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Human Resource Mangement

Notes In a national insurance company, insurance sales agents who were weak in emotional
competencies such as self-confidence, initiative, and empathy sold policies with an average
premium of $54,000. Those who were very strong in at least 5 of 8 key emotional
competencies sold policies worth $114,000 (Hay/McBer Research and Innovation Group,
1997).

In a large beverage firm, using standard methods to hire division presidents, 50% left
within two years, mostly because of poor performance. When they started selecting based
on emotional competencies such as initiative, self-confidence, and leadership, only 6% left
in two years. Furthermore, the executives selected based on emotional competence were
far more likely to perform in the top third based on salary bonuses for performance of the
divisions they led: 87% were in the top third. In addition, division leaders with these
competencies outperformed their targets by 15 to 20 percent. Those who lacked them
under-performed by almost 20% (McClelland, 1999).
Research by the Centre for Creative Leadership has found that the primary causes of
derailment in executives involve deficits in emotional competence. The three primary
ones are: difficulty in handling change; not being able to work well in a team; and poor
interpersonal relations.

After supervisors in a manufacturing plant received training in emotional competencies
such as how to listen better and help employees resolve problems on their own, lost-time
accidents were reduced by 50 percent, formal grievances were reduced from an average of
15 per year to 3 per year, and the plant exceeded productivity goals by $250,000 (Pesuric &
Byham, 1996). In another manufacturing plant where supervisors received similar training,
production increased 17 percent. There was no such increase in production for a group of
matched supervisors who were not trained (Porras & Anderson, 1981).One of the foundations
of emotional competence – accurate self-assessment – was associated with superior
performance among several hundred managers from 12 different organizations (Boyatzis,
1982). Another emotional competence, the ability to handle stress, was linked to success as
a store manager in a retail chain. The most successful store managers were those best able
to handle stress. Success was based on net profits, sales per square foot, sales per employee,
and per dollar inventory investment (Lusch & Serpkeuci, 1990). Optimism is another
emotional competence that leads to increased productivity. New salesmen at Met Life
who scored high on a test of "learned optimism" sold 37 percent more life insurance in
their first two years than pessimists (Seligman, 1990).
A study of 130 executives found that how well people handled their own emotions
determined how much people around them preferred to deal with them (Walter V. Clarke
Associates, 1997). For sales reps at a computer company, those hired based on their
emotional competence were 90% more likely to finish their training than those hired on
other criteria (Hay/McBer Research and Innovation Group, 1997). At a national furniture
retailer, sales people hired based on emotional competence had half the dropout rate
during their first year (Hay/McBer Research and Innovation Group, 1997). For 515 senior
executives analyzed by the search firm Egon Zehnder International, those who were
primarily strong in emotional intelligence were more likely to succeed than those who
were strongest in either relevant previous experience or IQ. In other words, emotional
intelligence was a better predictor of success than either relevant previous experience or
high IQ. More specifically, the executive was high in emotional intelligence in 74 percent
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