I'm a project manager at a big company that makes medical devices. we recently got our first shipment of prototypes, which we ordered and payed for months ago (because of long lead times for some of the parts). turns out, not enough units to go around for all the various testing. no one's fault, really, we just estimated our need inaccurately 6 months ago.
my job is literally to make everybody happy with what they get. this requires navigating the emotional landscape that is all the different hardware/software/firmware/quality/mechanical/marketing/whomever engineers and team leads and ensuring that everybody maintains high moral wh8le dealing with a lack of resources.
and yes, morale is extremely important to a productive team if you want to get anything done at a level of sufficient quality.
it's not easy.
I've got to recognize when someone is angry but staying quiet so I can remedy their situation. I've got to recognize when someone is holding back available resources from another party because of available personal vendetta. I've got to recognize when emotions are about to Crack and prevent the team from going over the cliff.
basically what I'm saying is that emotional intelligence is very important. without it, key players would get angry and fed up and quit.
the reason people think it is over rated is because it's hard to recognize until it isn't there.
And that's one of the fundamental flaws of the article: it attempts to asses the value of IQ or EQ with mean individual performance -- and completely ignores what matters most, which is of course group performance.
I'm a project manager at a big company that makes medical devices. we recently got our first shipment of prototypes, which we ordered and payed for months ago (because of long lead times for some of the parts). turns out, not enough units to go around for all the various testing. no one's fault, really, we just estimated our need inaccurately 6 months ago.
my job is literally to make everybody happy with what they get. this requires navigating the emotional landscape that is all the different hardware/software/firmware/quality/mechanical/marketing/whomever engineers and team leads and ensuring that everybody maintains high moral wh8le dealing with a lack of resources.
and yes, morale is extremely important to a productive team if you want to get anything done at a level of sufficient quality.
it's not easy.
I've got to recognize when someone is angry but staying quiet so I can remedy their situation. I've got to recognize when someone is holding back available resources from another party because of available personal vendetta. I've got to recognize when emotions are about to Crack and prevent the team from going over the cliff.
basically what I'm saying is that emotional intelligence is very important. without it, key players would get angry and fed up and quit.
the reason people think it is over rated is because it's hard to recognize until it isn't there.