For years there was an ongoing debate that attempted to agree on what a company’s most important asset is.
Depending on which department you work in there will be all sorts of financial, structural, operational and marketing metrics that spring to mind and then someone will get round to talking about culture, values and people.
The great news seems to be that despite lots of opinions, most of us seem to have accepted that people are clearly the most important asset for any successful business.
In fact, without them I’d suggest that you’re unlikely to have a business at all.
So how do you get people on board who will challenge the status quo without creating a dysfunctional team?
CV’s tend to focus on qualifications, experience, achievements and history and they help recruiters whittle down their applicants to a more manageable number. Combining this information with a series of interviews should hopefully lead you to the right candidate.
Job done!
Or is it?
How many times have you gone through an extensive (and expensive) recruitment process only to find that the individual isn’t the fit that you hoped they would be?
You may have been blown away in the interview process by someone’s confidence and assuredness, but it’s only after they’re in place that you realise that their self-regard and assertiveness are much higher than their empathy and that you’ve hired a “bull in a china shop”.
Someone else may be the smartest person you’ve ever met, but you never get to hear them because their empathy is much higher than their self-regard and assertiveness and they’re too afraid to speak up.
Helping people understand their emotional intelligence is the first step in enabling them to reach their true potential.
It may also be the best investment you make in building your business…