Emotional Intelligence and Human Capital

 
Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.
What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience?

 
A new VP rides into town for the holidays!
This past week in New York, as in other cities, there were Christmas parties all over town.
In this case, the department got together with drinks, food and holiday festivities. It was a festive occasion with everyone engaged and having a heck of a time. The new VP walks into the room and works it masterfully. He had conversation for everyone; not just fake small talk, but actual conversation with each person about their work and who they were.

 
What you don’t do can hurt you. Missed opportunities lead to later regrets. Nokia could have innovated its way to dominance in smartphones. The SEC could have acted on early whistle-blower tips about Bernard Madoff’s scam. Yahoo could have sold to Microsoft. But they didn’t.
Doing nothing seems easy. It’s often an invisible mistake—a sin of omission rather than commission. To act requires courage. To innovate requires even more courage. Today, courage seems in short supply. What are leaders waiting for? Without bold action and innovation, how can troubled economies escape decline?
Courage makes change possible.

 
Everyone has juicy boss stories, and I’m no exception. I’ve worked for a boss who didn’t seem to know my name, and another who sent me novel-long e-mails detailing her daily activities. (I knew way too much info about her housekeeper and her husband’s unsavory business partner.)
Learning by example can be the best teacher of being a boss. No matter how lovely your boss was, how quirky or how cruel, she had something to teach you—how to speak to a team, how not to speak to a team and a million things in between. From micro-managers to absent managers, all bosses have room to grow and to become better bosses.

This interview with John Riccitiello, chief executive of Electronic Arts, the video game maker, was conducted and condensed byAdam Bryant.
John Riccitiello, chief executive of Electronic Arts, the video game maker, says that if leaders aren't consistent during challenging times, employees will remain uneasy. ”You need to paint a picture that everyone can buy into,” he says.