Teamwork
"When the intelligence of the team exceeds
the intelligence of the
individuals, extraordinary results are created." |
| — Howard E. Johnson, Mentoring for
Exceptional Performance |
High-performance teams do not evolve randomly or arbitrarily. Think
about a time when you were a member of a high-performance team.
Remember your thoughts and feelings as well as visualizing the thoughts
and feelings of your teammates - how you and each of your teammates
offered unique contributions toward achieving the goal. These thoughts
and feelings, as well as the outcomes, were primarily driven by
emotion.
In contrast, think about a time when you were on a team that was
struggling to perform. Remember your feelings and emotions as well
as the struggles of your teammates. Contrast the feelings and emotions
of your high-performance team with the struggling-to-perform team.
Research conducted at Yale University compared teams with high
levels of Emotional Intelligence against low EI teams. Teams with
the same aggregate team IQ, but with different EI levels, performed
significantly different on projects and task assignments. In fact,
the high EI teams outperformed the low EI teams by a margin of 2:1,
with all other factors being the same.
In the March 2001 issue of Harvard Business Review, an article
entitled Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups reinforced
the basic message that effectiveness in organizations is at least
as much about Emotional Intelligence as IQ. The authors and researchers
Vanessa Urch Druskat and Steven B. Wolff conclude, "In an era
of teamwork, it's essential to figure out what makes teams work.
Our research shows that, just like individuals, the most effective
teams are emotionally intelligent ones - and that any team can attain
emotional intelligence."
Experts suggest that most decisions are made emotionally and later
rationalized as the correct choice. Leveraging the power of EI creates
a smart competitive advantage toward effective teamwork and achieving
business results.
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