??Emotional Intelligence or just Common Cents??

What is Emotional Intelligence?

How good is it?

Where can I find examples of pure EI surveys

What does CR360 offer in terms of EI

The first thing to understand about Emotional Intelligence is that there is no single, homogenous framework that everyone agrees about.  In fact even today EI has some serious and notable critics.

EI stems originally from the work of Peter Salovey and John Mayer.  They were among many professionals who were unhappy with the scope and validity of the standard IQ model of intelligence.  They believe EI to be a purely cognitive ability ie it is a natural form intelligence that can be measured in the same way as IQ.  It is their definition of EI that appears to be the most widely accepted;

"The abiity to percieve emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and to regulate emotions to promote personal growth"

This can be loosely translated as the ability to understand what yourself and others are feeling and to use this understanding to control your behaviour to your best advantage at both work and at home.  In fact you can reduce this even furthey by defining EI as the ability to get on with others so as to make your life easier.

When put like this it appears to be no more than good old fashioned common sense. However as most people point out the thing with good old fashioned common sense is that it is not very common, and only makes sense after the event.

There is however a significant body of research that concludes that EI is better indicator of "success" in an individual than IQ.  Again though this is not without its critics.

The seminal work of Salovey and Mayer was then developed further by Reuven Bar-On and perhaps most famously by Daniel Goleman.  The difference between the models promoted by the latter two is that they believe that EI is not purely cognitive, but relies on a mix of "intelligence" and "personality".  

It is the mixed model of EI that have caused most interest in the commercial world for the main reason that if EI is purely cognitive then there is little that can be done (within certain bounds) to improve an individual's EI or EQ rating.  Whereas if a significant element of "personality" contributes towards an individual's emotional intelligence then behavioural interventions can make a material difference, and therefore a significant difference to the "success" of the individual in both work and social settings..

In simple terms the hypothesis is if you can develop EI within an organisation then you can siginificantly improve the "success" of the organisation and the people within it.

The validity of EI has been the focus of much research by many august bodies.  It would appear that, even though there are three distinct models, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that EI testing is a better indicator of individual "success" in society and commerce than IQ testing.

The main arguments against the valiidity of EI appears to be that it is a construct or subset of intelligence focused towards emotional control, that the data sets used are very USA centric and that measures are not valid and realialble in that EI cannot be measured with reasonable accuracy.  Other criitics cliam that is just a new word for a number of basic social competencies that were already in existence.

We will leave the fine details of this argument to the statisticians to work out. 

This of course begs the terribly incisive question "So what?"

Goleman's model takes EI directly into the workplace, and it is in this environment that it moves from the academic and clinical into the commercial world.  To put it crudely this is where people can make money from its use (thus our pun on "common cents" - we liked it!!). Again there have been claims and counter claims, but the main body of evidence appears to be moving towards the opinion that there is evidence that people with higher EI in the workplace are generally more successful.

The question perhaps is not in the validity of the model, but how HR practitioners can use the models effectively within a corporate framework, or whether Executive/Life coaches and mentors can use the models to effect a superior performance for their clients.

All EI questionnaires work on a standard testing framework that is applied to everyone. This gives excellent feedback against the population from which the data is drawn.

However, since it is generally agreed that most leadership models are situational, then a universal questionnaire framework may not be suitable at an organisational level, where specific behaviours and competencies based on corporate culture, market dynamics and national identities can add significantly more weight to the quality of the metric.

Coaches and mentors focussed on individual clients, independent of corporate goals, may well find that a standard metric is an excellent tool to benchmark and create goals.

Our belief is that a hybrid form of testing including both a standard element and a bespoke element specifically designed for an individual organisation, would normally offer the best of both worlds.  This would provide consultants and coaches with rich data as a basis for the intervention with their clients.

EI surveys fall into several categories (free, paper, online, clinical, corporate, self perception and multi rater).

1) Free EI 

Normally these are "free" onine surveys with the catch that there is a lot of advertising. They fall into two categories, trivial and extensive (often in excess of 100 questions).  You normally receive minimal feedback, before being offered a bargain price for a normal report.  For the brave among you;

http://www.eqhelp.com/Free_Emotional_Intelligence_Test.htm

http://www.helpself.com/iq-test.htm

http://web.tickle.com/tests/eiq/?sid=2005&supp=search_eiq_test_default_1&test=eiqogt

2) Self Perception

These are the surveys that in our opinion are most suited to coaching and mentoring environments.  Nearly all the major consultancies will offer EI based on one of the three major models; Mayer-Salovey (MSCEIT), Bar-On (EQ-i) and Goleman (EIA and WPQei).

http://www.eiskills.com/index.html

http://www.panpowered.com

http://mhs.com

2) Multi rater

This is the 360 feedback version of EI and helps to provide a much more robust view of an individual's emotional intelligence.  It is also less reliant on global norms, since the feedback is directly attributable to observed behaviour.

http://www.bostonsearchgroup.com/boston-search-group-test-your-ei.asp

Since the vast majority of 360 Feedback is centred in the workplace, we have tried to take a balanced view of EI that translates into language and behaviour that people will be able to relate to in a working environment.

We have developed our EI questionnaires over a period of time, and in order to provide as complete a range as possible for our customers we have spent the last couple of months researching and redefining the framework.  Next month we are rebranding and rereleasing a new series of 3 EI based options for our clients that we have called the "Common Cents Surveys" (I told you we liked that term!!)

We have three forms of EI questionnaire;

1) A simple self perception questionnaire, that we would position as somewhere between the free and professional systems such as MHS.  It does however provide both qualitive and quantive feedback on a personal level.

2) A complete EI 360.  This is based around ten of the most significant competencies associated with emotional intelligence, and can be run as a complete 360 project in its own right.

3) A hybrid EI 360.  In this 360 we reduce the EI element to 4 competencies that can be integrated into a standard 360.  We believe that this will provide the most balanced of feedback for believers in Emotional Intelligence by applying a mix of specific functional and situational behaviours with a "standard" EI framework.

If these are of interest we would be delighted to hear from you.

The topics for the next three months include;

August	Open Forum - Any Questions?
September	360 Feedback Administration
October	Emotional Intelligence and 360 Feedback

• Topics of real interest to 360 Feedback users.
• Hear how 360 is being used in other companies
• Learn the benefits and pitfalls from others' experiences
• Interact and gain experience from other 360 users.
• Effective and enjoyable learning
• Bite size chunks of time
• No travel cost or time lost

We look forward to seeing you sometime soon.  

It won't be the same without you!!