Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Case Studies

Driving Large Scale Change Projects: A large iconic retailer

Improvements in emotional intelligence lead to higher levels of employee engagement and the delivery of large-scale change projects on time and on budget.

Background

A large Australian retail organization with many different sub-companies and brands was moving to a shared services model. Large-scale change projects were being facilitated with the assistance of iconic professional service firms to centralize operational functions such as IT, Finance and Human Resources. As can happen with these types of transformation projects, the announcement and commencement of them drove down employee engagement, talent retention and performance, and drove up fear, resistance and negative behaviors amongst employees potentially derailing some of the projects.

The Genos Solution

Genos designed a leadership development program to improve project team leaders capacity to positively influence others, manage resistance to change and improve employee engagement.

Based on the Genos model of Emotional Intelligence the program involved:

1. A Time 1, 360-degree assessment of each leader’s emotional intelligence and levels of employee engagement amongst their direct reports at the outset
2. One full day and two half day workshops on how to utilize emotional intelligence skills to positively influence others and manage resistance to change
3. Seven one-on-one coaching sessions to improve leaders capacity to perceive, understand, express and create positive emotions in the workplace
4. A Time 2, 360-degree assessment of each leader’s emotional intelligence and levels of employee engagement amongst their direct reports to help determine the return on investment of the program

Results

As can be seen in the graph below leaders emotional intelligence improved on all dimensions of the Genos model.

At the conclusion of the program the participating leaders were more self-aware of the impact their behavior had on others. They were better at expressing their own emotions and therefore being perceived as more genuine and trustworthy. They were also reasoning better with emotional information and managing and controlling emotions more effectively. The largest improvement occurred on the emotional reasoning dimension.

Before the program leaders were thinking rationally, making decisions based mostly on facts and figures. Indeed the solutions they were trying to execute were right, but how they were executing them was driving resistance and disengagement. At the conclusion of the program leaders results showed they were combining this strength with more emotional reasoning, making decisions based on facts and taking into account how people were feeling or likely to feel about decisions made and how to communicate them on that basis. They were consulting their staff more and making people feel more included and how best to implement the change initiatives.

What was the impact on employee engagement? As shown below employee engagement improved in a number of areas.

As a result of experiencing more emotionally intelligent leadership, employees felt the team’s interpersonal effectiveness had improved, as had their ability to organize and plan work. The survey also showed improvements in employees’ perceptions about the quality and timeliness of their work. People were less likely to leave and felt more valued by the broader business. Indeed the program ensured change projects in the area were delivered on time and on budget with much less talent attrition and stress.

Participant Feedback

The Genos program helped us realize you can have the right technical solution but unless you can inspire people to help you deliver it, the solution is worthless. The skills we learned on the Genos program will stay with us forever and be useful not only on other change projects we drive but also outside of the workplace in our private lives as well.

Improving Sales Revenue: sanofi-aventis

Improvements in emotional intelligence lead to a 13% improvement in sales revenue delivering approximately $6 for every $1 invested in the program within a 10-month time frame.

Background

sanofi-aventis is the fourth largest pharmaceutical company worldwide with nearly 105,000 employees in over 110 countries. Genos had previously conducted a research study with pharmaceutical sales representatives showing a direct relationship between sales reps emotional intelligence and their performance measured in revenue generated. While convinced of the relationship, sanofi-aventis wanted to examine whether the emotional intelligence of sales representatives could be improved and whether such improvements would result in increased sales revenue.

The Genos Solution

To factor out market influences and to allow for a more exact comparison, Genos asked sanofi-aventis to select a large group of representatives who were all similar in terms of tenure with the organization and sales performance. Following this request sanofi-aventis selected 70 sales representatives for Genos to work with who were subsequently randomly split into two groups: a Development Group who would participate in an emotional intelligence development program; and a Control Group, who would be assessed (in terms of their emotional intelligence and sales performance only).

Genos designed an emotional intelligence development program for both the sales representatives and their sales managers to participate in. The program involved:

1. A Time 1, 360-degree assessment of sales managers emotional intelligence and an assessment of their sales reps performance at the outset
2. One full day and two half day workshops on how to utilize emotional intelligence skills in sales
3. Eight small group (n=5) coaching sessions for the sales managers
4. Five emotional intelligence-mentoring sessions between sales managers and their reps — the purpose of these sessions was for managers to fine tune their sales representatives application of emotional intelligence on sales calls
5. A Time 2, 360-degree assessment sales managers emotional intelligence and re-assessment of their sales reps performance

Results

On average, the emotional intelligence of the sales managers improved by 18 percent. As can be seen in the graph below this helped facilitate an average 13% improvement in the Development Group’s sales performance in comparison to the Control Group’s. There was a 7.1% improvement in the first month following the program, a 15.4% improvement the month after and 13.4% improvement the month after that (as measured by retail sales revenue by territory). The revenue of the Control Group stayed flat and in the same revenue band during this period.

The improvements in revenue generated by the Development Group returned approximately $6 for every $1 sanofi-aventis invested in the pilot program. This is one of the only studies of its type on emotional intelligence showing direct improvements on the bottom line as a result of improvements in emotional intelligence. Indeed this program won the 2006 Australian Institute of Learning and Development Achievement Award for an outstanding contribution to the practice of learning and development.

Participant Feedback

Feedback from the participants showed the program not only helped improve the sales performance of reps and their managers, it also helped them improve their relationships with each other. At the time employees were navigating a difficult time within the business as bumps from the merger were ironed out and the two cultures integrated. As one participant put it:

I have seen improvements in behavior that have increased the bottom line with sales reps. From a management perspective, increased skills that have lead to more buy-in, acceptance, spirit improved, and better communication.

Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement: IBM

Background

IBM have been a long standing client of Genos utilizing our emotional intelligence assessment and development programs to help improve coaching and mentoring skills in their managers and the personal effectiveness of their process improvement personnel. To help further the business case internally Genos and IBM recently ran a research project in their business looking at the relationship between leaders’ emotional intelligence and levels of employee engagement amongst their direct reports.

There is a wealth of literature showing that high levels of employee engagement and a greater experience of positive emotions amongst employees define high performing workplaces as shown in the graph below.

Reference: HPWs = High Performing Workplaces; LPWs = Low Performing Workplaces Boedker, C. et al. (2011). Leadership, culture and management practices of high performing workplaces in Australia: The high performance workplace index.

We proposed that empirical evidence showing a relationship between a leader’s emotional intelligence and employee engagement would help further the business case that this is the key attribute in managers (i.e., their ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions) that helps facilitate a high performance workforce where people are engaged and have positive emotional experiences.

The Genos Solution

Genos assessed the emotional intelligence of over 200 leaders of people in the business with our emotional intelligence 360-degree assessment. Total emotional intelligence scores as rated by others were determined and averaged. We also assessed the engagement of 438 employees reporting to this leadership group. The Genos employee engagement survey measures an individual’’s intellectual and emotional commitment to their work and the organization. It is measured empirically by asking employees to indicate the extent to which they demonstrate the following four value creating behaviors (2 questions measure each), as shown below:

Result

There was a strong positive relationship between leaders’ emotional intelligence an employee engagement. In the graph shown below each dot represents an employee’s engagement score. The x axis of the graph represents leader’s emotional intelligence as a percentile score where scores between 1 and 39 are low; 40 to 59 are average and 60 and above are high.

As you can see, being low or average in emotional intelligence results in wide and varying levels of employee engagement where employees are disengaged, not engaged and engaged. These types of engagement scores are typical of low and average performing organizations. Conversely, high levels of emotional intelligence, indeed total emotional intelligence scores above the 75th percentile, result in consistently high engagement scores. These types of engagement levels amongst employees are typical of high performance organizations. Indeed Gallup’s research has shown that organizations with this type of engagement level amongst employees earn 3.9 times earnings per share greater than like organizations with wide and varied engagement results.