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one that we had in the in dustrial age. It’s a layered bureau cra cy, and that kind of
system was set up in order to keep emotion out. One of the ideas of the indus-
trial age was that feelings interrupt the work process; they hinder efficiency. If
bureau cracy was created in order to basically neutralize emotions, now, 100 years
later, we’ve noticed it doesn’t work. Typically that sup pression leads to negative
feelings that leave people upset and tired and stressed.
What my colleagues and I have found is that we need emotional in-
telligence not only among those who lead in organizations — we’ve known
that for 25 years. But we also need emotional intelligence at a sys tems level, at
an organizational structure level. That insight is ver y fresh, in the sense that we
haven’t re ally considered what an “emotionally intelligent org anization” would
look like.
S+B: How can organizations start to become more emotionally intelligent?
MENGES: We have a set of ideas — again, this is ongoing work — about how this
could happen. In a pub lished study of 161 organizations and more than 24,000
employees, we found that those organizations that were more decentralized had
more happiness and energy. Decentralization allows for more individually tai-
lored experiences. That in turn may lift people up, because now they can shape
their work environment and can make the decisions that they believe are appro-
priate to themselves, instead of having to ask someone higher up or going through
a bureaucratic path to seek approval.
In the same study, we also found that in organizations in which people re-
port feeling happy and energized, the HR system is deliberately built around
emotions, at least in part. That means that, for instance, with recruiting, it’s not
only about analytical skill sets and job-relevant competencies, but also about
emotional abilities. In the selection processes, candidates are questioned to deter-
mine how they deal with emotions and how they would handle different people
with respect to the emotions they have. Moreover, in these organizations, the
promotion processes are not just about whether someone has performed well in
the past, but also about whether he or she can inspire people.
Once you have emotionally intelligent individuals in managerial positions,
the organization as a whole may become more emotionally intelligent. That’s