Rockwell Collins, Inc. (NYSE: COL) is a large United States-based international company headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, primarily providing aviation and information technology systems, solutions, and services to governmental agencies and aircraft manufacturers

performance to employees. It can also push the organization towards "prevention" of
problems. Programs like Six Sigma and Total Quality Management are often
deployed for problem prevention.

Finally, one of the most potent tools for improving performance through people is to
link performance to an employee's paycheck. Since people drive performance and
the two are inseparably linked, you need to find some way of linking the two together
(people and performance) through compensation. This leads to changing human
behavior which is the ultimate goal of management.

"In the rush to change, many organizations have overlooked or mishandled what
could be one of the most effective tools at hand - compensation."
People, Performance, and Pay by Thomas P. Flannery, David A. Hofrichter, and Paul
E. Platten, The Hay Group

Building a "smart" organization is a function of what many HR (Human Resource)
professionals call Emotional Intelligence or EI. Unfortunately, many traditional
managers think that a smart organization is full of highly educated people with high
IQ's. In his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel
Goleman describes how Emotional Intelligence is a much stronger indicator of
organizational performance than IQ (Intelligence Quotient).

“For star performance in all jobs, in every field, emotional competence is twice as
important as purely cognitive abilities. For success at the highest levels, in leadership
positions, emotional competence accounts for virtually the entire advantage.”
- Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Emotional Intelligence is the combination of skills, capabilities, and competencies that
allow a person to deal with the pressure and demands of work. Goleman notes that
EI improves with age and experience. Therefore, a young startup company full of 20
to 30 year olds will lack strong EI's whereas a company full of seasoned veterans
should possess higher EI's. For example, a person's ability to lead a team or cope
with business failure is a good indicator of EI. The good news is that EI (Emotional
Intelligence) can be learned in the five components that make up EI:

1. Self-Motivation - The ability to cope and remain highly motivated
2. Self-Awareness - Strong insights into how people work
3. Empathy - Sensing and feeling the emotions of others
4. Managing Emotions - Understanding your own emotional strengths and
weaknesses
5. Social Skills - Interpersonal relationships with others

Since emotional intelligence is somewhat unconventional, many organizations may
view EI as nice to have, but unnecessary. Therefore, the first step is to understand
the link between EI and various business needs. Fortunately, there is a wealth of
research to support the impact of EI on business. Here are a few examples from the
Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations:

1. Research by the Center for Creative Leadership has found that the primary causes
of derailment in executives involve deficits in emotional competence. The three
primary ones are difficulty in handling change, not being able to work well in a team,
and poor interpersonal relations.

2. For 515 senior executives analyzed by the search firm Egon Zehnder International,
those who were primarily strong in emotional intelligence were more likely to succeed
than those who were strongest in either relevant previous experience or IQ. In other
words, emotional intelligence was a better predictor of success than either relevant
previous experience or high IQ.

3. An analysis of more than 300 top-level executives from fifteen global companies
showed that six emotional competencies distinguished stars from the average:
Influence, Team Leadership, Organizational Awareness, self-confidence,
Achievement Drive, and Leadership (Spencer, L. M., Jr., 1997).

4. In a national insurance company, insurance sales agents who were weak in
emotional competencies such as self-confidence, initiative, and empathy sold policies
with an average premium of $54,000. Those who were very strong in at least 5 of 8
key emotional competencies sold policies worth $114,000 (Hay/McBer Research and
Innovation Group, 1997).

5. In a large beverage firm, using standard methods to hire division presidents, 50%
left within two years, mostly because of poor performance. When they started
selecting based on emotional competencies such as initiative, self-confidence, and
leadership, only 6% left in two years.

6. At a national furniture retailer, sales people hired based on emotional competence
had half the dropout rate during their first year (Hay/McBer Research and Innovation
Group, 1997).

7. One of the foundations of emotional competence -- accurate self-assessment --
was associated with superior performance among several hundred managers from
12 different organizations (Boyatzis, 1982).

So you might be asking, how can I apply EI in the workplace. Several companies,
such as American Express and Met Life, are using simple techniques to actively
identify high EI employees. For example, weeding out pessimist from optimist can
help distinguish self-motivation from a lack of self-motivation. People who are highly
confident regardless of their assignments or jobs usually possess high EI's. Also,

people with broad experiences adapting to different environments have strong EI's.
Many companies now use EI testing for new job applicants, looking for employees
with well-rounded skills (good team player, adoptable to change, communicates
clearly, etc.).

Many experts trace a lack of EI back to our early childhood education. In his book,
EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations, Robert K. Cooper
describes an educational system that is dominated by math, reading, history, and
other intellectual pursuits. Little emphasis is placed on emotional development and
those things that give a person an understanding of how to deal with people. It's only
through long years of experience that someone learns the five EI skills. And since
most of us never learned these skills to begin with, it's up to the organization to
recognize and develop EI related skills.

Emotional Intelligence cuts to the heart of high performance teams, attracting the
right people, effective communication, and other desirable characteristics for the
organization. If an organization wants to be smart, Emotional Intelligence must be a
high priority.


Candidates are treated like customers. In a recruiting culture, the wooing process is expected to take a long time because top performers already have a job and are likely to be treated well at their current firm. Recruiting cultures realize that every interaction with potential candidates over this long period is a critical opportunity to impress them. As a result, recruiting works with the customer relationship management department to ensure that its recruiting processes treats candidates like customers. This means using a customer relationship management approach not only in how they are treated (i.e. A Candidate's Bill of Rights) but also by assessing their satisfaction and by gathering critical information about the specific criteria that must be met before each individual will accept a job with your firm.
5.4 Who Are the Benchmark Recruiting Cultures?
When you have a recruiting culture, it is so obvious to everyone who interacts with the firm that recruiting is a primary focus. Whether you formally declare yourself to be pursuing a recruiting culture or not, your actions will make it clear that you are striving to become one.
It's also important to note that firms with recruiting cultures don't automatically have the most industry-leading best practices. Although having best practices is important, the key distinguishing feature is that recruiting cultures have an integrated approach that permeates the entire organization. It is this integration coupled with the sharing of the recruiting role that delineates them from best-practice leaders. Some of the organizations that currently are or are striving to be recruiting cultures
 
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