Emotional Intelligence as It Comes to Business - Essay Example

Emotional Intelligence As It Comes To Business To be able to think emotionally is an ability which many humans draw upon during some point throughout their lives. A component to go along with what many would consider to be more rational based thinking as it comes to business and personal decision making abilities. To utilize the concept of emotional intelligence for organizational reasons can serve to play a significant role in the choices made by all participants for the betterment of the collective goal(s) at hand. Utilizing proper emotional intelligence behaviors is imperative towards reaching a conclusion through rational logic, rather than a highly driven emotional state that could lead towards a heightened sense of mental capacity that would be erratically charged. In the changing business climate, owners are faced with the task of initiating business practices that seek to maximize capabilities of staff to reaching the overall goals to be met by the corporation itself. Enabling stakeholders in the group process to work together in such a manner that they are able to perform the necessary tasks involved for proper management and production decisions. When it comes to such things, “As thinking human beings, we value our rationality and cognitive powers that set us apart from the animal kingdom. The neo-cortex, the center for rational thinking and decision-making, is the newer part of the brain that is highly developed in humans. The emotional parts of the brain are located in the more ancient, central parts of the brain called the limbic system, including the amygdala, the center active during anger,” Going on to say that, “All emotions are in essence impulses to act. The very root of the word is from the Latin verb to move. That emotions lead to actions is obvious from watching animals or children. Only in civilized adults do we expect actions to be divorced from emotional reactions. But even as highly intelligent and civilized adults, we can never disengage our emotional brain¾ it is always there, sending emotional signals to act and react, even when there is no logic. Most people believe that emotions are caused by events. They are in fact caused by our interpretations of events, sometimes so fleeting and fast as to be beneath the level of consciousness. Our pre-conscious, split-second thoughts give rise to automatic emotional reactions. We then have a choice as to how we behave, what we say, and how we handle a situation. The appropriateness of our actions and the effectiveness of our communications make up our emotional intelligence. A person who is highly-developed emotionally becomes sensitive to pre-conscious thoughts, questions their validity and appropriateness, and is able to directly influence feelings, thoughts and behaviors,” (“Emotional Intelligence”, p.1). A desired effect is to be seen to rely upon the ability to reach decisions through the use of logic, rather than being seen as having any basis in emotions. Being that emotions, in one form or another, are seen as weakening to a certain degree the nature of the outcome that has been reached. It is, after all, human nature to seek to make decisions through primary basis in logic but succumb, to a varying degree, to the inevitable instance of finding emotion entering into the mental mind frame of thought processes no matter what the situation may be at the time. Just as there are varying degrees of the conscious mind of humans, there are varying degrees that come into play as it has to do with organizational behavior. With time comes the evolution of people and ideas, which enables further growth and room for such expansion to occur and thrive. In high stress situations that rely upon an immediate answer to a pressing problem, it can many times lead to reactionary responses that lean more towards impulsive, emotional-based thinking, which the previous sources alludes to as being the oldest level of the cognitive process in comparison to the more recent areas in which more rational thinking is seen to have its root source in the human brain. It is in those moments of high intensity that many see the level of adrenaline in their bodies rise in comparison to the nervousness or anxious state they may be in within themselves, the group of people they are with, or essentially a mixture of the two. The following table below illustrates the “Mayer-Salovey Four Branch Model of Emotional Intelligence”. Source: What is Emotional Intelligence, by John Mayer and Peter Salovey. Chapter 1, pp. 10, 11 in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications, by Peter Salovey and David Sluyter. 1997.) The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence 1. Perception, Appraisal and Expression of Emotion 2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking 3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge 4. Reflective Regulation of Emotions to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth 1. Perception, Appraisal and Expression of Emotion Ability to identify emotion in ones physical states, feelings, and thoughts. Ability to identify emotions in other people, designs, artwork, etc. through language, sound, appearance, and behavior. Ability to express emotions accurately, and to express needs related to those feelings. Ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate, or honest vs. dishonest expressions of feeling. 2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking Emotions prioritize thinking by directing attention to important information. Emotions are sufficiently vivid and available that they can be generated as aids to judgment and memory concerning feelings. Emotional mood swings change the individuals perspective from optimistic to pessimistic, encouraging consideration of multiple points of view. Emotional states differentially encourage specific problem-solving approaches such as when happiness facilitates inductive reasoning and creativity. 3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge Ability to label emotions and recognize relations among the words and the emotions themselves, such as the relation between liking and loving. Ability to interpret the meanings that emotions convey regarding relationships, such as the sadness often accompanies a loss. Ability to understand complex feelings: simultaneous feelings of love and hate or blends such as awe as a combination of fear and surprise. Ability to recognize likely transitions among emotions, such as the transition from anger to satisfaction or from anger to shame. 4. Reflective Regulation of Emotion to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth Ability to stay open to feelings, both those that are pleasant and those that are unpleasant. Ability to reflectively engage or detach from an emotion depending upon its judged informativeness or utility. Ability to reflectively monitor emotions in relation to oneself and others, such as recognizing how clear, typical, influential or reasonable they are. Ability to manage emotion in oneself and others by moderating negative emotions and enhancing pleasant ones, without repressing or exaggerating information they may convey. (Hein, p.1). Like many, to a large degree, businesses rely upon the undeniable benefit that comes from a structured, outlined approach to the collective goals that require a decisive response to completing. An outline which serves as the foundation for guiding the participants through the parameters involved in coming to the best decision possible. In theory, the term intelligence is widely considered to be a gage of the knowledge in which someone has on different things. To be emotional, one would have to be experiencing such intense inner thoughts that their decision making is impacted to some degree by the emotion for which they are feeling. Whether its the intense emotional state they are in at the present time, while attempting to make a decision, or letting a previous emotional occurrence guide their present circumstance. The true key behind emotional intelligence is attempting to understand the root cause of the emotional state and using it in such a way that the business at hand is taken care of, in such a manner, that the best possible solution is conceived for the collective masses. When people feel emotionally involved in deliberations within a corporation, they are most likely to return the best possible results for both themselves, as well as enable management to see a positive outcome as well. This in return becomes very important when a person seeks to find employment with a company as it plays a role in the type of employee that they will be and what type of results they will produce. The strongest indicator of results produced comes in the form of the profit earnings of the company during a given period of time. Graph URL: www.pts.net The graph above comes from the Professional Consulting & Training Services website, under their section having to do with emotional intelligence. The site says that, in regards to emotion in the work place, “Work is a place where emotion-based experiences such as pleasure, sadness, jealousy, rage, guilt and love are displayed, but researchers in work psychology have been slow to incorporate emotion into their analysis. Western management practices tend to emphasise rational, non-emotional activities such as strategic thinking and creative problem-solving rather than messy feelings. Traditionally, business organizations are places where feelings are managed, designed out or removed. Feelings are seen as irrelevant to work activity; indeed, terms like “business-like” and “professional” exclude emotion and imply that emotion gets in the way of effective performance. Traditionally, there has been a decoupling between the emotional/non-rational world and the rational/technical world of the organization,” Further stating that, “Emotion is, however, a fundamental aspect of much of what people do at work. Expression of emotion is of utmost importance to service organizations and most occupations make some demands for emotional expression. An awareness of emotional intelligence means that we are in a much better position to deal with external criticism. Rather than responding in emotive and habitual ways (such as viewing criticism as a personal attack on our beliefs, for example) or by exhibiting aggressive or passive behaviour, we can respond in a positive way. Such responses include probing for clarification, focusing on the issues rather than the person, keeping your cool and looking for win-win resolutions. In combination with a high sense of self esteem, such strategies also enable us to respond positively to criticisms from others when it is warranted,” (PTS, p.1). Emotional intelligence can be, in many ways, very relevant to that which happens in an organizational setting. Enabling participants to be active in their pursuit of a collective goal and the implementation of the goals that they have set forward to accomplish from the start. The importance of utilizing social awareness as a means of reaching out to fellow employees or management in times of doubt, to have self-awareness in that personal limitations, or strengths on the other hand, are recognized and not ignored. Social skills also play a relevant role in that they too enable the person(s) to effectively communicate with others that which they desire to as a means of further moving along the process of accomplishing the goals at hand. Finally, self-management comes into play as abilities, along with time, are effectively managed as a way to accomplish the necessary tasks in an ordered fashion and also in a timely manner. In an article for Time, Nancy Gibbs writes in part that “Emotional life grows out of an area of the brain called the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, whence come delight and disgust and fear and anger. Millions of years ago, the neocortex was added on, enabling humans to plan, learn and remember. Lust grows from the limbic system; love, from the neocortex. Animals like reptiles that have no neocortex cannot experience anything like maternal love; this is why baby snakes have to hide to avoid being eaten by their parents. Humans, with their capacity for love, will protect their offspring, allowing the brains of the young time to develop. The more connections between the limbic system and the neocortex, the more emotional responses are possible. It was scientists like Joseph LeDoux of New York University who uncovered these cerebral pathways. LeDouxs parents owned a meat market. As a boy in Louisiana, he first learned about his future specialty by cutting up cows brains for sweetbreads. "I found them the most interesting part of the cows anatomy," he recalls. "They were visually pleasing--lots of folds, convolutions and patterns. The cerebellum was more interesting to look at than steak." The butchers son became a neuroscientist, and it was he who discovered the short circuit in the brain that lets emotions drive action before the intellect gets a chance to intervene,” Gibbs further says that, “Without these emotional reflexes, rarely conscious but often terribly powerful, we would scarcely be able to function. "Most decisions we make have a vast number of possible outcomes, and any attempt to analyze all of them would never end," says University of Iowa neurologist Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. "Id ask you to lunch tomorrow, and when the appointed time arrived, youd still be thinking about whether you should come." What tips the balance, Damasio contends, is our unconscious assigning of emotional values to some of those choices. Whether we experience a somatic response--a gut feeling of dread or a giddy sense of elation--emotions are helping to limit the field in any choice we have to make. If the prospect of lunch with a neurologist is unnerving or distasteful, Damasio suggests, the invitee will conveniently remember a previous engagement. When Damasio worked with patients in whom the connection between emotional brain and neocortex had been severed because of damage to the brain, he discovered how central that hidden pathway is to how we live our lives. People who had lost that linkage were just as smart and quick to reason, but their lives often fell apart nonetheless. They could not make decisions because they didnt know how they felt about their choices. They couldnt react to warnings or anger in other people. If they made a mistake, like a bad investment, they felt no regret or shame and so were bound to repeat it. Gibbs is correct is saying that the decisions made, whether professional or personal in nature, have multiple conclusions that can be reached. Emotions act as a trigger of sorts that seeks to guide the decision maker as they go about making the decisions that need to be made for whatever reason they need to be made. Such intellectual approaches to management approaches can be essential in that, like the study done in Gibbs article, those who lose the ability to have thoughtful consideration, or emotional intelligence, present in their decision making processes, in the long run can lead to choices being made in repetition that ultimately can be the wrong choices to be made to begin with. With a lack of emotional intelligence, whomever is making the decision is left without any emotional compass to gage whether or not what it is that they are doing is right or wrong, based on the lack of an inner aid that tells the person if what it is that they are doing is good or bad for them, as well as any other people involved around them. Time is a precious thing for everyone, in particular management and with that, any sort of misstep as it comes to choices made can lead to more costly results for everyone. By possessing the emotional intelligence, the management, as well as their employees, are able to have the wherewithal to know at firsthand whether or not the choice they are about to make feels wrong in any way and as a result, can lead to the chance of an even better choice to be made if possible that there is one to begin with. The concept of emotional intelligence has many implications for human beings. Society places equal measure on the good and bad connotations to be found in regards to being in touch with the emotional side of the human brain. While some consider emotional awareness to be a sign of weakness and vulnerability as it comes to decision making and on the other hand, the argument to be made that emotional intelligence in life, in particular business, can lead to far greater positive outcomes for every stakeholder than had it not been present to begin with. It is crucial to organizational behavior for numerous reasons. Steve Hein, through his website EQI.org, offers his own adaptation of the Four Branch model as , “My adaptation of the Mayer Salovey 4 Branch Model”, Hein asserts that; Emotional Perception and Expression - the ability to accurately identify and express feelings The ability for self-awareness; to be aware of your own feelings as they are occurring. The ability to become emotionally literate. The ability to learn to identify and label specific feelings in yourself and others and the ability to clearly and directly communicate and discuss these emotions. 2. Use of Emotions - the ability to use your feelings constructively The ability to let your feelings guide you to what is important to think about The ability to use your feelings to help you decisions which are healthy for both you and the rest of the human race 3. Emotional Understanding - the ability to understand the meanings of emotions and how they can change This includes the ability to understand... The purpose of emotions; understanding their survival value to the species The relationships between emotions; how and why they can change from one feeling to another The emotions which lead to the behavior in yourself and others The relationship between thoughts and feelings The causes of emotions and their relationship to our human psychological needs, especially our unmet emotional needs. 4. Emotional Management - the ability to manage emotions for personal and social growth The ability to take responsibility for ones own feelings and happiness The ability to turn negative emotions into positive learning and growing opportunities The ability to help others identify and benefit from their emotions Four branch EI Model -- Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1997).  What is emotional intelligence?  In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds).  Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Implications for Educators (pp. 3-31).  New York: Basic Books.  (Hein, p.1). The complex nature of group interrelation, as it comes to relating to different personalities and different personalities, can best be aided by an emphasis on emotional intelligence as it comes to aiding the goals of their group and its members. Companies use this process as a means of furthering their corporations broader goals for advancement by means of better utilizing the talents and abilities of the people that work within their company. Management performance is in direct correlation with the emotional drive that they feel for what it is that they are doing, as is the case for non-management employees who work in the corporation. Such emotional drive that can lead to greater production levels for the corporation itself, leading to a greater sense of pride in the work performed, as well as a stead increase in the profit margins of the corporations financial “bottom line”, thus filtering in to financially benefiting management and other employees through bonuses based on seniority and work-based rewards. Organizations are comprised of multiple participants that seek to complete set goals set forth by all. Works Cited Gibbs, Nancy. “The EQ Factor: New brain research suggests that emotions, not IQ, may be the true measure of human intelligence.” Time Reports. URL: www.time.com/time/classroom/ psych/unit5_article1.html. “Emotional Intelligence.” URL: http://www.missionpossibleinc.com/emotional_intellegence.htm “Emotional Intelligence and Leadership.” Professional Consulting and Training Services. URL: http://www.pts.net.au/s_emotional_intelligence.htm Hein, Steve. Mayer-Salovey Four Branch Model of Emotional Intelligence. Subcategory: Emotional Intelligence. URL: http://eqi.org/4bmodel.htm Institute for Health and Human Potential. “What is EQ? Defining Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Emotional Quotient (EQ).” URL: http://www.ihhp.com/what_is_eq.htm Read More