The Value and Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Written by Jim Stroud, VP of Marketing | Aug 4, 2022 7:45:55 PM

In this episode of TribePod, Phil Johnson discusses the value and importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Topics addressed in this podcast include: What is Emotional Intelligence? How is it developed? Why is it especially important now? Can anyone develop their emotional intelligence? What’s the difference between emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence? Can emotional intelligence guarantee personal, career and corporate success? (Spoiler alert! Yes.) And what does the infamous Will Smith slap and Chris Rock's reaction tell us about emotional intelligence? Tune in for a fascinating conversation leading to how emotional intelligence could be the key to resolving most of the world's issues.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Phil Johnson, Founder- Master of Business Leadership (MBL) has been an Executive Coach for 21 years, helping executives and organizations to bet on themselves by developing their emotional intelligence.

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PODCAST ARCHIVES

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

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00:00:19

TribePod. TribePod a podcast series of interviews of interest to the HR community. It is hosted by Jim Stroud, sponsored by Proactive Talent and enjoyed by you. Today's episode begins, right?

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Let's face it. We're in a whole new world. Now We know that the reactive old way of, of hiring a and the post and pray model is expensive and it S getting more expensive every year. What employer brand does is it is a long term strategy that will help you get better at hiring faster and at a higher quality.

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00:02:09

For more information on Proactive Talent, visit them online at Proactive Talent dot com or click the link in the podcast description. Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of TribePod and depending on where you are and when you listen. Good morning, good afternoon. And good evening today, we have a very special guest special guest. Tell us who are you and what do you do?

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00:02:34

Thanks. Thanks, Jim. It's a pleasure to be on your show for the last 21 years. I've been an executive coach working with executives and organizations around the world to help them get better results by developing their emotional intelligence.

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00:02:52

Wow. Phil Johnson, you sound like you've been busy.

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00:02:57

That's been interesting.

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00:02:58

Yeah. So emotional intelligence, what exactly is that

5

00:03:04

A really simple way to, to look at emotional intelligence? Well, first of all, it's, it's very different. It's a different type of intelligence than intellectual intelligence. It's, it's developed in an experiential process. That's not meaning it's not a it's it's developed by what you do, not what you think a real simple way to think of emotional intelligence is it's the ability to feel the fear and anxiety that changing innovation creates in us and move through it towards what it is we're trying to achieve, as opposed to allowing our fear to keep us trapped in our comfort zones.

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00:03:45

Okay. Okay. Why in your estimation, why is it especially important these days to have emotional intelligence?

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00:03:52

Great question. We're facing a tsunami of change. Change is increasing at a, at an exponential rate and we've got a 500 million year old brain that doesn't like change. So what actually happens is that whenever we take an action that moves us outside of our comfort zone, it triggers a part of our old lizard brain to, to secrete a hormone into our bloodstream called cortisol. And that causes the, it causes us to go into what psychologists refer to as a fight flight or freeze mode. And the development of emotional intelligence enables us to feel the fear and anxiety that's created when we move outside of our comfort zone and move through it, as opposed to allowing that anxiety, to keep us trapped without to stop us from moving forward.

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00:04:50

Can

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00:04:51

Anyone develop their emotional intelligence? I mean, absolutely. Can they get better over time? How, how can they do that

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00:04:58

By, by doing emotional labor, by, by practicing, there's actually an energy physics to all of this that I've been proving and demonstrating over the last 21 years that we need to stop giving away energy. And we do it in a myriad of ways, unconsciously and how we communicate. Listen, take responsibility, make decisions, all sorts of ways. We're actually only conscious about three to 5% of the time. The rest of the time, we're relying on our habits to determine the bulk of our behavior and our results.

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00:05:40

So yeah, anybody can develop their emotional intelligence. Everybody can by learning to, to stop giving away their energy and moving towards their desired result. So it's an experiential process. Think of it. Here's an, here's an analogy between IQ and EQ. Think of your ability to do intellectual labor IQ as somebody giving you $10,000 a day for 31 days. So at the end of 31 days, you've got $310,000. Think of emotional intelligence as somebody giving you a penny that doubles in value every day for 31 days.

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00:06:24

So day one, you've got a penny day two, you've got two pennies, day 31, you've got 10.7 million. And actually, if you continue on after 40 days, you've got over 5 billion after 50 days, you've got over 5 trillion. The point is that it doesn't take any more effort to go from day 30 to day 31 than it did to go from day one to day two, but it's a, it's a building process. So the ROI in developing our emotional intelligence never end keeps getting greater and greater and greater. And actually there was a, there was a study done by UC Berkeley over 40 years, that concluded that emotional intelligence was 400 times more, more valuable in, in predicting success than intellectual intelligence, 400% more valuable.

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00:07:26

And I think that number's low. I think emotional intelligence is, is far more important than intellectual intelligence, especially during the times we live in of rapid and accelerating change.

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00:07:42

Sure. It, it, it seems to me, as you're saying that the difference between EQ and IQ, I think with IQ, you're sort of born with it with EQ. You have to develop it.

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00:07:53

Yep. Exactly. IQ is genetic that our ability to do intellectual labor is genetic. Not everybody can have 160 IQ, but anybody can develop their emotional intelligence by doing the emotional labor that requires

1

00:08:12

Wow. Wow. Is the emotional intelligence. Let's say you have a high level of emotional intelligence. Could that guarantee personal career and corporate success? I mean, is that pretty much a guarantee if you have emotional intelligence?

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00:08:29

Yes.

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00:08:30

Wow, good answer.

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00:08:33

It it's. Yeah, it, it actually, and this gets into the energy physics part of this developing our emotional intelligence also enables us to become more inspirational leaders and it raises our level of consciousness about what's going on in us and around us. Yeah. Betting on yourself by developing your emotional intelligence, ensures career corporate and personal success. I'll give you an example of a company that's currently doing over a trillion dollars a year in revenue.

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00:09:16

Who's primary hiring focus is on the development of emotional intelligence, a hiring emotional intelligence. That company is apple. That's why when you walk into an apple store, that energy you feel is, is an example of a more emotional, intelligent environment. They're not trying to sell you anything. They're trying to understand your, your pain and if possible, provide a solution, they want you to have a great experience. Whether you buy anything or not is secondary to their desire to wanna serve you. And maybe you'll go tell your friends and they'll tell their friends. So the energy you feel is a very different energy.

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00:09:57

If you think about it from the energy in the stores surrounding that apple store. And so that apple, so the emotional intelligence represents the future of organizational change. More and more companies like apple, Google, Southwest airlines, jet blue impulses, whole foods, FedEx, Costco, and others are hiring, promoting and developing emotional intelligence.

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00:10:23

How are they, how are they doing that? Is it through some sort of a online assessment tool? Is it just, is it mentoring? What exactly did they do that? How did they do that?

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00:10:33

Yeah, the real short answer and I help organizations do that. But the real short answer is the more emotionally intelligent you are, the easier it is for you to spot it in somebody else. Hmm. The less emotionally intelligent somebody is the harder it is for, for them to recognize it in others. And it's, it's a it's we we're facing a big problem in companies in general, the current level of employee engagement worldwide, roughly according to Gallup is around 13% low levels of employee engagement are costing us economy over a trillion dollars a year.

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00:11:18

And there's almost a one-to-one correlation between the level of employee engagement and the level of customer engagement. So that if your employees don't feel safe, if they're not engaged in what they're doing, then neither are your neither to your customers, your customers aren't engaged either. So toxicity, drama, chaos, and conflict within organizations and the toxicity that produces is a major problem within most organizations. So the lack of emotional intelligence is, is a major contributor to that toxicity. The development of emotional intelligence is the solution.

1

00:12:02

Sure, sure. I think I see I've seen in real life, this played out so many times. If I go to a retail store and the, the customer service people are just not happy and it comes across in a, a negative experience, but likewise I've seen, I've also seen good examples of this. I remember once years ago I was going to, to Australia and I was walking through the airport and I would see the different customer service terminals there. And everybody's sort of sitting there like sort of TWI their thumbs as they looked like they, you know, were sucking on lemons. And then I passed by Virgin airlines, customer service thing.

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00:12:46

And it felt like I was like, I was walking into a club atmosphere. There was, it was a looked like disco music or something going on. And people were, they were smiling, sort of bumping their heads and people, some people just walking in there just to be in the atmosphere, they weren't gonna buy anything with just wanted to be in that atmosphere. And it really it's, it's something I've always remembered obviously, because it really showed me how you have the right people in customer service. It translates into better business for the company. And I guess that leads over to emotional intelligence.

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00:13:19

Yeah. And we have these specialized because we've evolved from herds tribes over the millions of years, we've had to develop the ability to sense whether somebody's trying to help us or herd us, whether they're trying to help us or eat us. And so we have these specialized brain cells in our prefrontal cortex that said, brain scientists called mirror neurons. You can Google it. But basically that's how, when you walk into a room, you can sense the energy in the room. You're having a conversation with somebody. You can sense their level of authenticity, whether they're trying to help you or, or trying to control or manipulate you.

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00:14:06

And that's a really big thing because with the accelerating rate of change, things are happening so fast. That trustability is a, is a really big thing. There there's something called the trust economy. That's growing much faster than the traditional economy it's currently estimated at over 10 trillion a year. The development of your emotional intelligence creates demonstrates trustability, enhances your trustability. People pick up on it and wanna be around you. They feel safer around you.

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00:14:47

So your network of trusted advisors, people that you trust, they trust it's your greatest asset, both as an individual and as an organization. And you really can't develop that trust. You can't demonstrate that you are trustable unless you lower your walls, unless you become more emotionally intelligent.

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00:15:11

You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a really weird example of what, what I think you're saying there, I'm gonna use a pulp pop culture reference. So I think it was the Oscars where you had the, the infamous slap heard around the world. You familiar with that will Smith gets angry at Chris rod for making a joke about his wife haircut or hairstyle or whatever. And so I look at that with your analysis in mind. So you see two powerhouses, Chris rock is, you know, are, are gonna be a ALIST celebrity will. Smith is definitely ALIST celebrity, but will Smith loses his cool and embarrasses himself by his slap of Chris rock?

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00:15:54

In my opinion, Chris rock showed more emotional intelligence because he held control of his emotions, stayed in the business mindset. Maybe he custom him out during a commercial break. I don't know, but on camera in front of everyone, he maintained his professionalism. So he showed the, the, the emotion more emotional intelligence than, than will Smith at that time. And so I would that be a fair

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00:16:23

Yeah. Comparison? What, what happened is something that Chris said triggered will to go into what's referred to what psychologist referred to as an amygdala hijack. So will just reacted without thinking his walls would not be became resistive, judgemental, attached outcome. And he reacted in a way, I'm sure he later regretted, but in, in, in the moment, the cortisol going through his bloodstream caused him to go into this amygdala hijack where people go into what's called fight flight or freeze mode.

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00:17:14

Some people lash out, some people run away. Some people freeze like a deer in the headlights in that instance will lashed out. And Chris was able to keep his walls down. He was able to, he didn't take what will was doing personally. He, I mean, he was able, he didn't respond back. And that's an example of inspirational leadership. See, we, when we, when we go into fight flight or freeze mode because of our resistance to change and the, those amygdala hijacks, when that happens in conflict situations, sometimes people die actually, when it happens in business or personal situations, relationships die, we burn trust.

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00:18:21

So if you think if you're a Amy as a very frightened four year old child, the development of our emotional intelligence acts like a big brother or a big sister to quiet our quieter, make response down and better enable us to feel the fear and anxiety that changing innovation creates in us and move through it towards what it is we're trying to achieve, as opposed to allowing that anxiety to control us. Yeah. So, so Chris had an attachment to a desired result that was stronger than the fear that was generated in him when will hit him

1

00:19:04

Very profound. It, it makes me when I, when I saw that, and I've seen other examples across social media, where let's say people behaving badly, where they seem really infantile in that they respond to maybe political messages and infantile way, in my opinion, or they just have this self-entitlement about them. And they feel that they should always get their way. It made me think. And I want to, at some point, I thought maybe this is just a generational thing that this next generation is just so entitled and spoiled, but I see it beyond. I see it beyond generations.

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00:19:45

I think it's like a whole cultural thing where is really show the lack of it shows a really lack of EQ in our society overall. And I have to wonder how I have to wonder how does that affect hiring if this is the talent pool you pull from, you know, I imagine that makes EQ and an even more important thing to consider when hiring, if this is a talent pool you're pulling from what, what are your thoughts on that?

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00:20:12

Absolutely. It's a, it's a must have career skill. It's a, and the world economic forum, Jesus, back in 2015 said that emotional intelligence is become a top 10 must have career skill worldwide. Yeah. Our, our educational system has failed us and our employment system has failed us. They've failed to prepare us for the tsunami of change we're facing. They focus primarily on our ability to do intellectual labor and have done little or nothing to develop our emotional intelligence.

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00:20:56

So we're all pretty well walking around with a low, in a low grade, a amygdala hijack most of the time, meaning that it doesn't take much to trigger us to go into fight flight or freeze mode. And that that creates the drama, chaos, and conflict. We see everywhere. So we really, because of the accelerate sub scientist estimate that in this century, we could experience the equivalent of 20,000 years worth of change. So 200 centuries worth of change in this century.

5

00:21:40

So change is increasing at an exponential rate. Sure. We can see change occur in front of our eyes. Never happened at this rate in any other previous generation. From the time somebody was born to the time they died, things were pretty much the same. That's no longer the case. And so we've got this 500 million year old brain that really doesn't want us to leave the safety of our cave. And so we have, there's significant. We have significant resistance to change both biologically and sociologically, and we really need to be developing our emotional intelligence to be able to handle the drama, chaos, and conflict.

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00:22:33

That's going to occur with the accelerating rate of change. We're facing emotional intelligence. Isn't a solution to the challenges we're facing. It's the only solution to the challenges we're facing

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00:22:49

The only solution. So you see EIS the root cause of bigger problem in the world.

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00:22:54

I see it as a solution.

1

00:22:56

Okay.

5

00:22:58

Yeah. It's, it's, it's the process of developing our emotional intelligence will also develop, will enable us to become more inspirational leaders and it will also raise our level of consciousness. So all three of those things occur at the same time.

1

00:23:21

Hmm. Hmm. I would like to see more attention on EQ by companies because I see that if companies do it, it'll filter out into the greater population

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00:23:34

Eventually it's. And as I say, it's betting on yourself, betting on your organization, by developing your emotional intelligence guarantees, career corporate and personal success.

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00:23:50

It's,

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00:23:53

It's not easy to develop emotional intelligence that there, there are significant. We have a significant resistance to change to doing the work that the development of emotional intelligence requires, but the results are remarkable. They're remarkable.

1

00:24:12

Is that how you test whether or not someone's EQ is legitimate as opposed to someone just pretending to have great EQ until they're under pressure. Again, I go back to the, the K walk will Smith slap. I I've been a fan of will Smith for years. I never would've expected that kind of behavior at that time. I'm

5

00:24:33

He's, he's, he's a good guy. He

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00:24:35

Just I'm sure he

5

00:24:36

Is. He, he just, he just got triggered a habit, got triggered, a fight flight or freeze habit got triggered for a moment. And he wasn't thinking in that moment, he was just reacting to the, to the, to the fight flight or freeze response. So he lashed out and we do that all the time. I think we're stuck in traffic. Somebody cuts us off in traffic. Right? We're pounding on the dashboard. We wanna put the Hells, that guy, that guy doesn't know us. He doesn't, you know, but yet something as small as being cut off in traffic, we can take personally and it can, it can trigger road rage.

5

00:25:22

It's same. It's the same thing.

1

00:25:24

Wow. It it's like different emotions to have different energy frequencies. Would, would you agree with that?

5

00:25:31

They absolutely do. And the, the, the emotions, can we share a screen here? Is that possible?

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00:25:44

Oh, well we doing audio.

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00:25:45

What you're talking about,

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00:25:46

We're doing audio, but you can share, you can, you can comment over what you're sharing with me

5

00:25:51

If you like. Okay. So the, the, the lower energy frequencies, like fear and shame, anger occur when we raise our walls. When we're in the midst of one of these amygdala hijacks, the higher energy frequencies, like joy and love, acceptance, enlightenment are the higher energy frequencies that occur higher energy emotions that occur as we learn to lower our walls.

1

00:26:28

Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Okay. This is, Hmm. This is interesting. What I see the need for the change externally being in the society at large, I'm sure. I'm sure are different HR leaders listening, who, who probably could see how this could benefit the organizations. What are, what are two primary sources of motivation for change from a, from work related?

5

00:26:54

Good

1

00:26:55

Question position.

5

00:26:56

There's only, there's only two sources of motivation that will cause us to leave our comfort zone and move through the fear and anxiety that that takes. One is pain. The other one is passion and hardly anybody's connected with their passion. So for the small group of people that are actually willing to do the work that change requires that the development of their emotional intelligence requires it's usually driven by pain and urgent desire for better results than they're currently getting. And quite frankly, most people, although lots of people would like to get better results than they're currently getting.

5

00:27:45

Few people are actually willing to do the work, the emotional labor that change requires. So what they do instead, unfortunately, because they're unwilling to change themselves, they try and change everybody else. They try and use position based power to control and manipulate others to get them to change. And that's what we've been doing for a very, very long time. That's why the level of employee and customer engagement is so low. That's why the environments are so toxic because we've been trying to change everybody else because we're not willing to change ourselves.

5

00:28:30

You can't change an organization without changing the individuals in the organization. The culture organizational culture is simply the sum total of all the individual energies, all the individuals in that organization. So organizational change has to begin with individual change.

1

00:28:51

So if a company is really serious about EQ and an organization, it really should start with the leadership. Perhaps they're, they're the ones who should be assessed and tested and coached. And then it filters down to the rest organization. Or do you see it more of a bottom up?

5

00:29:06

Well, it's, it's, it's both Jim. See, leadership's not a position. Okay. It's a choice. Leadership's not a title.

1

00:29:16

Mm

5

00:29:17

It's. It's a way of behaving.

1

00:29:19

Mm.

5

00:29:21

So everybody needs to be working on developing their leadership, whether they're working in the warehouse or whether they're, you know, making decisions in the corporate office. If you need a title to get people to follow you, you're not a leader you're using position power to control and manipulate. If your actions don't inspire followers, you're not a leader. So leadership is not a position. It's not a title, it's a choice. And we all need to be better leaders. We need to stop giving away our energy.

5

00:30:03

We need to stop giving away our agency to other people to make choices for us.

1

00:30:10

Yes. Yes. And I can see how having a very strong EQ makes you more influential than having a strong IQ. Cuz I've, I've, I've heard, it said different ways. Book knowledge does not make you wise.

5

00:30:28

It's actually worse because you think, you know, more than you do.

1

00:30:32

Yeah. Yeah.

5

00:30:34

If what you think, you know, isn't reflected in what you do, you don't really know it. You just think you do.

1

00:30:43

I think you mentioned prior to this podcast and an earlier conversation about the UC Berkeley study saying it was EQ was more powerful than IQ, like 400% or something like that. Yep.

5

00:30:54

Yeah. They did a study over 40 years and they determined that emotional intelligence was 400% more valuable than intellectual intelligence and determining success. And I think that number is personally, I think that number is low. I think emotional intelligence is far more important, especially in the times we're living in than intellectual intelligence, the development of emotional intelligence multiplies, the results that individuals are getting based primarily on intellectual intelligence. It's a critical part of our development that's missing.

5

00:31:37

Okay. So quite frankly, a lack of emotional intelligence makes it much easier for people to control us based on fear.

1

00:31:52

Hmm. Interesting. Talk more about that.

5

00:31:55

We get fed a diet. We get fed a diet of fear constantly all the time and it, and it stops us from leaving our comfort zone. So the development of emotional intelligence removes the stranglehold that fear has on us. We're much, it's, we're much more difficult to control externally as it should be.

1

00:32:28

Interesting. Interesting. I can see that playing out a lot of different ways.

5

00:32:32

You can kind of think if you, if you play it out, you wanna, if you wanna get into a conspirator theory here,

1

00:32:41

Put on the tin foil

5

00:32:42

Out, you can see how much better it would be for governments and educational institutions and employers to not want their organizations to be developing their emotional intelligence. It's much more easier. It's much easier to control and manipulate individuals based on fear when they lack emotional intelligence when they lack agency.

1

00:33:09

Interesting. And I can, I can see you pointing that, but if that were the case, wouldn't that stimi innovation in a way because absolutely.

5

00:33:17

Yeah. The results were the results we've been getting are a fraction, a fraction of the results we could be getting with the development of our emotional intelligence. I mean, take a look around. You've gotta be, you gotta be crazy to think that what we're doing is working in relative terms. We've been on the planet as a species for less than a half of one second. And in that time we've destroyed the we've destroyed the climate.

1

00:33:48

Mm.

5

00:33:50

There isn't a single other species on the planet that wouldn't be better off if humanity didn't exist, where the virus on the planet, we've our track record is terrible. We killed more people in the 20th century than in all of recorded human history. And that trend continues in this century, lack of emotional intelligence and the freedom, the agency that provides this really cost us incredibly.

1

00:34:31

So if we all had better emotional intelligence, we would get along better. And some of our conflicts probably would not rise up to the level that they have historically.

5

00:34:40

Absolutely. It would've. It would go a long way towards eliminating drama, chaos and conflict war war is simply an amygdala hijack on a national level, or is an amygdala hijack on a national level. It's an attempt to control and manipulate.

1

00:35:10

Okay. Okay. In that vein, let me ask you this slight tangent sidestep, when companies are hiring or when they are interviewing candidates, do you think it should be mandatory? Some sort of assessment should be in place for companies to rate rank or track EQ among people before you even get to the, to the inside the company?

5

00:35:37

Absolutely. Without, without assessing somebody's level of emotional intelligence, you're really letting the Fox into the henhouse. Hmm. You're really crippling your ability to generate the kind of results that you wanna generate. Absolutely.

1

00:35:56

Okay.

5

00:35:57

Okay. It's the single, it's the single biggest obstacle to achieving success.

1

00:36:06

Fair point fair point. You said a lot of interesting things here. I know some of the listeners are thinking to themselves. I would like to talk to him and get a bit more information. How can they find you online? If so,

5

00:36:19

Have I, did I give you, they can reach out to me, get on my calendar for a zoom chat. I'd love to meet them. Did I give you the link to my, my calendar? I would do that.

1

00:36:31

Yeah. Please now include that in the podcast subscription, but for those listening, how could they find you online? What's your web address?

5

00:36:38

They can reach me, find me on LinkedIn. I'm I have a Newsletter on LinkedIn. I publish every day. Just look for Phil Johnson or Master of Business Leadership program. Okay. Yeah.

1

00:36:55

Very cool. And I'll leave links to that instead of podcast subscription for those listing as well, sir, I do appreciate your time. It was a very interesting conversation and I knew it would be. Thank you so much for being on tripod,

5

00:37:08

Jim. Thank you. Thanks for the work you're.

1

00:37:20

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times. Thank you for listening and subscribing to our podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please send 'em to us. You can reach us at TribePod that's T I B E P O D. Proactive Talent dot com. We look forward to hearing from you.

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