Assignment Topic: Emotional intelligence and change manager

 

Assignment Topic: Emotional intelligence and change manager  

Baral Abita                                                                                     

Summary

Changes to the business environment (technical, economical, political, legal & social) affect the business and result in business change. Change management is a step by step process and a systematic approach to dealing with change, in an organization or on the individual level. Change in organization may be related to downsizing of organization and reduction in wages. Change manager take responsibilities of persuading its employee to accept change, without resistance to change. Emotional intelligence is a tool which change manager can use as a guidance to make employee ready for change. Emotional intelligence is ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Emotional intelligence guide manager in self awareness and management with respond to social awareness and management of employees and other stakeholder.  Therefore it is important for change manger to posses’ high quality of emotional intelligence.

McKinsey & company (2008:1) global survey which examined organizations transformation concluded that organizations need to change constantly’ (Burnes, 2009). Change management is a step by step process and a systematic approach dealing with change, in an organization or in an individual level. According to Jeff Hiatt (2004), ‘change management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of business change, to achieve the required outcome, and to realize that business changes effectively within the social infrastructure of the workplace.’ For bringing change in an organization change managers should evolved as human changes, technology changes and environmental changes. 

Change requires modification of functions which is previously presented by the organization or expansion by introduction of new function. In general change can be terms as evolutionary, and are difficult to accommodate as they cannot be predicated at the time the system is designed (Burnes, 2009). Change within organizations, teams or individuals can take place at several different levels, from small step change to massive cultural change. Change manager take responsibility for supervising the change and to bring effective results and make the smallest number of change for the greatest benefit. Change management is about persuading people to accept the change (wake, 2010). Managing and persuading employees for change is most different task. Emotional intelligence acts as an important tool for bringing change in an organization, Therefore, for making employee ready for change emotional intelligence is important.

      What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is concerns with the ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought. “The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’ is emotional intelligence” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Emotional intelligence is the capability to carry out exact reason which focused on emotions; the ability to use emotions; emotional knowledge to develop thought (Goleman, 1995a); recognising our own feelings and those of others, motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships’(mayor et al, 2010).

Goleman gave a model that was mixed with five broad areas of emotional intelligence which represent: (a) knowing one’s emotions, (b) managing emotions, (c) motivating oneself, (d) recognizing emotions in others, and (e) handling relationships. Goleman recognize that “IQ contributes about 20% of the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80% to other factors”. 20% figures with which general people agree is obtained IQ are traditional intelligence which are technical skills, mathematical knowledge, intellect and education. Goleman believe “emotional intelligence can be as powerful, and at the times more powerful, than IQ” (Salovey P, 2004). It is more important to be able to continue in the face of difficulty and to get along well with co-worker and sub-ordinates than to have an extra 10 or 15 points of IQ. Emotional intelligence can help in understanding co-worker and sub-ordinates.  However, emotional intelligence is criticised for lack of scientific and theoretical evidence. Furthermore, it is not able to prove how practices of those techniques will help people in area of self awareness, self management, social awareness and social management.   

According to (Stella Cottrell, 2003) emotional intelligence involves:

·         Knowing and understanding the suitable feelings for the conditions.

·         Experiencing the suitable feelings for the conditions

·         Expressing feelings suitable to the conditions

·         Creating opportunities to articulate feelings which cannot be articulated fully in the original conditions

According to McCreevy, “More than 90% of organisations have undergone change of one sort or another during the last few years usually involving downsizing but, for a variety of reasons, change has not worked or has not delivered the expected results”.

“Mishra et al (1998) indicate that typically where downsizing takes place a 10% reduction in staff results in a 1.5% reduction in costs, stock price of a firm that has downsized rises. [However], Profitability rises in only 50% of forms that downsize”. The main reason for this is due improper change management which lack knowledge of emotional intelligence. If the change manager is not aware of employees’ value and view regarding change then change in organization may not be successful.

Emotional intelligence is essential ingredient in effective leadership and success of organizations which plays a fundamental role in managing relationships by satisfying the employees of organization that supports productivity and profit because “when people feel good, they work at their best” (Goleman et al., 2002). The research found manager with high emotional intelligence proficiency has the prospective to improve performance on both personal and organizational levels. However, the critics argue managers with high emotional intelligence competencies are likely to provide their organizations with a unique contribution which has not yet received a large amount empirical attention and support, principally with observation to various work-related attitudes, behaviour (Carmeli, 2003).

In 1998, a stream of research conducted by Kathleen Cavallo and Dottie Brienza on company Johnson and Johnson on a randomly selected 358 managers, ‘to accesses the importance of Emotional Intelligence in leadership success across Johnson and Johnson consumers companies’. Managers who received performance ratings 4.1 or greater on 5 point scale were rated significantly higher than other participants in all four of the emotional intelligence dimensions of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills by supervisors and subordinates (Carmeli, 2003).

The process of change in an organization happens in three primary levels with a comprehensive process: the individual employees in the organization, the teams in which they work, and the organization’s culture. For this approach, change manager should applies an intellectual understanding of emotional intelligence to organizations by implementing an action-based strategy which influences the passion, value, perception and dreams of its employees, team members; for generating sustainable change (Goleman, Boyatzis & MCKee, 2001)

The change in an organization refer to the changes in organizational cultures, organization structure change (job rotation and job enlargement ), downsizing of company, reduction of wages rates or positive changes regarding organization. The change managers as a leader should act as emotional guide for employees to establish the positive and emotional climate of change.’ Change manager should try to eliminate state of disagreement in which employee are driven by negative emotions emanating from command and control behaviours that leverage fear, embarrassment, or other coercive measures as a means of motivating people. Emotional intelligence creates a dynamic condition for a change manager to address issues associated with emotional competencies of employees. These competencies are listed in four categories associated with two general domains

 

       Fig. 1 Competences of emotional intelligence

1.      Personal Competence

a.       Self awareness: According to Aristotle “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. Self-awareness is the capability to understand one’s emotions and be aware of their influence in life. Self-awareness consists of competencies of emotion of self awareness, self assessment, and self confident (Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008). It help change manager to engages self-assessment that allocates understanding of own strengths as well as self-confidence. Furthermore, it assists change manager to understand own emotional strengths and emotional weaknesses and how to overcome those weaknesses.

b.      Self management: The competencies of self-management are emotional self-control, clearness of vision; adapt skill, achievement, initiative optimism, dependability, conscientiousness, achievement orientation and initiative (Goleman et al 2002). Self management assist change manager in key areas of planning & organising for future, setting goals, taking control, managing time, dealing with difficult people & situations, etc. Self management enable change manager to understand their emotions and acts as per those emotions which provide strengths for them. It also provides an opportunity for manager to overcome those emotions which are threat for them. Self management also help manager to develop skills which best suit their emotions.

2. Social Competence

a.       Social awareness: Social awareness is maintained by empathy, organizational awareness that enables the change manager to distinguish the relationships and politics of the organization, and provide service that dig up the needs of employees of the organization. Social awareness assist change managers in key areas of compassion understand others needs, building trust with employees, questioning & listening skills to employees and so on. Moreover, social awareness guides manager to be aware of emotion of employees and stakeholder and their core value, needs and emotion.

b.      Social management: Social management is relationship management which requires developed skills in inspirational leadership to motivate and influence that allows for persuasion of employees. Social management assist change managers in developing change channel through feedback and guidance, conflict management, building bonds that encourage and maintain relationships in organization, and teamwork and cooperation that support mutual aid and team building (Goleman et al 2002). Social management help change manager to respond individual employee as per his/her own emotions and make them satisfied by providing feedback and guidance which best match his/her own emotions.

The research has shown that people with high emotional intelligence competencies are more likely to gain success in the workplace than people with less emotionally intelligent (Carmeli, 2003). Particularly, social skills are essential for executive level leaders and change managers; as individuals who rise up the organizational hierarchy; social intelligence assist manager to determinant value, factor of motivation of employees (Hooijberg et al., 1997; Zaccaro, 2001).

Companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google can be taken as great example of how change management can lead organization in success. In these organization change manager is able to understand their own emotional strength and weakness, emotion of employee and that of customers. Though the change is frequent (everyday) in these organizations; change manager is able to manage those changes effectively making all employees highly motivated and highly satisfied. The most important thing in an organization is to satisfy the employees in any situation. Change manager plays a crucial role in bringing change in an organization by understand employees’ emotions. Emotional intelligence help manager in understanding organizational needs, employee needs, core need of customers, convince of customer, what are demand of market and how those demand and need can be achieved. Hence there is no any resistance to change and they are successful.

The valuable business attitudes such as enthusiasm, commitment, and independent initiative begin from deep learning which are managed by emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence assists change manager to differentiate between workers who are willingly commits to the purpose of change in organization and who are not committed to the purpose of change in organization. Emotional intelligence help manager to recognize the resistance factor which hinder the change in the organization. Human resources are the most important factor that enables the change in the organization. If the human resources are not ready to change then advance technology, sufficient financial resource and proper location will not be sufficient enough to make organization success. Therefore passion and enthusiasm are other essential emotions of the change manager which assists the employee to persuade and influence to make change happen in an organization. Change manager as a body reflects the emotional maturity and balance of the organization as a whole rather than that of the individual in isolation from the community (Goleman et al, 2001).  

NLP is Neuro-Linguistic-Programming.  Neuro refers to mind and body (the five senses -visual, auditory, touch, smell, taste); linguistic refers to language (including body language) and the way we structure thought; programming refers to programming - the way an individual organise thought into actions or productive or non-productive behaviour. “NLP is a method of refining and enhancing the skills you already have- the skills for getting results in the world, for interacting with other people and for mastering own limitless potential (Wake, 2010).  According to Freeth, (2005) NLP is a powerful tool that can be used to facilities change in self and other people. NLP is the most advanced technology which has to be developed for developing emotional intelligence. Change manager take responsibility for supervising the change and to bring effective results and make the smallest number of change for the greatest benefit. NLP guide change manager in principle for logistic level of change. NLP changes mindsets of manager and employees by focusing and motivating an individual into a positive state, thereby empowering an individual to face challenges and transforming the business (Agness, 2010). However, NLP is criticised for lack of scientific evidence.

Conclusion

In conclusion, change management is about persuading employees to accept change. Today to get success manager has to work on more consequences of changes. Change in an organization indicates changes in organizational cultures, change in organizational structure (job rotation and job enlargement), downsizing of company, reduction of wages rates or positive changes regarding organization. Therefore it is importance for change manager to understand vision and mission behind change and also be able to persuade employees about the possible benefit from the change. Emotional intelligence guide manager to be proactive. Emotional  intelligence aren’t simply what generally people do and think that affects their ability to cope, manage and succeed, but also how they manage their own feelings. Employees are the most important resources that enable the change in the organization. If the employees are not ready to change then all other resources such as advance technology, sufficient financial resource and good location will not be enough to make organization success. Therefore it is necessary to make employee ready for change by understanding their emotion. With emotional intelligence manager can understand needs of employee and motivate them accordingly.  Emotional intelligence helps manager to aware of their strength, willing to express, understand emotion of other people.  Hence it is importance for manager to posses’ higher percentage of emotional intelligence.

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