Recent work in Thomson Reuters has been to develop consultancy and business partnering skills with IT specialists. By developing emotional intelligence alongside business consulting process skills, significant gains were made in client engagement and project success.

Developing EI in IT Consultants and Project Managers

Business Case

A “Talent review”, in Q4 2005, of the individuals within the Reuters IT Competency Centre (Internal IT Consultancy, Development and Delivery) identified three key areas for urgent development:

  • Enhanced process and consulting skills
  • Enhanced relationship and communication skills
  • Enhanced presentation skills

Building Effective Relationships in Business – What is it?

In response to the above need, throughout 2006/7, there have been a series of two-day workshops, with follow on coaching in 2007/8, that aims to enhance the relationship and communications skills of the participants. This is delivering:

  • Individuals with enhanced relationship skills (self-management and management of relationships)
  • Development which can be implemented “on the job”
  • Leading current tools and techniques (MBTI, NLP, Emotional Intelligence), including:
  • A tool to measure the current & future Individual Effectiveness of delegates
  • And essentially - improved business performance

Overall Structure
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Structure

A 2 day module on Effective Relationship skills, as part of a programme that also includes a Consulting Process workshop and a Presentation Techniques module.
This Effective Relationships module gives individuals feedback on the IE instrument and is followed by 1:1 coaching sessions, with each delegate, to take the IE feedback further. There is then a set of on-going coaching sessions to assist individuals in the development of their EI capabilities in a business context.

Module Structure/Timetable

 

9.00                                                                      17.30

Day 1

Introduction background and context

Questioning to work with clients agenda

Understanding Myself - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™

Lunch

Understanding Myself and Others Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™

Day 2

Individual Effectiveness™ 360/Emotional Intelligence Feedback

Lunch

Rapport

Outcome Thinking

Development Plan

 

 

Results – 5 groups and 48 individuals have so far attended
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  • Use of the group ie report ( a group report summarising the Individual Effectiveness feedback for all participants) has enabled focused development on scales;
      • Scale 4 - Awareness of Others,
      • Scale 13 - Emotional Expression and Control and
      • Scale 14 - Conflict Handling.
  • The group report is now also being used as part of an evaluation of the project. By asking participants to re-do the IE questionnaire, a before and after picture can be given to track the shift in Emotional Intelligence dimensions within the  target group. The group ie report enables this without breaking confidentiality of individuals.
  • The first group have shown an 11% improvement in their Emotional Intelligence scores against the norm group, over the 12 months.
  • Managers within Reuters are also quoting visible behavioural shifts and more effective working from the consultants. They are now setting about tracking the impact of this on customer satisfaction.

 

Author

Phil Dickinson
Director
People Developments Ltd
02392 376300 office
07973 287789 mob
phil@people-developments.co.uk