expanded upon by Fiedler and many others.
So, and returning to the initial question: What is this enormous success of Daniel Goleman due to?
Daniel Goleman's special contribution consists in having developed a method to increase performance, both at the individual and organizational level. Daniel Goleman suggests that one can begin to improve what is happening by stopping for a moment.
It seems to suggest the following motto: "For the world to be propelled into higher dimensions and levels, it only takes a moment for all of us to stop."
And let's apply the postulate that we found on the portals of Greece more than 200 years ago: "Know yourself."
With these affirmations, and only after them, we must be in a position to move forward.
At this point we have already satisfied what is required at the level of self-knowledge and self-regulation. And we prepare to be driven.
Drive is the third practical skill, and you call it "motivation."
People are already now, and at this moment, in a position to be driven.
Self-awareness and regulation have to contribute more than just a grain of sand right now.
Without them, motivation and any other source of energy could have been totally wasted as is the case where energies are applied but in the opposite direction of the objectives to be achieved.
Self-awareness and self-regulation place people and organizations in a position that will allow them to correctly direct and channel their energies.
Everyone should remember that motivation is linked to things like intensity, speed, and persistence; but as a prelude to the action of these three we must always keep in mind the "direction" or main focus.
Otherwise we will not only not be approaching the arrival point but we must also be further away from our original starting point.
By satisfactorily fulfilling the requirements of these three practical skills, we achieve what we could call the maximum achievement at the individual level. However, here we may ask ourselves another question:
Does anyone know of a single person who has been able to achieve success based on their own unique personal actions? In other words, without the help and collaboration of others?
Daniel Goleman introduces the subject of empathy here, which allows him to strengthen the link between the first three practical skills and this one, the fourth (empathy). Without empathy, individual and organizational actions would always be directed exclusively towards oneself.
And in a short time the natural wear and tear that consists of “exploiting oneself” would be visible.
There are many people who are efficient in this aspect of exploiting themselves, but they realize very soon - and with pain - that it damages their health and also the possibility of reaching the goals that they have originally set.
Without empathy, the person (or the organization) locks itself in what we call the "me-yo". What makes us autistic.
And there seems to be enough empirical evidence showing that the autistic approach does not allow to privilege Clients, nor providers, nor the personnel that are part of our own work team. With the "I-I" - which is synonymous with the exploitation of oneself - every person or organization achieves limited results. No matter how hard you try 24 hours a day, the time will come when you will collapse from exhaustion.
Empathy is the prelude to social skills where leadership emerges as the main figure that should not be confused with management.
Leaders are characterized by their enormous creative and generative capacity and are the real drivers of new and challenging projects.
A great part of Daniel Goleman's work is dedicated to showing how through the development of social skills the successful circle of competencies that are required to achieve business objectives is completed.
Daniel Goleman's work in Emotional Intelligence is distinguished by its practical applicability by identifying the five practical skills that are necessary to increase efficiency in the different units of analysis, be they at the individual, group or organization level.
And also because it identifies a particular sequence that turns out to be the most successful.
Abel Cortese and Eric Gaynor Butterfield (“The 7 Intelligences”; The OD Institute International, Latin America - 2005) point out how even emotional intelligence is a vital step on the road to business success.
These two authors highlight that Emotional Intelligence added to other intelligences such as Financial Intelligence (R. Kiyosaki) and Organizational / Business Intelligence represent essential steps that must necessarily be satisfied to achieve success, survive and grow within a world where the transitional exchange rate has been modified to adopt the form of transformational change.
What is significant then, both in the important contribution of Daniel Goleman and in the contribution of Abel Cortese and Eric Gaynor Butterfield, is that in both cases a selection is made of a method "to improve".
Of course this selection "of the method" is subject to its empirical validity by others; but in any case, the selection of a method is important since it precisely allows the replication of its validity as it is subject to research by third-party professionals and researchers.
Apparently the Professions completed as a result of Diplomas in the best Universities in the world are not enough to respond to the needs that companies have in view of knowledge (which requires knowledge beyond the profession itself), doing - putting itself in action that is not offered by many professions (doctors seem to be an exception through their residency and attendance programs), and the mobilization or creative motorization that is essential in today's world.
In relation to this last aspect, we must emphasize that Professionals find themselves with more and more problems - even those who excel in competencies of their own profession - since their career design, which was previously based on “entering an organization once diplomaba ”has been totally altered because now organizations require fewer and fewer professionals and also seem to expel them more often (Eric Gaynor Butterfield:
"Career Development and Organizational Development"; The OD Institute Internatiional, Latin America - 2005).
And to make things worse, it seems that professionals do not have the skills "to generate their own work" after completing their diploma.
In "Ironies in Organization Development" (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers - 1990) Robert Golembiewski points out that there are three main possible exchange rates.
The first type of change is the one he has called Alpha, which implies a “constant” type of progress where both the variables and the measurement methods remain unchanged.
Following Robert Golembiewski, we have a second type of change to Beta that implies variable progress where both the variables and the measurement methods are modified.
An example of this type of change situation occurs in the work of the business advisor who, when introducing the first changes in his consulting intervention, identifies that new variables and aspects emerge that until then were unknown.
That is why we must be extremely cautious with the "Long-term Projectors of Change" suggested by consultants in their advisory proposals; ensuring that changes in one part of the system will have a punctual and only impact is a super-simplification and consultants should take this into account if they are interested in providing the best service to the Client (usually the programs are followed at the foot of the letter of the consulting proposal that was approved, which has led me to define this type of consulting work as those "where things have been done well but according to a wrong program."The third type of change that Golembiewski proposes is Gamma where, in addition to the Beta change, there is a radical change that takes the name of transformational change that implies a quantum leap and a paradigm shift.
We are here in the presence of a revolution regarding how things are done, regarding how what is desired to achieve is visualized, and regarding the positioning that leaders adopt in this situation.
Organizations in the past started from what the top manager or businessman "had in his head."
The industrial revolution has been based, as its name implies, in the industry of concrete and tangible products that were designed and marketed primarily on the basis of what the managers and businesswomen planned. In today's world we find that the corporate world dedicates a very small percentage of its time and resources to products; today services already represent a much higher proportion. And most of the services and even the way in which the "delivery" of the products is developed, are One Service.
We deliver cell phones to Clients but nowadays the cell phone that a company sells is very similar to the cell phone of another company; what differentiates both companies and what each one of them has to look for is a competitive advantage, and that competitive advantage has to do with the “delivery” of the service. The accommodation of people to the industrial revolution has taken several generations and so much so that almost a century after the Industrial Revolution we find notable experts who refer to the social. Furthermore, as in the case of Eric Trist, what has been known as the school of thought and organizational philosophy is born under the name of the "socio-technical school."
And please, we appreciate that there is no reference to a "technical-social" school but rather it is exactly the other way around: a "socio-technical" school.
And organizations with a lot of pain, as well as senior corporate managers and entrepreneurs, have also learned with pain on their part, that what commands is "what the Client has in his head".
And it is not very easy to think about what the Client has in his head when we have spent several generations behaving based on the thought that managers have in their minds. To make things even more complicated and difficult, the exchange rate has accelerated and we find that changes in information technology and communications are presented in a virtual and “not-real” way; These are not real, “observable” facts, to which man was used to before and therefore, when he saw them, he took them into account. Now man has no image whatsoever of what he confronts, and this is a totally new phenomenon in the history of mankind.
Coca-Cola Corporation has shown that it is important to replace the traditional thinking that focused on the "market share" with the new one that focuses on the "customer's share of the mind."
Without a clear idea of what the Client has in his mind and a new “image” regarding what impacts people, there is difficulty in reacting correctly.
If we put two people seated in a chair facing each other and they are looking at each other, it is possible that they will continue in that position and without speaking for a long time, if both do not have any images recorded in their "files". Only the images are capable of propelling us, and the seasoned reader surely already brings to mind some facts that ensure our affirmation (from now on we will continue to use the head when the mind is correct, since we can show how the real has a different and singular impact with respect to the virtual).
The man from now on has to continue linked to the "real" but more and more will do so with virtual - unreal aspects; and these in turn have to be the ones that have to impact most powerfully on his life and in particular on his success in life.
Emotional "Intelligence" is defined as the "Ability to know, direct and control both one's own emotions and those of others" (Daniel Goleman - "Emotional Intelligence"; Bantam Books - 1995).
Just as people quite frequently operate under a "bounded rationality", so do organizations, institutions, businesses and corporations (James March and Herbert Simon: "Organizations"; Wiley & Sons - 1958). Today there is no doubt that the different units of analysis, be they Individuals, Groups and Organizations, operate with "limited rationality". For those readers who are interested in the "rational limited" within the second unit of analysis - that is, the groups - we suggest taking a look at the contributions that researchers and academics have made within the area of "group meeting management", such as Edgar Schein ("Organizational Psychology"; Prentice-Hall - 1980) among others.
Possibly one of the last coups de grace to the proponents of Cognitive Intelligence - exclusively - has been given by Daniel Goleman, showing the important role of Emotional Intelligence.
The excellent integrative work of Daniel Goleman - in addition to showing the shortcomings of Cognitive Intelligence alone - reveals the organizational weaknesses that result from poor emotional intelligence of its own organizational members, and in particular when it is presented in its management body and executive.
The enormous strength of the five practical skills - which are not really “new” - since they have been recognized before, finds its enormous merit in the way in which the author groups, and therefore divides them, into two broad categories: those that operate within a person and those that function as a result of interaction between people.
In debates, it is quite common for each propeller to “consider its proposal as the best” and assign a greater weight “to its theory”.
It is good to think of the two intelligences, both the Cognitive and the Emotional; the extraordinary French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau stated some 240 years ago ("The Social Contract" - 1762) that learning is cumulative. Each generation accumulates the learning of the previous generation, something that we can observe even within the animal world (Charles Darwin: "Origin and Evolution of Species" - 1859). The notable student of learning processes in childhood - the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget ("The origins of intelligence in children" - 1936) also observes the importance of the "cumulative" aspect that goes beyond simple learning by showing the difference between the accommodation and assimilation.
The incorporation of the Emotional Intelligence skills mentioned by Daniel Goleman (already mentioned) must allow the reader to go beyond Cognitive Intelligence and therefore can enjoy a competitive advantage (see Michael Porter: “Competitive Strategy”; Editorial CECSA - 1992).
They must be in a better position to deal with the transformational changes that have already surpassed and surpassed the transitional changes to which we were used.
Dr. Donald W. Cole has clearly shown that one of the problems between people and organizations has to do with the conceptual model that the former have in their head for how the organization works.
And although there are various models and methodologies of change that are at the service of managers and entrepreneurs, and which are accessed by business consultants, it is always good to welcome one more. Emotional Intelligence, based on its 5 practical skills, can be an additional useful option to reconcile the interests of companies with their own organizational members.
We can begin to think that it represents a new “toolbox” that is at our disposal to improve both people and companies. And that it is of special importance to transform managers, executives and professionals into organizational leaders.
For the time being, and from the very beginning, emotional intelligence takes into account that the authoritarian style is a style that can be efficient under what we could consider an extreme situation.
In a culture where organizational knowledge is above individual knowledge, where learning in the company does not require the collaboration of people, when the delivery of services can be done without taking into account the quality of the provision, and where the Organizational members feel comfortable with a system of "individual rewards and punishments" over a participatory-group system, it is possible that the hierarchical pyramidal organization is the most effective and it can be sustained through an authoritarian leadership. But what happens is that today we find practically a context opposite to the one we have described.
Organizations and companies can no longer predetermine what is going to happen to their Clients, nor to their suppliers. The impact of the context - both free and regulatory - forces it to make continuous and permanent accommodations.
And in this way the previous order based on specialization and division of labor where each member reports only one more person, no longer exists.
And it is very difficult for people to report to two bosses, which is the least that happens to an executive and professional in a corporation.
The same biblical passage has engraved the image of us reporting only one boss, so that this single image is not easy to transform.
This is how the "processes" - which advance laterally - can dramatically alter the "original" plans of the hierarchical pyramidal organization that were based on verticality.
And - as it happens with earthquakes
- It is the sum of vertical displacements plus horizontal displacements that produce the highest fatalities (both in towns and in companies).
Emotional Intelligence - as well as Organizational Development and Behavioral Sciences - represent the most powerful columns on which organizations can sustain and grow when excellence in the "hard sciences" is not sufficient to sustain competitive advantage. The behavioral sciences and what is known about organizational behavior and organizational development provide us with a method to create, sustain and grow businesses.
Various field studies in the United States of North America have shown the significant level of familiarity that corporate managers have with the ideas, conceptions and practices of notable experts who are specialists in introducing organizational improvements.
The same does not happen in the countries south of the United States where the vast majority of corporate executives as well as businessmen are largely unaware of these important contributions.
Emotional Intelligence allows us to expand our scope of "influence" within the organization. Managers today are overwhelmed by the fact that the authority they derive from the position is NOT enough for them to "get things done effectively and efficiently." Vertical processes collide with vertical structures and there is no formal mechanism in organizations to deal with this situation. The structures take into account aspects such as: organizational design, size of the company, organizational complexity, level of formalization, division of labor and specialization, levels and areas of authority, the range and scope of control, regulations and standards, and many of the formalized manuals.
On the other hand, what happens horizontally at the process level has more to do with other aspects that are often opposed to those already mentioned in the previous paragraph and that were characterized by operating vertically.
These aspects related to horizontal processes have to do with: leadership and power, motivation, communications, decision making, organizational climate and culture, teamwork, conflicts and the level of cooperation - participation.
The clash between the horizontal processes and the vertical niches of the structured organization is received with great pain by the organizational participants, and this is something to which they were not usually used. Managers, executives, and professionals must become leaders if they are to remain within the corporate world.
Now they have to do much more than what was usually described in the Manuals of Duties and Responsibilities that made reference almost exclusively to their tasks purely from the operational point of view. Today the manager / executive / professional must quickly transform into a Leader and their transformation should not be merely technical but from a behavioral point of view. Let's look at some things the new leader is expected to do:
1. Must give a sense of direction through a vision that is shared with others to make it their own;
2. Distinguishing and showing a genuine interest in a job well done grants differentiated recognition;
3. Encourages others to take risks in search of greater efficiency to be achieved as a result of creative and innovative actions;
4. Show by example (for most of the time the human species has not learned through schools or universities but through “how someone showed them how things are done”; teacher - apprentice);
5. Acknowledge your own mistakes;
6. Relates empathically.
7. It must take into account that the objectives and results are achieved as a result of the rationality being limited (March & Simon; already cited), and therefore they must become familiar with the concept and practices that relate to emotions and feelings.
A good definition of emotion - feeling would be: “It has to do with a state of mind produced by impressions (they remember what we have said about images) of the senses, ideas or memories, which is often translated into gestures, attitudes or other forms of expression ”. And we see that there is a common thread for three key words: meanings, ideas and memories. Feeling has a lot to do with the present; ideas with the future and memories with the past; that is, they all touch time as the main variable.
We can speak of emotion - shock as one that is of short duration, affects the personality and is also characterized by the fact that the adaptation mechanisms turn out to be insufficient.
On the other hand, the emotion - feeling has a rather long duration, loses its anarchic character and its state is rather long-lasting.
Emotions are characterized by their different implications, namely:
1. The messages have an important component of subjectivity;
2. They have a strong energy charge and therefore can motivate or demotivate.
The fact that energy is strongly linked to motivation suggests that it operates in much the same way as the brake or accelerator in a car. And we must not forget some key aspects of motivation where as a first measure we must privilege management and then take into account speed, intensity and persistence;
3. They are transmitters of moods and can persuade - above formal authority - thus producing both attraction / acceptance / compliance or rejection. They have the property of "contagion."
4. They are communication channels and as such facilitate or hinder the transmission of information. So that through communication we find that we have a powerful additional resource, such as the link.
We must also remember that the messages usually incorporate emotional resonances, and that the information has to do with: a. ourselves; b. others; c. certain contextual situations.
The corporate manager as well as the entrepreneur must bear in mind that just as the different non-human species make use of emotions as an “efficient signal system”, they also have to privilege this aspect. An angry person has to predispose himself to fight, a frightened person has to prefer to flee or escape from the situation, and one who tends to get depressed has to prefer to isolate himself. How we archive our emotions has a lot to do with how we have to act in certain situations since the different records have to guide us towards different options.
Now, what does it mean to incorporate emotional intelligence into leadership? How could we get to define it? A good way would be to consider that leadership with emotional intelligence implies the ability to feel - perceive, understand (we assign some value), control (which has to do with three phases that we call experience, expression and action) and to modify (increase or decrease the intensity of an action) both your own emotions and those of others. And we must bear in mind that any change or modification has a "mortal enemy": these are the actions that we define as automatic behaviors.
We can try to integrate the above by pointing out that Emotional Intelligence involves different aspects:
- To be able to generate a vision where we create a future;
- Have the ability to intuit, understand, and effectively apply the power of emotions as a source of motivational energy in the company;
- Achieve broadening our natural area of influence through a higher degree of trust where information can flow more openly to facilitate the development of both creative and innovative processes;
- The ability to strengthen relationships both inside and outside the company;
- The power and courage to make decisions in situations of risk and uncertainty.
These are achieved through perseverance and resistance, although we must not forget that these are undermined in one way or another, as a result of stress. And this is an additional faculty of emotional intelligence since it has to place us in a position that allows us to perform in stressful situations. It is known that people are not used to giving up in situations of very high stress; emotional intelligence through self-knowledge and also emotional control - its first two practical skills, represents a powerful arsenal to temper ourselves in situations of high stress that occurs over time.
The first practical ability of Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness that makes us see that any "program" that we have had regarding the most efficient organizational form or arrangement, cannot be perpetuated in the future. We learn with self-awareness regarding perception and also knowledge of our own emotions.
Self-regulation is the second practical skill and is directly linked to the control of emotions and impulses. We learn to link "better" with stress, which is essential for all those who operate within the current business and organizational world.
Once we are aware and know how to regulate our emotions and impulses, we are in a position to focus on where we should go. This opens the door to the third practical skill: Motivation. Recall a very simple definition of motivating force (Eric Gaynor Butterfield; Organizational Development Congress - 1997): "An unmet need is a motivating force." Here we must take into account what we call the motivation cycle, which consists of six main phases: motivation, confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, persistence and resistance. When the result is positive, the consequence is Achievement and when it is negative we are faced with Adversity.
We call these first three practical skills "the end of the yo-yo." Much of what we achieve has to do with ourselves, although of course others are also important. But from here on, it is the others who play a main role. And this opens the range to the fourth practical skill which is "empathy."
And since empathy also has what we could call a "limit" for the development of companies, the last practical skill finally arrives, which are social skills where skill in the quality and quantity of relationships, leadership and work stands out. team up.
Remember that there are no successful people on this planet who have not displayed the 5 practical skills; many have been successful individually but the scope of their success has been limited.
The deployment of the five practical skills in action within the organizational world has allowed Tom Watson, Ray Crock, Hill Gates, Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Fred Smith, among others, to achieve extraordinary levels of productivity and profitability, as is the case. from IBM, McDonald, Microsoft, Walt Disney Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Federal Express, respectively.
Each of the five practical skills is treated separately as their respective content warrants it. We renew ourselves at your service.
