The podcast by project managers for project managers. The need for optimal emotional intelligence is even more pronounced in project management and Dr. Vanessa Druskat, who is married to a project manager, shares insights on emotional and team intelligence on how to improve your own EQ. If we can get in touch with an emotion, we can manage it, and the more emotionally and self-aware we are the more we can build emotionally intelligent teams.

Table of Contents

02:37 … What is Emotional Intelligence?05:43 … Developing Your Emotional Intelligence07:07 … A Work in Progress08:25 … EQ and Cognitive Intelligence09:20 … The Need for Emotional Intelligence in Projects11:03 … EQ Research Study of Project Managers12:48 … Self-Confidence15:50 … Kevin and Kyle16:54 … Emotional Intelligence Starts with Self-Awareness19:09 … The Brain Science behind Emotional Intelligence21:03 … The Emotional Brain at the Unconscious Level23:53 … No Motivation without Emotion25:59 … Managing Oneself29:44 … Social Harmony34:45 … Find Out More36:42 … Closing

VANESSA DRUSKAT:  And so the kind of norms that create space for people so that everyone can have the synergy, the kind of habits you create build an emotionally intelligent environment, and are more likely to have harmony and synergy and really produce.  You can produce results without that, but they’re not going to be synergistic.  They’re not going to be as good,

WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer.  We love to have you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories and leadership lessons and advice from industry experts from around the world.

And just one of those industry experts is Vanessa Druskat.  Vanessa is a multi-award-winning behavioral scientist, and she’s an internationally recognized expert on leadership and team development.  She has a research program examining the differences between the behavioral strategies of high- and average-performing work teams.  And this led her to pioneer the concept of team emotional intelligence.

Vanessa has a popular Harvard Business Review article with S. Wolff on emotionally intelligent teams.  She’s a member of the board of directors of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, and she talks a little bit about that at the end of the podcast.  And she’s also an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.  So you may have gathered we’re talking about emotional intelligence.

BILL YATES:  Yes, we are.  This is such a critical skill for project leaders, for project managers because we all know it.  We can’t do this on our own.  We’ve got to work with a team.  Sometimes that team, each one of the team members brings their own issues to the table.  We’ve got our own issues.  You bring in the issues of our customer, the issues of our contractors, and there’s just a lot to manage.

WENDY GROUNDS:  There’s a lot of issues.

BILL YATES:  There’s a lot of issues.  So we need to be more emotionally intelligent and figure out how to get things done.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Vanessa.  Welcome to Manage This.

VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Thank you.  It’s wonderful to be here with you, Wendy.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re very happy to have you as our guest, and this is definitely a topic we’ve wanted to talk about again.  And I think you bring such a fresh perspective.  And Bill and I were very excited when we found out your husband was a project manager.

BILL YATES:  Yeah.

WENDY GROUNDS:  So you definitely speak with some authority on this topic.

VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Yes, indeed.  I’ve heard plenty of stories from my husband.

BILL YATES:  I’ll bet.

VANESSA DRUSKAT:  Some difficult times.

BILL YATES:  Yes.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.