Emotional Intelligence for Teams
October is Emotional Intelligence Awareness! Employees here at TalentSmartEQ are delighted there is a whole month dedicated to celebrating the power of EQ. When most people think of emotional intelligence, they think of the skills that individuals use to be effective. Individual EQ is absolutely foundational, but TalentSmart is also passionate about emotional intelligence for teams. Team EQ is the collective skill that takes good teams and makes them great. In recent work with sales teams, we talked about emotional intelligence for teams and how to balance conflict with positivity. When we mine for conflict, rather than skate over potential disagreement, this balance ensures the group is surfacing quieter thoughts and feelings and also creates a norm around the importance of poking holes in perspectives and decisions that will best serve the team.
Try this!
When your team is in full agreement on a specific issue or decision, consider what perspectives you havenât heard or thought through. If everyone agrees, you might even consider requiring 1 member of the group to take the opposing perspective or the âissue minerâ so there is more of a balance in the group. It doesnât have to take longâwe arenât suggesting you delay important decisionsâbut consider âslowing down to speed upâ. Sometimes, that small pause as a group can make all the difference.