MHS recently exhibited at the HRD 2008 Conference: the largest HR development Conference of the year in the UK. During the three-day Conference and Exhibition, a number of learning areas were provided for exhibitors to engage with the delegates and conduct workshop-based learning sessions. MHS chose to present at the Learning Arena given its interactive nature, allowing Paul Vella from our UK office to facilitate a session on “ EI and Star Performers” with more than 100 delegates in attendance. The remit for the sessions is to provide “bite sized” learning whilst offering insight into exhibitors’ products and services, and it proved a great chance for us to connect with a large section of the audience.
Paul, supported by Nicky Schlatter and Teena Dailey, facilitated a number of exercises designed to provide insight and experience of how Emotional Intelligence skills are relevant in identifying and predicting star performers in organisations. After an introductory “ice breaker” Paul used an exercise from the Emotional Self-Awareness section of Marcia Hughes et al.’s Emotional Intelligence in Action, which fully engaged the audience.
The exercise entitled “it just bubbles up” demonstrates the impact emotions can have on situations and interactions and how they can dictate and steer behaviour— sometimes negatively. The added learning is in how we can gain greater control over such situations by paying attention to our emotional signals, be they feelings or physical symptoms. Participants gain greater awareness of how feelings in a given situation are likely to impact their responses. We can then proactively act on that increased self-awareness to leverage greater control over emotionally charged situations, hopefully ensuring more desirable outcomes.
During another exercise, delegates were given definitions of the 15 EQ-i sub scales. They were asked to think of an occupational role they know well, either their current role or a previous one, and were asked to conduct two mock interviews on the person sitting next to them for that position.
During the first interview, participants were not permitted to ask questions that touched on any of the 15 EQ-i areas, so topics such as communication, resilience, team cohesiveness and self-confidence were strictly off the menu. They testified that this method resulted in very dry, stilted, and uninteresting questions which were highly technical and did not allow them to get to know the individual well at all.
The second time, they were only allowed to ask questions which stemmed from the 15 EQ-i subscales. Interestingly they testified that this method allowed them to ask much more job—specific questions, helped them to get to know the interviewee much better, and made the interview far more enriching and interesting.
On a show of hands, all preferred the second interview—both as interviewer and interviewee. The exercise communicated the value and relevance of EQ-based skills in interview performance, and suggests a similar impact on job performance. Through examples and best practice guidelines, participants learned how firms, with the support of MHS, are using the EQ-i to statistically identify star performer profiles for their specific organisations which can then be used in recruitment, competency modeling, succession planning, and training needs analysis.
The MHS team received a great response from the audience, who were fully engaged and came away with a better understanding of how EI can be formally integrated into their organization’s talent strategies.
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