BOOK REVIEW: ​HBR'S 10 MUST READS ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

My wife who is the Director of HR Strategy of a large CPG firm bought this book and I decided to give it a read as well.   It is a funny book in that the knowledge I gained from it provided me with little value since I am not in that position to make organizational wide change, while for her, she can actually utilize it and implement the research into her organization.  The summary of the research is that everyone knows Emotional Intelligence is a factor in employee performance, but almost no one tries to quantify it for employee evaluation.  The research goes into details on the different types of Emotional Intelligence and how it benefits a company.  One item that was never mentioned is once you identify highly emotional intelligent individuals…how does one compensate/reward them?
 
If Jannice is the best manager in the world and everyone loves to work with her, but she is horrible at her job. Is that better than Joe who is a genius, but no one can stand working with him?  Then about about Mikey who is perfectly average in both hard and soft skills and Mary who has the whole package.  How do we reward these individuals?
 
Here is my take: Utilize a non-linear evaluation matrix to assist in identifying and retaining the top talent and avoid rewarding bad behaviors. The following was created in PowerPoint:

​There are a few things to note on this hypothetical worksheet:

1. One must have a very high Technical AND Emotional skill set to be rewarded at its highest level.
   1. It should be treated almost like a logarithmic scale in that a score of 8/8 is very good and might get 100% market rate, while someone that is 8.5/9 should be getting 130% market rate.    
2. Just because you are the Captain of the Cheerleaders or Math Genius, doesn’t mean you will be rewarded any higher than average Joe.
   1. If anything, you might be below market rate compensation due to the lack of   

 
At the end of the day, the matrix is to elevate the importance of these soft skills and realize how hard it is to find someone that is both a master of hard and soft.  And when one is found, you better hold on to them.