Good working relationships all a matter of trust

Most of us would like to feel competent and capable in our jobs and to enjoy good working relationships. But we'd also like to know there's a supportive environment when we feel pressured, or challenged by irate customers or annoying colleagues. But this takes emotional savvy both on an organisational and on an individual level.

Essentially, it's about understanding the way our thoughts and feelings shape our behaviour; and, ultimately, what impact this has on others, says Susan Cartwright, the professor of organisational psychology at Britain's Manchester Business School.

"People who are emotionally intelligent are in touch with their own emotions and those of other people," she says.

It has always been thought that females were naturals when it came to understanding their fellow human beings.

"The argument has been that, because of socialisation, boys are not encouraged to show emotion, or certainly not in the same way. It has been suggested that women are more emotionally intelligent because they haven't had that aspect of themselves censored out of their lives.

"But I've done a lot of work on gender difference and emotional intelligence, and I haven't found any significant difference between men and women at work."

It would be easy to imagine that an emphasis on "soft skills" in the office could lead to an inefficient, touchy-feely organisation that wastes time considering its emotional navel. In reality, greater sensitivity to oneself and others leads to improved working conditions and better performance.

A 2003 study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that a positive working environment correlated with improved outcomes whatever the sector. For the financial sector it meant improved share prices and conversion rates, while within the health sector it led to an increase in patient survival rates.

What's also obvious from such research is that emotional intelligence must be facilitated and supported by the company ethos.

"Increasingly businesses recognise that in order to get the best out of people, the structures within their organisations need to provide opportunities to share and exchange," says the CIPD adviser Angela Baron, who manages research into links between performance and management style.

"Organisations are only going to be successful, they are only going to make money, if they can appropriate knowledge from the people who work there and embed that in their services."

But they've got to be offering something in return, and it needs to be more than money.

"People have to feel emotionally involved in the organisation, and feel that by realising organisational goals they reach their own goals. Employees need to be emotionally attached to their company."

But Baron believes that emotional intelligence is good communication by another name. Others would say it goes far beyond this, and that individuals need to learn about themselves before they can put their message across.

Cartwright is a consultant to both public and private sectors and says that people can learn to be emotionally intelligent.

A one-day-a-week course over six weeks that focused on self-awareness and the articulating of submerged emotions led to an increase in emotional intelligence among a group of retail managers. Cartwright asked them to keep an "emotion diary" and encouraged them to externalise their feelings and express them appropriately in a workshop environment.

The results of this study, published in the journal Stress and Health in 2003, showed that not only could the participants manage their emotions better, but they also experienced significantly less stress and better health.

Daniel Goleman, the co-chairman of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organisations at Rutgers University, would not be surprised by the results. His books on the subject of emotional intelligence cite many studies that say the same thing.

"People who are unable to know their feelings are at a tremendous disadvantage," he says. "In a sense they are emotional illiterates, oblivious to a realm of reality that is crucial for success in life as a whole, let alone work.

"We always feel some mood or other, though we typically do not tune into it. In the rush and pressure of our work days, our minds are preoccupied planning the next thing or being immersed in the present task. It takes a mental pause to become sensitive to the subterranean murmur of mood. And it's a moment we rarely take. Instead, we let it build up and boil over."

Unfortunately, if you are filled with feelings of distress, uneasiness and distrust, it is bound to affect your interaction with colleagues and clients.

"A lot of conflicts that exist between people are about misreading emotion," adds Cartwright. "Someone might be verbally angry but what they are actually feeling is more about being upset."

Feeling empathetic towards your fellow workers is all very well, but if you work in a company focused purely on the bottom line, life could become uncomfortable.

"In the traditional 'command and control' style of management it's going to be very difficult to develop emotional intelligence," says Baron. "If it's really going to develop properly you've got to have a climate of trust where people trust and respect each other, where people believe they will be listened to, and where people talk to and share information with each other. That won't happen overnight. It will require a change of climate and practice of managers and others in the organisation. Culture can facilitate or inhibit emotional development."

While we can develop emotional intelligence over time we can lose it quickly.

"IQ doesn't change very much over time, but my research shows that levels of emotional intelligence fluctuate," says Cartwright. "It can wane by not being practised and depends very much on the emotional climate you are in. Choose to work in an organisation where talking about emotion is taboo and inevitably you will bury your feelings."

Cartwright says that, unless you can change company culture, you should find somewhere where you are better suited.

Fortunately organisations are taking note of employee needs.

"Increasingly, management development is emphasising people skills," says Cartwright. "Traditionally employees were promoted purely because of their skills. These days organisations realise that being technically clever is just not enough."

- INDEPENDENT