Sometimes it is good to take a short look back to perhaps better understand something that is happening now.
In the case of the fashion that currently exists in relation to the topic of Emotional Intelligence and that seems to be a high priority topic within the business world, we want to point out that some fifty years ago in the monumental work of James March and Herbert Simon (“ Organizations ”; Wiley and Sons - 1958) the“ limits of rationality ”were captured.
There both authors made it very clear that companies, organizations and people (even those at the top) operate under what they called "bounded rationality."
In short, this means that companies do not maximize but simply achieve some levels of "satisfaction" in what they seek.
Also long before the famous work of Daniel Goleman ("Emotional Intelligence; Bantam Books - 1995) the notable expert Chris Argyris suggested that" learning led to action (which is what characterizes entrepreneurs) has a lot to do with affections and feelings.
During the last 5 years we have received more and more requirements and questions about "Emotional Intelligence", how it relates to Organizational Development, what to do with them in the company, their advantages and disadvantages, the risks to be assumed, and particularly how to implement it in the most profitable way for the organization.
Now, what is "Emotional Intelligence" (EI) according to Daniel Goleman? Is there really a limit to the application of "Cognitive Intelligence"? According to Daniel Goleman's perspective, “A view of human nature that overlooks the power of emotions is woefully short-sighted.
The very name of Homo Sapiens, the thinking species, is misleading in light of the new assessment and vision offered by science regarding the place that emotions occupy in our lives.
As we all know from experience, when it comes to shaping our decisions and actions, feelings count as much as thinking, and often more.
We have come a long way when it comes to highlighting the value and meaning of the purely rational - that which measures IQ - in human life.
For better or for worse, intelligence may not matter in the least when emotions dominate. "
Entrepreneurs with whom we have connected tell us that "it seems very difficult to put into practice" what Goleman suggests.
That is why we suggest defining EI in a different way. We then say that "Emotional Intelligence is the ability to feel - perceive, understand, control and modify both one's own emotions and those of others."
And this is where the enormous advantages of putting the concepts and ideas of Emotional Intelligence into practice are beginning to be seen.
If we can learn about the feelings of our Clients and suppliers, and also of those who process our products and services (that is, our staff), and we can also understand, control and modify their emotions as well as ours As entrepreneurs, we could say that our company then stops running the risks of any business and we could begin to operate as the vast majority of Banks do:
With a risk rate that is practically zero.
Charles Darwin ("On the origin of species" - 1859) very early pointed out that emotions have developed initially, with the purpose of preparing animals for action, and this is particularly true in critical and emergency situations.
How many times as entrepreneurs have we had danger signs that we have not paid attention to as in the case of gazelles where there is always one of them that prefers to eat an extra portion of grass to end up being the gazelle that is eaten by a lion ?
How many times in our capacity as entrepreneurs have our impulses managed our actions and then we find ourselves in situations that are harmful to our body or where we position ourselves vulnerable to others?
Hence, Socrates stated that “The passions and the vagaries of desires lead us to a life without meaning.
Far from being free and powerful as entrepreneurs, we are then slaves and dependents. Intelligent, consequently, is the free man, who governs himself and only he, therefore, can govern others.
True freedom is the consequence of educating people and making them intelligent in their own self-government ”.
It was possibly VJ Wukmir who came up with the most successful formulation regarding the function of emotions some 30 years ago, although, unfortunately, it has been, and still is, ignored by traditional psychology.
How many misleading messages try to alter our emotions?
Currently we are literally surrounded by messages whose sole purpose is to alter the proper functioning of our companies and of us as entrepreneurs.
Oral, written and image media bombard us minute by minute and it is very difficult for us to make our company survive in the face of such a siege that is systematically practiced on our emotional system.
In general, those who are not entrepreneurs like you, and who have a lot of free time to emit signals, can live without working as much as you, negatively altering your life, taking resources from your company and of course damaging your health.
As Wukmir said, "emotions are always real, but they may not be true" and that "the important thing (to survive as an entrepreneur) is that emotions are true."
The mechanism of emotions can easily be understood if we imagine that we are a ship that is governed by an automatic pilot, guided by a compass that points out the path we are going to follow at all times.
The ship always obeys the compass (emotions), that is, it goes where the compass points, which is specially designed to lead us in the difficult task of survival.
What then are the main components of the emotional system? Emotions are, in essence, impulses that lead us to act, automatic reaction programs that evolution has endowed us with and that allow us to face truly difficult situations; a system with three components:
- the perceptual, destined to the detection of eliciting stimuli (promoters of physiological changes); that includes hereditary elements, such as our predisposition to value emptiness, closed places, insects or snakes…, as possible dangerous situations, and sometimes the result of experiences, such as the emergence of a phobia or anxiety about exams, or the pleasure of a good grade. the emotional, in charge of promoting, maintaining and directing behavior, thanks to its relationship with the hormonal system: for example, fear drives us to avoidance. the behavioral, which we have to analyze in its triple manifestation, perceptible physiological reaction, thoughts and behaviors manifest.
It is the element most influenced by previous learning experiences and the cultural environment.
For example: the expression of grief in different cultures or the development of strategies to avoid testing situations in the school environment or school phobias.
Practical Aspects for Entrepreneurs
Goleman refers to the following 5 practical skills of Emotional Intelligence:
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-regulation or emotional control
3. Motivation
4. Empathy
5. Social Skills.
Let's focus initially on just one of them, self-awareness. You are an entrepreneur who dedicates time to “get informed” and during the last 3 years you have received data from different sources that tell you (cognitively) that the economy has improved year after year more than 7%. Even some years it has grown practically 10%. ! As an entrepreneur this seems to be very good news.
On the other hand, you feel (emotionally) that your company is not doing as well as it was many years ago. Before, he worked fewer hours, billed more, his profits were higher, and he also lived with less stress. Even now he has the stresses of others on his shoulders as an entrepreneur.
In some cases the stress of your family. But in addition to the stress of his family comes the stress of "his Clients" (sales are not so easy anymore), and of his staff (many times he has had to make changes in products and services and the staff has not always could accompany).
His choice in the case of hiring replacements with the necessary new skills has made him do without the “old” staff.
But you know very well that even those who are not on the payroll can continue to be consumers of your company's resources.
And there is no company that can have a body of holders and alternates.
Entrepreneurs cannot indulge themselves as it is a privilege that companies that operate as a monopoly or as an oligopoly do not share with them.
So you have in your head (actually it is in your mind but we prefer to speak metaphorically of the head) a cognitive file that tells you that “things are improving” but on the other hand your body is becoming more and more vulnerable: you he feels, he perceives, he receives signals that "his things are NOT getting better."
Up to this point, you were prepared to deal with situations of “incremental” change where even you had a pro-active role that gave you competitive advantages and, based on this, you have achieved your historical success as an entrepreneur.
But now the change is no longer incremental but rather transformational. There are no fixed "rules" anymore.
And when these exist, they are modified without being consulted as an entrepreneur.
You can have money in a bank on Friday and expect to be able to withdraw it the following Monday, but that is only in your head. And you - after a couple of experiences where you learn that the rules of the game do not clearly exist and that when they do exist they can be modified against you - feel in your body “in a way that does not match what you have in your head. "(Again metaphorically).
And we can humbly only go so far as to assure you as an entrepreneur - and we do so with the enormous respect we have for you for being the one who truly creates genuine work - that it is very difficult for an entrepreneur to be successful in his business when there is a gap between what mental and corporal / affective.
And that we have only explored the first of the practical skills referred to by Daniel Goleman.
We can continue, but we are also entrepreneurs in the field of knowledge and we would not want to bore you without being sure that we are making a genuine contribution.
With self-awareness (which is only a practical skill) we must be in a position to know who are the Clients who contribute to our company and we can also recognize who of all those who make up our staff really make genuine contributions… and we must also to be able to recognize who "are not our friends", more specifically, who are our enemies.
You can contact us, if you perceive that the practical skills of Emotional Intelligence can be of help, to: [email protected] mentioning that you are a reader of the page: www.ciar
Your suggestions and comments as well as recommendations are very welcome.
