Emotional Intelligence - Results are What Really Matters

One of my clients shared that his organization had committed to assess the Emotional Intelligence skill level of their high-level managers and some supervisors.  While the assessment resulted in some very good information, my client felt that the organization had no process or approach to take action on those results. This is not an uncommon story.  Over the past decade, I have observed organizations embracing assessment of EI skills with various instruments.

As a cost-effective approach, I don't typically suggest the added expense of an EI assessment instrument. When I do use one though, it must be a 360 degree instrument. When you administer a 360 degree instrument, you learn that the results of the self-assessment portion can be quite disparate from the views of co-workers and managers. The bigger picture provides the individual with valuable insight into areas for improvement.

Additionally, since most of us were not taught specific techniques to improve EI skills in grade school, high school or college, my approach as a practitioner is to assume that anyone can enhance his or her EI skills. So my energies and the budgets of my clients have been more focused on enhancing these skills as opposed to assessing them.

This is not to say that I don't include measurement in my programs.  With my Engineering background, I consider measurement a fundamental part of any program.  While I include several levels of measurement from how people feel about the training (level 1) to can they perform in the classroom (level 2), my key focus is about application (level 3) and impact on the bottom line and return on investment (level 4). Below are summary reports of both level 3 and 4 impact (i.e. impact of use of techniques on personal and organizational measures) for a few of our programs.  For more detail on each program, please visit the results section of my web site.

Oil Industry Supplier - A Case Study Report Productivity Improvements:

The program was shown to increase productivity of the group trained by an average of approximately 32% over the twelve weeks of the training and coaching. This translates into $264,259 added value to the client based on participants' salaries. The return on investment ratio of the value to the cost of the program was 5.5 : 1 (ROI). In addition, significant improvement occurred in all four of the personal and organizational quality constructs:

• Personal Effectiveness
• Positive Emotional Affect
• Physical Symptoms of Stress
• Negative Emotional Affect

These results suggest that the techniques provided in this program were effective in reducing the most fundamental source of participants' stress by giving them greater ability to manage and transform stress-producing perceptions and negative, emotional reactive patterns. Participants dramatically improved their productivity, performance, interactions with others, and their own health by reducing their stress.

Large Government Organization - A Case Study Report:

Forty executives participated in the program. Each executive led his/her organization in five mid-western states and had responsibility for 1000 to 5000 employees. Level 3 and 4 results revealed that the executives (mostly men) were...

• getting more work done themselves
• creating an environment were their staff and others feel free to talk and suggest ideas for improving the operation
• using the techniques to develop their staff
• being positive role models in difficult situations
• using the techniques to encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking
• retaining their staff and their staff's staff better and developing loyalty
• using the techniques to solve performance problems of their people

One executive told us that because of the change his staff saw in him, the staff was more willing to approach him with an idea for improvement. Their idea was implemented and is currently saving that location the equivalent of 10 people per year! Conservatively, if you translate this into dollars, the impact is at least a $300,000 savings.

Some participant comments reflecting the benefits of the program include the following:

• "...I have seen 40% to 50% improvements in my three goal areas..."
• "...I am more productive (30% to 40%) because I'm not spending energy and time venting, feeling frustrated, feeling anxious. ...The 40% to 50% reduction in stress/worry is having a big impact on my health. My blood pressure is now stabilized in the 70's to low 80's. There used to be days when it would peek into the 90's..."

Employee Commitment Benefits of Emotional Intelligence Training - Retail Food Industry Company:

An internal Employee Commitment Survey was administered one year following our EI training. The trained group's average score was up 13 points from the previous year, well above the 1.9 points of an untrained group led by the same director. Additionally, on statements targeting areas such as teamwork, empowerment, innovation, personal commitment, etc., the trained team scored significantly higher than the overall corporate average. These results lead to the conclusion that there are immediate, sustaining, and long-term benefits that accrue to the individual and to the company when individuals learn and practice techniques designed to enhance their Emotional Intelligence skills. Further, individual team leaders who develop and use Emotional Intelligence skills become better, more effective leaders who can create high performing teams. When asked what the major contributing factor to the dramatic improvement was, the director stated that it was the daily use of techniques by team members and use of the tools when the group met as a team.

Summary:

The above examples are just a few of the results participants have achieved by applying simple, proven techniques to enhance their emotional intelligence skills. The ROI numbers in the above cases are very conservative as we take great care not to inflate them during our calculations.  However, if the 30% to 50% improvements reported seem inflated, feel free to consider these improvements at half their value (i.e. 15% to 25%) and even cut that in half again (7% to 12%).  Even cut in half and half again, these percentages represent remarkable improvements.  Based on these typical results, when deciding whether to assess skill or enhance skill (i.e. train), it appears that helping people develop EI skills is a far better use of scarce resources.