The Idea in Brief

How does IDEO, the celebrated industrial-design firm, ensure that its teams consistently produce the most innovative products under intense deadline and budget pressures? By focusing on its teams’ emotional intelligence—that powerful combination of self-management skills and ability to relate to others.

Many executives realize that EQ (emotional quotient) is as critical as IQ to an individual’s effectiveness. But groups’ emotional intelligence may be even more important, since most work gets done in teams.

A group’s EI isn’t simply the sum of its members’. Instead, it comes from norms that support awareness and regulation of emotions within and outside the team. These norms build trust, group identity, and a sense of group efficacy. Members feel that they work better together than individually.

Group EI norms build the foundation for true collaboration and cooperation—helping otherwise skilled teams fulfill their highest potential.

The Idea in Practice

To build a foundation for emotional intelligence, a group must be aware of and constructively regulate the emotions of:

  • individual team members
  • the whole group
  • other key groups with whom it interacts.

How? By establishing EI norms—rules for behavior that are introduced by group leaders, training, or the larger organizational culture. Here are some examples of norms—and what they look like in action—from IDEO:

When managers first started hearing about the concept of emotional intelligence in the 1990s, scales fell from their eyes. The basic message, that effectiveness in organizations is at least as much about EQ as IQ, resonated deeply; it was something that people knew in their guts but that had never before been so well articulated. Most important, the idea held the potential for positive change. Instead of being stuck with the hand they’d been dealt, people could take steps to enhance their emotional intelligence and make themselves more effective in their work and personal lives.

A version of this article appeared in the March 2001 issue of Harvard Business Review.