It is more important than ever before that sales organizations focus increased attention on emotional intelligence. As a sales performance company focused on turning talent into performance, we see evidence every day that when leaders are more self-aware and more aware of others, they are more successful.
Managers who can understand, manage, and relate to the people they work with can make a much bigger impact on sales performance. This is not a new concept - we’ve been talking about the importance of individualized management for years. But now more than ever, it’s obvious that hiring top talent is just not enough. Since no two people are alike, it’s not enough to hire people (even if they have top-level talent), put them through a standardized onboarding and training program, and then manage them all the same.
You have to really activate people… as a team, and individually.
It is critical for every leader in the organization to have:
- A clear understanding of exactly what you need to be at your very best.
- An understanding of what each person you work with needs to be at their very best as well.
This is how you develop a cohesive and collaborative team.
The Value of Emotional Intelligence
You’ve probably heard the term “emotional intelligence” before. It is that certain “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible and affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence allows you to leverage your own emotions and the emotions of others to create better outcomes for the business, your clients, and those you work with.
Unlike talent, which is hard-wired in us from a very young age, emotional intelligence is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Because of their innate talents, some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others. But it has been proven that even those lacking that natural ability can develop and improve their levels of emotional intelligence and be significantly more effective.
If you are a leader in your company, it is critical that you increase your self-awareness (better understanding yourself) and fine-tune your social awareness (better understanding others), so you can increase employee engagement and challenge each other in the right ways to reach the maximum level of success.
To that end, we work with our clients to build what we call a Personal User Guide.
The Personal User Guide
The process of building a User Guide gives people the opportunity to self-reflect and better understand how they operate and what they need from others to be at their best.
Once the User Guide is built, it becomes a guide for everyone else to understand:
- How they like to communicate
- What drives them nuts
- How they make decisions
- Their natural tendencies in collaboration
- Their problem-solving style
Our goal with these User Guides is to increase transparency, improve feedback, and create a greater sense of openness among a group of people.
Uncovering a colleague’s work style, preferences, values, and quirks in this way can prevent us from wasting time trying to figure out how to best communicate with them and help them be at their best.
This is invaluable information for you to know about the person you report to, those you intersect with, and those that report to you.
Consider how you can build a Personal User Guide today or let us help you!
