Emotional Intelligence and The New Rules of Work. Jason Hughes February What is Emotional Intelligence? Talk Overview: Central Concerns

Transcription

1 Emotional Intelligence and The New Rules of Work Jason Hughes February 2005 The rules for work are changing. We re being judged by a new yardstick: not just how smart we are, or by our training or expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other. This yardstick is increasingly applied in choosing who will be hired and who will not, who will be let go and who retained, who passed over and who promoted (Goleman 1998: 3). Talk Overview: Central Concerns What is Emotional Intelligence? What is Emotional Intelligence (EI)? To what extent does EI constitute new rules for work? How and why are the rules of work changing? What might EI signal for the future of organisational life? The Happy and Sad Endings. Reaction to IQ models of intelligence Example of Judy...our schools and our culture fixate on academic abilities, ignoring emotional intelligence, a set of traits some might call it character that also matters immensely for our personal destiny. Emotional life is a domain that, as surely as math or reading, can be handled with greater or lesser skill, and requires its unique set of competencies. And how adept a person is at those is crucial to understanding why one person thrives in life while another, of equal intellect, dead-ends (Goleman 1996: 36).

2 EI: Inter- and Intrapersonal Skills Knowing one s emotions Managing emotions Motivating oneself Recognising emotions in others Handling relationships What does EI look like? The EI Male IQ pure type, Male The male IQ pure type is a caricature of the academic. He excels in thought and endeavours of the mind, but is impoverished in understanding feelings and his personal life. He has a wide range of intellectual interests and abilities. He is productive and ambitious, but is often critical and condescending, fastidious and inhibited, uneasy with sexuality and sensual experience, unexpressive and detached, and emotionally bland and cold (1996: 45). EI pure type, Male The male EI (emotionally intelligent) pure type, by contrast, is usually cheerful. He is not prone to worry. He is ethical, sympathetic, and caring. His emotional life is rich, but appropriate : he is comfortable with himself. What does EI look like? The EI Female IQ pure type, Female The female IQ pure type is articulate, confident and intellectual. She has a wide range of interests, but is introspective; she is hesitant to express her anger openly (though she often does so indirectly). EI pure type, Female By contrast, the female EI pure type is assertive, good at expressing feelings directly, positive, outgoing and gregarious. She does not express feelings through outbursts. She is open to new experiences. [U]nlike the women purely high in IQ, they rarely feel anxious or guilty, or sink into rumination (1996: 45). EI in the Workplace Informed Psychometric Tests. Competence and Emotional Intelligence Guardian, October 2000, any potential candidate for a FE college headship should heed two words of advice emotional intelligence, since before long this buzz phrase will be inked on the blotters of every governors interview board in the sector (3rd October 2000: 46) Emotionally Intelligent Lecturer (Mortiboys 2002)

3 Why These New Rules Now? Scientific discovery: Le Doux on brain functioning Move towards service and knowledge economy Other changes... Changes in the Nature of Work: Emotional Labour Surface and Deep Acting Hochschild: Proliferation of emotional labour in service economies. Emotion Work vs. Emotional Labour Surface and Deep Acting Emotions come to gain an Exchange Value Changes in the Nature of Work II: Not About Acting at All... Shifts in the control strategies pursued in organisations:! From compliance to commitment EI: Emancipation or Tyranny of Emotional Controls? EI is not a script; not an emotional uniform, the importance of individual discretion.! Organisational culture as the vehicle for control EI expresses the real me... But is this potentially even more problematic?! Colonisation of employee subjectivity! Aesthetic Labour: Performative Identity! Living our emotional lives at work Emotional Uniform versus Emotional Mufti? Emotional Freedom or an Intensification of Emotional Control?

4 The Sad Ending I: Radiohead Fitter, happier, more productive, Comfortable, Not drinking too much, Regular exercise at the gym Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries, At ease, Eating well, A patient better driver, No paranoia, Careful to all animals, Keep in contact with old friends (Enjoy a drink now and then), Fond but not in love, Charity standing orders (1997 Radiohead song Fitter Happier from the album OK Computer. UK: Parlaphone. Please note, the lyrics have been edited for purposes of brevity). The Sad Ending II: Intensification of Control Our Emotional Lives are Colonised... you see someone yawn in a meeting, leap to the assumption that he is bored, and then skip to the more damaging overgeneralization that he doesn t care about the meeting, anyone else s thoughts, or the entire project. So you tell him, I m disappointed in you. In this... method, that comment gets listed under a heading: What Was Said or Done. The more critical data, though, is in another column, Unspoken Thoughts and Feelings : that the yawn meant he was bored and doesn t care about the meeting, anyone else or even the entire project. In that column, too, go our own feelings of hurt and anger... these hidden assumptions... can be tested against reality... For instance, we may discover the yawn was not from boredom but rather exhaustion due to getting up in the night with a cranky infant (1998: 292 3). The Happy Ending: Emotions with Use value as well as Exchange Value [EI] challenges the dominant model of rationality in organizational effectiveness and, in doing so, exposes some of the traditional organizational oppressions which have emotional underpinnings and consequences such as sexism, harassment, lack of compassion, prejudice and exploitation (Fineman 2000: 112). Conclusion: Between the Felt and the Expressed Sad and Happy Endings are Extremes Bounded Emotionality as a Mid-Way Course?!...the expression of a wider range of emotions than is usually condoned... while stressing the importance of maintaining interpersonally sensitive, variable boundaries between what is felt and what is expressed (Martin et al. 2000) Tyranny of Appropriateness Care must be taken to avoid replacing a prescribed organisational rationality with a prescribed organisational emotionality, albeit in the name of what is intelligent.

5 References Goleman, D. (1996) Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ, London: Bloomsbury. Goleman, D. (1998) Working With Emotional Intelligence, London: Bloombsbury. Martin, J., K. Knopoff and C. Beckman Bounded emotionality at the Body Shop in Fineman, S. (ed.) (2000) Emotion in Organizations, London: Sage. Mortiboys, A. (2002) The Emotionally Intelligent Lecturer, Staff and Educational Development Association, 12, Birmingham: University of Central England. Sokal, A. and J. Bricmont (1997) Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers Abuse of Science, London: Profile Books.