Your long-term success depends more on your Emotional Intelligence , than on your IQ or your professional and technical competence. Learn the five powerful principles of EI, and how you can use them to motivate yourself and communicate with others more authentically. You will leave this session with a 5-step program to nurture your own EI -- and with methods such as 'Nailing Your Shoe to the Wall' with which you can awaken your colleagues to its importance.

Scenario and Client Responses

Some of the nation's top professionals are discovering "another way to be smart" -- a way that is even more important than IQ, in assuring career success.

At Bell Labs in Naperville, Il., for example, where all the professionals have advanced degrees, a small group of engineers were clearly the top performers. Naturally, management was eager to learn what qualities distinguished these "stars" -- and whether those qualities were teachable.

Studies by researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University revealed that the stand-outs use a set of "intra-personal and inter-personal" skills that enable them to get the best out of themselves -- and out of their colleagues. Those skills have been dubbed "Emotional Intelligence" -- and they are proving highly serviceable in fields ranging from engineering and medicine, to merchandising and social service.

Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to regulate our feelings -- positive and negative -- so that they move us where want to go, instead of getting in our way. The main components of EI are maintaining a positive attitude, keeping in touch with your feelings, handling negative emotions and set-backs, and using "people skills."

EI determines how well the members of your organization can:

* motivate themselves to top performance

* empathize with the concerns of others

* profit from their imagination and intuition

* deal with stress and set-backs

Failure in one or more of these areas explains why some professionals fail to achieve their potential -- despite great abilities, training, and opportunity. "Emotional Intelligence can matter more than IQ, in determining one's success and happiness," declares Daniel Goleman in his best-selling book on EI, which has been featured on the cover of TIME and Reader's Digest.

Therefore, many associations are upgrading their offerings in these areas, even though their conferences have consist mostly of highly technical presentations.

A dramatic example is the American Society of Military Comptrollers.

Yes, you read right: these folks are Comptrollers...who are in the Military or in industries doing their main business with the Military.

"Just think of us as accountants," explained one of their meeting managers, "but with sidearms!"

You can imagine the kinds of topics and issues which dominate the agenda of their regional and national conferences. Pretty technical, "left-brain," analytical stuff. And with good reason. These men and women excel in applying logical intelligence to making organizations more efficient and effective. They literally assure that we get the biggest bang from our military bucks.

Do professionals like these need Emotional Intelligence?

I wondered myself, when they approached me to speak. regional But their sophisticated meeting managers assured me that "people skills" were what their members needed for the future.

Among their issues which demand greater Emotional Intelligence are: declining morale caused by "draw-downs" and cutbacks; changes in their own roles, from exercising oversight to providing "internal consulting; and challenges to their personal sense of career and mission.

So we gave it a whirl, starting with some regional conferences in the northeast: New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Boston, New Jersey.

The subjects have included: "Profiting from Your Creativity," "Using Your Whole Brain," "How to Be Twice as Smart," "People-Skills for Success," and "Working with Passion."

Some of the presentations were keynotes to inspire confidence and a positive outlook. Others were workshops devoted to skills like criticizing constructively, handling your own negative emotions, empathizing with others, and instilling a "can-do" team spirit.

It was clear from the start that we'd hit some hot buttons. The initial offering, at a conference in Arlington, was Standing Room Only -- so we hurriedly put in place a "Night Flight" repeat after dinner -- which also drew standees.

The evaluations were so enthusiastic that the Association's journal devoted a whole section to the materials from the sessions. We planned plenary presentations for future conferences.

Now, major presentations have been offered at three successive national conferences -- and each year the attendance has increased.

Susan Nichols, one of the Association's conference planners, summed up the reactions: "Our members saw at once that they could double and triple their effectiveness by upgrading their capacities in this area. You have helped us grow -- not only as better comptrollers, but as human beings."

Copyright © 1999 Ronald Gross

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