In a prior post I advocate emotional intelligence as a more important quality job interview criteria than a corporate or team culture fit. What is emotional intelligence or EI? And what does the EI vs. IQ debate mean?
Where IQ intends to measure the ability to reason deductively or inductively. Much has come to light to say it is wrong to expect the higher someone’s measure of logical reasoning, math skills, spatial skills, understanding analogies, and verbal skills [IQ] the higher someone’s success is expected. The alternative key to success measurement may be found in thinking, behaving, and communication skills [EI].
EI measures:
- self-awareness,
- self-regulation,
- motivation,
- empathy, and
- social skills
Though IQ continues to find advocates for expected success, my point was to discontinue the culture fit interviews (or IQ) and start emotional intelligence interviews. Isn’t thinking, behaving, and communicating more directly tied to performance and bottom-line growth than how smart someone is?
Again, I am pleased to reference the Boston Sunday Globe Ideas section and again I reference Drake Bennett’s front-page article: The Other Kind of Smart
[open an Acrobat file here]. Here Mr. Bennett reports a legion who support teaching emotional intelligence skills to our children in conjunction to reading, writing, and arithmetic. These advocates propose teaching our children the soft skills of social and emotional knowledge to provide better preparation and skills to manage future success.
Please think again about the opportunity to turn your organization’s recruiting or talent management effort from culture or IQ to emotional awareness.
For those who find this is too touchy-feely and to not pertain to business, I provide a link to Kumbaya.
