In a world of work full of deadlines, unforeseen circumstances, changes, procedures and continuous challenges, knowing how to manage one’s emotions effectively has become one of the key abilities to be able to achieve one’s goals and to perform at one’s best. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and one of the “fathers” of emotional intelligence, in one of his most famous phrases said that “when they get out of control, emotions can make smart individuals stupid”. In fact, the effects of stress, anger and sadness are, if not managed, aspects that can greatly undermine the personal well-being of individuals and consequently the well-being of every structure that operates in the hospitality world.
In the speech “stress is not the enemy”, held by Hospite team last October 8 during the Rimini Hospitality Day, these issues were addressed. Recent researches confirm that emotions are a delicate subject for everyone in this historical moment. In fact, according to Gallup, 14% of employees want to beat up their colleagues and according to Health Advocate, due to workplace stress, every year 300 billion dollars of productive loss have been found. Finally, the Anxiety and Depression Association has certified a reality that we all clearly have in front of our eyes every day, that stress in the workplace interferes with personal life.
So, what is emotional intelligence and how can it be useful to the world of hospitality?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in ourselves and others, and to use this awareness to manage our behaviors and relationships with other people (T. Bradberry and G. Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0). Thus the revolutionary concept of QE (Emotional Quotient) is born as opposed to the traditional IQ (Intelligent Quotient). Recent researches call into question the relevance of IQ as the only indicator of capacity and excellence, demonstrating that QE is so necessary for success to justify 58% of performance in all types of work (T. Bradberry and G. Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0). Moreover, in the same study, 90% of people who had a high yield also had a high QE.
After all these reflections on emotional intelligence and current statistics, it is clear that something needs to be done to improve this aspect, particularly in the world of hospitality, an often hectic environment subject to very high stress levels. Surely the first step to do is to increase people’s awareness and the following 5 questions (to be carried out following an event that has aroused little useful emotions) can be very effective:
- What happened? (objective analysis of the situation)
- Why did it happen? (extraction of causes)
- How did I feel? (extraction and description of emotions)
- What could I have done differently? (problem solving development)
- What can I do to prevent it from happening again? (development of systemic vision and long-term problem solving)
Such an analysis makes it possible to understand the situation, the causes, the emotions involved, the possible short-term and long-term solutions. It can be done individually or it can be used in a comparison interview with a collaborator.
To conclude, there is no doubt that the path to achieve excellent emotional management is demanding and often takes time to be implemented and in any case, to see some improvements, even a little awareness work, like the one proposed in the 5 previous questions, can lead to a considerable progress. In fact, as Daniel Goleman said, “to understand the feelings of others you must first understand yours” and only “who is really aware of himself knows where he is going and why”. Then let’s start from here.
Have a great day,
Hospite team