The roles of people participating in Emotional Intelligence (EI) training programs have ranged from executives to administrative staff. While the challenges and pressures people face at various organizational levels are quite different, the emotions they experience are the same. Developing EI skills enables people to become internally self-managed and capable of making their greatest contributions. And when employees work in that zone of peak performance, so does the organization. Below are examples of how development of EI skills can benefit business professionals such as sales people, customer service representatives and technical professionals (i.e., information technologists, analysts, engineers, scientists, etc).
Sales People:
Sales People frequently work with difficult prospects and customers. They often find themselves in adversarial situations over price, features, delivery schedules, etc. As a result of these situations, the sales person and the customer can feel anxious, fearful, frustrated and sometimes angry. This can lead to a vicious negative emotional cycle where sales decline, sales people are unmotivated, and customers are unsatisfied and leave.
When sales people enhance their EI skills, they become more capable of controlling or managing themselves and thus the situation. The likelihood of the customer “pushing their buttons” diminishes. They are more able stay focused on the key issues and not “give-away-the-store”. Research shows that the more optimistic a sales person is, the higher their volume and sales dollars. Optimism leads to persistence which leads to more sales. Being able to empathize with the customer allows for faster, more effective problem-solving and better communication. Developing strong, positive relationships with customers, through thick and thin, ensures higher sales and better cooperation when problems do arise.
Customer Service Representatives:
Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) deal with angry, frustrated customers continuously throughout their day. Through no fault of their own, they can find themselves being verbally abused. The customer’s anger, frustration and rage can cause representatives to become nervous, mad, disgusted, and angry themselves. If the representative does not have a high level of EI skills, the discussion may escalate and require the intervention of the CS Supervisor. Or worse, inadequate skills may cause the company to lose that customer. When a customer becomes upset, he or she typically tells 10-15 friends about the poor treatment.
CSRs who have enhanced their EI skills can easily manage their emotional reactiveness to angry customers, maintaining a calm, polite and sincere attitude and conversation with customers in-the-moment. Loyal customers tell their friends. Higher customer loyalty leads to higher profitability.
Technical Professionals:
Technical Professionals are constantly under pressure to do more with less faster, better, and cheaper. They work long, hard hours to complete projects. They are challenged to create and innovate, interact with a multitude of people from different functions, and do tasks, in many cases, they would like to avoid. As a result, technical professionals may feel resentful, agitated, frustrated, anxious, and stressed-out much of the day. They may experience what is known as “emotional hijacking” which is a physiological response in the brain brought on by negative emotions that literally keeps people from thinking clearly. Creativity is blocked, communication is hampered, and more mistakes and errors are made.
Enhancing the Technical Professional’s EI skills provides them with what they never were taught in school. They learn how to manage their own emotional reactiveness to people and situations and how to build Interpersonal Skills that allow them to get other technical colleagues to help them when they need it. Enhancing EI skills increases the likelihood that projects are completed on schedule, using the best, innovative thinking available.
Results:
Business professionals have achieved some impressive results as a result of attending EI training programs. Participants have reported a range of 20% to 35% increase in personal productivity, 15% to 35% increased teamwork, a 20% to 40% reduction in stress and worry, and similar improvements in management of emotional reactiveness, personal motivation, creativity, work/life balance and more. These increases can translate into positive return on investment for the organization.
Byron Stock
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/emotional-intelligence-skills-for-business-professionals-688704.html
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