Management Tips

Dr. K. Kuhathasan Cenlead

Emotional intelligence

Emotions control you, However, you must be able to understand and identify your own emotions and manage them. Understanding and identifying your emotions “Intelligently” and making use of those emotions in a positive productive and intelligent way is known as “Emotional Intelligence”.

Managing, mastering and understanding emotional intelligence power is of utmost importance to customer care and frontline staff.

Positive and negative emotions

The first step in understanding emotional intelligence is to identify your positive as well as negative

Positive emotions at work are

1. Enjoyment: happiness, joy, relief, contentment, bliss, delight amusement,

pride, thrill, satisfaction

2. Acceptance, friendliness, trust, kindness, affinity, devotion.

3. Happiness with a pleasing smile.

4. Optimism positive thinking and optimistic outlook.

5. Supportive. Helpful.

Negative emotions at work are

1. Anger, fury, outrage, resentment, animosity, annoyance, irritability, hostility.

2. Sadness, grief, sorrow, cheerlessness, gloom, self-pity, dejection,

despair, depression.

3. Fear, anxiety, apprehension, nervousness, concern,

misgiving phobia, panic.

4. Shock, astonishment, amazement, disgust: contempt, aversion.

5. Shame: guilt, embarrassment, humiliation.

6. Negative thinking, obstructive, destructive,

7. Harassing mentality, delaying tendency,

8. Deliberate postponements, avoiding issues.

How to overcome negative emotions?

1. Better frustration tolerance and anger management.

2. Less aggressive or self destructive behaviour.

3. More positive feeling about self, organisation and family.

4. Better at handling stress. Less loneliness and social anxiety.

5. Increased ability to analyse and understand relationships.

6. Better at solving problems in relationships.

7. More assertive and skilled at communicating.

8. More popular and outgoing, friendly and involved with peers.

9. More sought out by peers.

10. More concerned and considerate.

11. More “pro-social” and harmonious in groups.

12. More sharing, cooperation, and helpfulness.

13. More democratic in dealing with others.

Emotionally intelligent service

According to Daneil Goleman, author of “Emotional intelligence” an important aspect of superior customer care of any service industry - is perhaps affected by mood. Customer service jobs are stressful, with high emotions flowing freely, not just from customers to the front lines but also from officers to customers.

From a business viewpoint, bad moods in people who serve customers are bad news.

First, rudeness is bad. Second, emotionally weak people serve customers poorly, with, sometimes, devastating results.

By contrast, upbeat moods at the front line benefits a business. If customers find interactions with a counterperson enjoyable, they start to think of the store as a ‘nice place’ to shop. That means not only more repeat visits, but also good word-of-mouth advertising. Moreover, when service people feel upbeat, they do more to please customers.

Service with optimistic outlook

Optimism like hope, means having a strong expectation that, in general, things will turn out all right despite setbacks and frustrations. From the standpoint of emotional intelligence, optimism is an attitude that buffers people against falling into apathy, hopelessness, or depression in the face of tough going. And, as with hope, its near cousin, optimism, pays dividends.

Each “No” a salesperson gets is a small defeat. The emotional reaction to that defeat is crucial to the ability to marshal enough motivation to continue.

As the “Noes” mount up, morale can deteriorate, making it harder and harder to pick up. Such rejection is especially hard to take for a pessimist, who interprets it as meaning. “I’m a failure at this; I’ll never make a sale” an interpretation that will trigger apathy and defeatism, if not depression.

Optimists, on the other hand, tell themselves, ‘I’m using the wrong approach” or “That last person was just in a bad mood”. By seeing not themselves but something in the situation as the reason for their failure, they can change their approach.