There is an emotional component behind most of the things that will make or break employees’ and leaders’ success. When someone first hears the word emotion, it may suggest emotional intelligence. Developing emotional intelligence is one important factor that has been demonstrated to lead to success. However, that is just part of the picture.
Emotions are a big part of engagement as well. Engagement is the emotional commitment the employee feels toward the organization and its goals. Emotion creeps up when discussing soft skills, culture, sales skills, and just about anything regarding success at work. Soft skills include components such as interpersonal skills. Having strong interpersonal skills are a big part of emotional intelligence.
Sales skills often require tapping into consumer’s emotions. Sales skills are a big part of being successful as an entrepreneur as well. Some of the top emotion-based issues employees, leaders, and entrepreneurs face, involve managing emotions, finding ways to become emotionally committed and having others become emotionally committed, and developing ways to improve emotional awareness in others. What makes a top salesperson successful? They find an emotional need or pain. Sales are based on people’s greed, fear, envy, pride, shame, and a host of other emotions that lead to a feeling of emotional reward. When creating content for consumers, marketing professionals consider the motions that design, color, and images will have on them.
Gamification has been added to the workplace to develop employees on an emotional level. Emotions are powerful and impact learning. Training programs must have aesthetically pleasing aspects, or negative emotions could result. Gaming has become a strong focus for Millennials as they see it as a form of entertainment. However, it can also be used to create positive emotions to improve training and productivity. Plutchik’s psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion explained there are eight primary emotions which include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. These emotions trigger behavior. He suggested eight primary bipolar emotions: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. Up to 90% of purchasing decisions are based on an emotional response.
People in sales situations, at work, in school, or at home, may have difficulty expressing emotions or even understanding their emotions or those of others. This difficulty has led to a multitude of problems that impact behaviors. Most people are hired for their skills and fired for their behaviors. This problem with behaviors is a big part of what employers call soft skills. Soft skills can include a multitude of issues including lack of effective interactions with others. The sooner employers realize that emotions are not just a part of emotional intelligence, but engagement, productivity, sales, and a vast array of outcomes that can be either positive or negative if employers find ways to capitalize understanding their value at work.
To find out more about emotions, check out some of these authors and speakers. All but two of them have been on Take the Lead (my nationally-syndicated radio show), and I have been part of events where I heard the other two speak. I highly recommend looking into the work that these individuals have produced because all of them are very impressive:
- Emotional Intelligence: Travis Bradberry and Gleb Tsipursky
- Engagement and Culture: Chris Edmonds and Ricardo Gonzalez
- Soft Skills and Sales: Tom Hopkins and Jim Britt and Mark Hunter
- Gamification: Brian Wong and Sarah Kunst
- Millennials: Tai Tran and Simon Sinek
Related Articles:
- Soft Skills: Critical to Employee Success
- First IQ, Then EQ: Leaders Must Now Have CQ
- What Leaders Need to Know About Engagement
- Managing Millennials Requires Understanding Their Values
- The Cost of Engagement and How to Improve It
- How to Develop Soft Skills Not Learned at Work or School
- Forbes: Generational Issues in the Workplace: Millennials vs. Boomers
- Determining Personality Type for Team-Building