Emotional intelligence refers to the wisdom of working with people. Extremely helpful in organizational settings, emotional intelligence can determine the success and failure of any leader, team, or department. Knowing how to navigate through tricky interpersonal conflicts in diverse workplace environments is the goal of developing emotional intelligence. The principles of emotional intelligence can be easily applied to the nine-step model. The nine-step model addresses the values at stake in any important decision and thus requires an investment of time and energy into consulting with team members. Taking context into account is also a part of the nine-step process and demands emotional intelligence. Individual team members will sometimes approach the decision-making process differently, have different priorities and different values. A leader with strong emotional intelligence skills will be able to listen to all available voices and capitalize on the strength of diversity rather than foment group conflict.

2. By transforming the essential organizational culture of GE, Beth Comstock must perform at least some generic benchmarking. Comstock incorporated a flexible, creative culture into the formerly restrained one at GE. To do so she must have garnered information from firms in various industries. Deciding what worked and what didn't, Comstock was able to introduce her new ideas to an old firm intelligently. Her prior work with Proctor & Gamble, FedEx, and 3M offered Comstock a wealth of information and experience from which to draw her plan for GE. Approaching organizational culture as an anthropologist enables generic benchmarking to become meaningful. The only way to invoke the radical changes in GE's corporate environment is to benchmark with firms of similar size, regardless of their areas of specialization. The ways large firms address their human resource and productivity needs are often stable across industries. Noting what GE must do to foster growth and innovation, Comstock and her team can make sure that GE remains competitive and at the forefront of their industry.

References

Brady, D. (2005). The transformer: Beth Comstock. Business Week. Aug 1, 2005.