Is EQ More Important Than IQ? with Michael Seaver

Is EQ More Important Than IQ? with Michael Seaver

Sean: Now, I’m wondering, Michael, with, um, let’s, let’s shift a little bit too business and hiring. So everyone says that EQ is so important, it’s more important than IQ. There are a lot of articles that write about that, right? When you hire someone you want to hire for a higher EQ than a high IQ. Why is it more important than IQ?

Why do you think that they say that? And should we if they score lower in the EQ tests that are available out there, should we just throw in the towel and say, oh, it’s a low EQ kind of person, we should not hire this person?

Michael: Yeah, it’s possible. So you’re right. So Daniel Goldman, back in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, did a bunch of research, and published kind of the first work about emotional intelligence globally. And in his research, it was that 20% of performance or success comes from IQ, and 80% comes from EQ. And so his book was good to kind of dive into those things.

And then there was a great book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradbury and Greaves that gave a little bit more specificity to this. So I think that when we’re going through the hiring process, yes, we want to be mindful of someone’s DISC profile or the things that motivate them, maybe their core values, definitely levels of emotional intelligence.

So when I’m thinking about it, certain things can be taught, certain things are innate, like a DISC profile or motivations are pretty much the way that we’re born. We’re kind of born with them. We navigate them throughout life, but our core values are that our level of emotional intelligence can be taught to us. It’s learned. 

So we as business owners have to make the choice, right? Because there’s always an opportunity cost, there’s always a trade-off. So when we’re looking at those folks that we want to hire, we can ask ourselves on a continuum. Do they have the right communication style? Do they have the right motivations?

Do they have the right or wrong core values or level of EQ and as the business owner, do I want to spend the time investing in them and training them, or do I not want to do that? Right? That’s the choice that we have to make because as we go through a society kind of post-COVID, it’s incredibly difficult to find talent these days. And so it’s a trade-off of saying, okay, this person isn’t a 100% match for my job description, but am I willing to invest the time to train them? So for me, if 2 or 3 of the things that are my criteria for hiring are met, but there’s 1 or 2 that aren’t quite especially like EQ, I say to myself, Am I willing to invest the time to train and upskill this person because I believe in them as an individual?

And most of the time, yeah, like most of the time it can be worth that. So I’m a big fan of trying to create not necessarily cultural fit. I want cultural contributions, right? So to say, okay, for the organization that I have or am I going to be able to fit and plug them in and they’re just going to be able to go? Well, in some cases that’s valuable. 

But I also look at it and say society changes very rapidly every six months. I want somebody who can culturally contribute to what my business is going to be a year from now, right? So when we think about hiring, it’s a little bit of an assessment of various aspects of who this person is. But then for me as the business owner to say what’s my business going to be in 12 or 18 months? And do I think this person has the experiences and skills to make what’s coming? Right? Because there are so many things that are shifting and changing.

Sean: Got it. And so when you hire culturally, even when you hire bad people, they do contribute to the culture, right? But negatively. So I’m assuming that what you mean is contributing to it positively based on what you said 12 months from now, what we want to be, with that I just want to jump back a little bit to the hiring process and EQ. 

So you mentioned EQ is just one of the things that you’re looking at. What else do you look at? What are you mentioning like 3 or 4 things that you look at? And if they’re good with 2 or 3, you still consider working with them, right? What are some of the other things that you look at?

Michael: Yeah, I’m certified to deliver the DISC assessment and a motivators assessment called the 12 Driving forces. And so the people that I’m working with, I give them those assessments to be able to say, okay, here’s my company’s mission, here’s my company’s values, here’s the goals that I have for my organization. 

And after I’ve asked this person a series of questions, behavioral interview questions that are really about their life experiences, do they have the actual experiences to be able to fulfill these job requirements? Right. That’s important. But then you layer into that the disc or the motivators. Does their communication style align with the role, right? Introvert versus extrovert, task-oriented versus people-oriented want to make sure there’s a connection there. 

And of the 12 driving forces, are they motivated by things that are roughly equivalent to what the job is requiring of them or what the culture of my business or my client’s business might be? And if that’s a good thing, that’s great. So then it’s like, okay, they might not have all of the necessary skills for the particular role, but can I ascertain that they’re going to be able to learn them pretty quickly? Sure. 

Do they have the exact perfect emotional response mechanisms? Maybe, maybe not, based on the stories that they gave in their interview. Okay. But we can give them an assessment or we can give them a buddy or a mentor or a coach inside the business that helps them. Right. Go kind of go through and solve that stuff. And I’ve also served as what’s referred to as a staff psychologist.

So we could also for a client of mine or my own business, right? You could hire a staff psychologist who is a person who’s kind of like a coach who comes into the business and helps to uplevel the more emotional aspects of the person as they navigate. So it’s like, okay, what can you do for this person in the interview process?

If you select to hire them, what’s the training and the mentoring and the coaching that you give them in the first 90 days? And then after 90 days, do you say, did this person take to it? Did they learn? Are they willing to keep going? And then you decide at 90 days and say, does this work or does this not do I need to move on?

Sean: Wow, 90 days. Do you? So hold on. I’m not sure. In the US, do you have a probationary period before you regularize them? There’s none of that there?

Michael: There can yeah. Organizations can choose to do that if they wish. And many do. Yeah.

Sean: Got it. Okay. 90 days. As for me, it’s a short time, right? But wow. Okay. Do you have a specific EQ test that you usually use to give out? And the reason why I’m asking is that I want some direct value to our listeners. If they could check out an EQ test they could use it for hiring.

Michael: Yeah. So I’m certified by an organization in Arizona in the United States called Target Trading International or TTI. So anybody can go to TTISI.com and look at their content or material. I’m certified to deliver their stuff. So if anybody reaches out to me, then I could give them an assessment.

Another way to look at this is the book that I referenced earlier by Bradbury and Greaves called Emotional Intelligence 2.0. If anybody buys that book, there is a link inside the book to be able to take Bradbury and Greaves emotional intelligence assessment or I think their website is talentsmarteq.com so if anybody goes to talentsmarteq.com they can take the Bradbury and Greaves EQ 2.0 assessment there so if it’s TTI assessment, if it’s EQ 2.0 assessment, you’re going to get roughly the same feedback because most psychologists agree that there are five dimensions of EQ. So if a person is looking to upskill themselves in this, one of those two is good for you to get a thorough understanding of yourself.

Sean: Got it. Got it. Okay. And what was the score of an applicant you usually say where? Okay, you know, he passed this test for me or okay, this guy or this lady failed it. Do you look at some numbers there?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. TTI assessment they’ve had more than 30 million people around the globe complete the assessment. And so for each of the five dimensions of EQ, there’s a mean or an average score. And then they have a bar chart that shows one standard deviation on either side. So, if I’m looking at the five dimensions and a person scores themselves below the one standard deviation below the mean or the average, that’s a trigger for me.

So let’s say that if we’re looking at self-awareness and let’s say the average score is a 75 of 100, but one standard deviation below that, let’s say, is down to about a 65. So if somebody scores between a zero and a 65, that’s a trigger for me to say, okay, we need to have a conversation with this person about their emotional response mechanisms or how aware of themselves they are.

And if through that discussion, if we say, okay, this person does need a coach, they need a buddy, they need a mentor, they need additional training, online courses, whatever that might be, if they’re willing to do it, then it might be a worthwhile investment of time.

Sean: Wow. Okay, so it’s not a pass or fail. Um, depending on the score, you still try to see if you could work to improve that with them. That’s awesome. Okay. So I’m assuming you have a hiring process and taking this test is one of them. Aside from EQ, the DISC, and 12 motivators, are there any other tests that you think are a prerequisite for you before you hire someone?

Michael: Yeah, I love to give a core values assessment because, for me, the DISC and the 12 driving forces are innate. It’s what you’re born with. It’s what you’re going to use most of your life. Emotional intelligence is learned, and for me, the core values are also learned behavior.

So core values are effective, what lessons have you learned in your life? So it could be something that your parents or caregivers taught you. It could be difficult situations that you’ve navigated in your teenage years, your 20s, or early 30s. But so I use an organization that’s called the Peak Fleet, and they have a card deck, but also an online assessment. I think the online assessment is $8 or something to be able to do. But the assessment, what it does is it takes 58 human core values and it puts you through a process on the website where you whittle that list of 58 down to your top six, and then it forces you to rank them in your top six.

So then I know, right, based on someone’s core values, how closely aligned are their core values to my client’s or my business’s core values? Because the stronger that they’re connected, the better the engagement and the productivity the success is going to be for that relationship, and that’s important.

So that to me is also a really big one because in my experience as a coach, yes, there are differences as we move further into them. Being an employee that comes from communication style differences or motivator differences. But in my experience, and I’ve spent a lot of time coaching on this recently, is that when some person, an employee, violates another employee’s core values, that evokes a very strong emotional response.

So if we’re very clear about what the two employees’ emotional quotient is and what their core values are now, we can have a really strong discussion about why they were triggered. Why was it so difficult for them to have that discussion or have that situation occur? So core values is another one, Sean, that I would really encourage everybody listening or watching to pay attention to because it helps us to know how to be engaged and happy and productive, but it also helps us to know how to not hurt or take something away from the people we work with. So now engagement and productivity rise for the entire team.

Sean: Got it. And I don’t know if you can tell, but this is so fascinating for me because, one, we both, we both make our applicants take the DISC. Every employee in SEO Hacker has to take the DISC. And then I wrote my own core values exam.

Definitely not like this, where they map it all out. Our core values are what we have in SEO Hacker grit, integrity, and honor. And we ask them to take the exams to see how well they fare. So mine is mostly plugging in people who fit in our core values rather than, you know, what you guys are doing, where they contribute positively to where you want to go.

So this is, you know, the reason why I’m asking. It’s also for me, dude. I mean, like, I want to learn. I want to know what else I could put in. So, um, very good stuff. Love it. And this tells me that you care about the people you hire. How many people do you have on your team right now, by the way?

Michael: For me, So I don’t have direct employees for myself. I have a lot of contractors and vendors, and the way that I run my business is I use these assessment tools not only to choose vendors, right? Because I’ve given vendors and people like accountants and some of the companies that do some of the website work.

I’ve given them these assessments, like really honestly. Wow. But so then the examples that I’m sharing with you are not only mine for how I run my business, but right now I’m effectively my only employee and I do that intentionally. But I also have used these assessments with hundreds of people right across the United States and some internationally for the companies that I’ve served.

So I’ve seen iterations of this not only for how it’s impacted my business and how it’s grown because I’ve been running my business for 11 years, but I’ve made the conscious choice to be my only employee, but subbing out particular parts of my business because as we mentioned, pre-show, there are so many things that are shifting and changing in society that when a coach kind of builds his or her business, it’s like, well, do you train a bunch of people to use what it is that you do or do you just do you scale through things that are happening online?

And my business has shifted and changed so often that for me it’s been easier to stay small and to sub out different things as requests have come to me from clients. 11 years ago, Sean, all I did was write resumes and now the work that I do is about organizational development and changing organizational culture. And down the road, you know, it’s going to shift even more and I’ll do more work around writing or things as Jordan B Peterson does, which is more psychology based. So as we shift and get to that, that’s how it’s going to work. But I’ve seen so many iterations of this.

I think the vast majority of my clients have somehow been in finance or accounting because on the DISC I’m a CS, I’m very introverted, very quiet, and very shy. Um, another reason why my business is small. You as a D, right? It’s easier for you to be able to scale up businesses because that’s how your brain is hardwired. So my experience mainly comes from the way that I’ve administered these assessments with individual clients or with companies and clients that way. So I’ve seen it in a lot of different ways and a lot of different areas and each client wants to do it differently.

Sean: Okay. Did I mention I was a D?

Michael: Did I? No, I just read it on your website.

Sean: Okay. Got it. I thought you were reading my mind or I was being too obvious here.