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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

by Charalambos Vlachoutsicos
NOVEMBER 27, 2014

Jean-Claude, the French manager appointed by

the Western investor to head the sales team of a
joint venture in Romania, was experiencing
resistance from the sales managers reporting to
him. Results were below target and Jean-Claude
put the blame squarely on the sales force.
The board asked me to look into what was going
wrong, and my rst move was to attend
Jean-Claudes weekly meeting with the managers.
It took about ve minutes to pinpoint the
problem.
Although Jean-Claude was polite and proper
enough in what he said to his people, the
expression on his face while he was talking made
it seem if he was sipping lemon juice without
sugar. How he gave the message was completely
obliterating what he was saying.
Chatting afterwards to Ioanna, one of the sales managers, conrmed my guess. The way he looks at
us makes it clear he would place no value on anything we said, she observed. Why would anyone
1 daririsk
1

speaking up?

12/04/2014 8:49 AM