January 9, 2009
Created in cooperation with the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers
Richard Fletcher is Senior Director of Learning & Organizational Development for Zaxby's Franchising, Inc., and is a member of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART).
If you've ever watched the TV program The Office, you've seen Michael Scott, played by Steve Carrell, exhibit traits of a person who is technically excellent at his skill as a salesman, but who lacks Emotional Intelligence (EI). He can't empathize with others—he's a buffoon.
What we're talking about here is feelings and emotions. Michael Scott comes off as a very annoying person, someone who would be hard to work with. We all know a lot of smart people who are unsuccessful at work. Why is it that people who might be less intelligent are successful? Emotional Intelligence is the key.
At Zaxby's, a fast-casual restaurant chain with 430 locations in the Southeast and 20,000 team members, one of our core values is developing people. We decided that we should study EI to see if it might help us develop our restaurant managers since we observed that being a good manager required good soft skills.
John D. Mayer, co-formulator of the Theory of Emotional Intelligence, along with Peter Salovey, defines Emotional Intelligence as the ability to accurately perceive your own and others' emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others' emotions.
An assessment created in 1997 by Reuven Bar-On, a clinical psychologist, is called the Bar-On EQi Model of Emotional Intelligence. The ultimate goal is to have a balanced assessment of intrapersonal, interpersonal, stress management, and adaptability attributes. Different professions require different attributes within these broad areas for success.
When restaurant trainers decide who will make good managers within their organizations, what do they look for? Do they look at technical skills, the person's IQ, or how they relate to others? Measuring soft skills can be a problem. EQi can help measure those soft skills and see who might be successful as a leader.
The Center for Creative Leadership came up with six skills that are predictors for successful leaders. They are: relationship building, cognitive ability, communication, decisiveness, self-management, and technical ability. Two of these—relationship building and self-management—are EI skills.
Our conclusions in studying EI were that the attributes that predict success for all industries— self-actualization, happiness, optimism, self-regard, and assertiveness—were important for our industry as well. But we also found three new ones that are important for restaurant managers: reality testing, emotional self-awareness, and impulse control.
Keep these in mind as you develop leaders within your own organization.
