Industry News
Enhancing Emotional Intelligence for Influencing and Persuading…
Posted: 02/03/09Enhancing Emotional Intelligence for Influencing and Persuading…
Dr. Christopher Speechley, Advanced Solutions
This marks the launch of a series of meetings in Milton Keynes, in line with the policy of the Association to encourage regional events.
Making Knowledge Count
Successful performance results from more than the possession of technical knowledge and there is substantial evidence suggesting that emotionally intelligent leaders are among the most successful performers. We also know that the benefits of emotional intelligence extend too many kinds of working relationships.
In this session the development and implementation of a programme which has at its heart an Emotional Simulator was described. It was developed for senior physicians in a leading pharmaceutical company. These physicians have excellent technical and analytical skills, but our research in the organisation identified that the very attributes that make them innovative, insightful and analytical, can act against them when they are trying to persuade others.
Unless they can convince and inspire other people their knowledge simply doesn’t count.
The Research
We identified 60 case studies of real life business critical situations. In more than two-thirds of the case studies the ability to successfully influence and persuade was vital, but individuals’ abilities to do so often fell short. This didn’t seem to be due to a lack of knowledge of influencing techniques, but rather to emotional reactions that individuals were unable to successfully manage in themselves, and to a lack of sensitivity in recognising and handling the emotional reactions of others – key aspects of emotional intelligence.
The Solution – An Emotional Simulator
The physicians experience realistic simulations of business critical situations followed by detailed feedback about the impact of their behaviour, and receive coaching support to reflect on their emotional reactions. To date we have run more than 200 simulated situations involving 73 physicians. From these simulations we have identified influencing and persuasion strategies that were successful in more than 90% of cases.
Key areas covered in the presentation:
• The interplay of analytical skills and emotional intelligence and their impact on influencing.
• How the Emotional Simulator develops emotional intelligence and reduces the gap between how we think we behave and how others perceive us.
• Key elements leading to successful influencing.