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Claudio Fern ndez-Ar oz
April 29, 2015
Of all the ways to test for emotional intelligence, the marshmallow test might
be my favorite. You put a child in a room, set one marshmallow in front of her
and explain that, if she s able to wait 10 minutes before eating it, she ll get
an extra marshmallow to enjoy. Then you leave her alone.
If the child can hold off, it means she has is able to self-regulate a key
component of emotional intelligence. And, as psychologist Walter Mischel has
famously shown, this translates into long-term benefits. Kids who delayed
gratification at age four grew up to be more organized, efficient, dependable,
resilient, and successful teenagers and adults.
Of course, this test only works on small children; few adults would have
trouble resisting the first marshmallow. And it measures only one aspect of EI.
As Daniel Goleman explained in his landmark article on the topic, when
assessing emotional intelligence, we need to look for not just self-regulation
but also self-awareness, motivation, empathy, and social skill. And it s
critically important that we do that well since his and other research has
shown that EI is the biggest differentiator between outstanding leaders and
average ones.
So how do we assess emotional intelligence in working adults?
First, understand what you should be measuring. There are two levels of
emotional intelligence: general traits and specific behaviors. Traits are a
person s inherent disposition or tendency to be empathetic and social and to
notice and regulate his or her own emotions. Behaviors are these dispositions
translated into action what Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and others describe as
competencies and they are highly correlated to job performance for leaders.
When assessing which candidates to hire, promote, or develop, their traits are
less relevant than how they act.
At our firm, Egon Zehnder, we have identified six frequent EI-related
competencies necessary for leadership success, based on our decades of
experience evaluating executives and monitoring their performance. They are:
results orientation, customer impact, collaboration and influencing, developing
organizational capability, team leadership, and change leadership.
The idea is not to index a job or promotion candidate with a single EI number
as we do with IQ. Instead, we want to take an inventory of competencies, some
of which are more relevant than others for specific roles. For example,
customer impact is essential for salespeople, but not for risk officers.
Once you re clear on the competencies you re looking for, you ll need to use
interviews and reference checks to confirm whether certain candidates have them
or not at the target level required. How have they shown the necessary
competencies in situations similar to those they will face in the new job? For
example, if you are trying to assess ability to influence, have them tell you
about times when they had to manage colleagues who didn t report to them. What
were their roles? What did they do? How did they do it? What were the
circumstances? What were the consequences?
Reference checks should be conducted in the same manner. Ample research has
shown that third-party observations are more accurate than self-assessments,
particularly when it comes to complex attributes. So find people who can offer
wisdom on the candidate s specific EI-competencies. To check results
orientation, speak with bosses; to check leadership, with subordinates; to
check collaboration, with peers. And don t just say: Tell me about Joe. Ask
the same directed questions you did in the interview.
Emotional intelligence is much more difficult to assess than IQ and experience.
And it takes more than a marshmallow test. But if you re looking to hire
outstanding leaders, it s critically important that you learn how to do it
properly.
Claudio Fern ndez-Ar oz is a senior adviser at the global executive search firm
Egon Zehnder and the author of It s Not the How or the What but the Who
(Harvard Business Review Press, 2014).