Acronym

During the "How Emotionally Intelligent is Your Association" session this afternoon, Sally Baker from the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) explained her organization's journey to improving their emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the degree to which you understand your own emotions, others' emotions, and how you use this information to build relationships. Baker, the director of public relations for AAEP, answered questions about her perception of her own emotional intelligence as her staff did the same. She found a huge disconnect between how she viewed her relationship management skills and how her staff viewed them, overestimating her emotional intelligence (again, the awareness of emotional states of herself and others) 67 percent of the time.

Of course, this is huge. But it's not uncommon. How often do you go to work and feel like your boss is ignoring you? Or how often are you the boss and you are busy with projects, not realizing that it seems like you are ignoring those you work with?

Baker says that it was a tough pill to swallow, but instead of retreating decided the best way to help herself and her organization was to work on self-management and her interactions with others in the office. Unlike IQ, you can significantly alter and increase your emotional intelligence through active observation and change.

Switch to the staff's view of their emotional awareness, emotional management, internal relationship management, and external relationship management (which members had already rated staff interactions with them between four and five out of five). Each level scored high marks, with the exception of internal relationships.

So what's next? AAEP staff made simple promises to one another. First, permission to ask why or how decisions in the organization were made. So much of the negative internal relationships were a product of miscommunication, with no one asking "why?" and instead making their own (incorrect) assumptions on why things happened. Staff leaders made a point to visit with each of the 14 staff members daily to show that communication is at the top of their to-do list.

Second, staff members promised to end what Baker calls the "downward spiral of conversations"--ones that begin in a negative way (like office gossip) and will inevitably go downhill from there. Staff decided on the safe words "downward spiral" to stop those conversations before they started.

One year later, staff took the same test. Their internal relationship management increased by 30 points because of what Baker calls the "small things that staff committed to and participation from each staff member."

Luckily, these small changes have a huge trickle-down effect. Not only did staff relationships improve, but Baker says she hopes it will increase members' satisfaction as well. A lot of my posts have focused on member relations, but colleague relationships are the root of better service. Taking a serious look at your emotional intelligence makes for happy employees and happy members.