Indonesia is the world’s third most populous democracy and the world’s largest archipelagic state. Ethnically it is highly diverse, with more than 300 local languages. Spread across a chain of thousands of islands between Asia and Australia, Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population and Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
Andreas Marta from QualityWorks in Indonesia is one of the very first people in Indonesia to be certified in the EQi 2.0. Andreas works with Leadership Development and Executive Coaching and he generously shared with me some of his experience from introducing and working with EQi in Indonesia. EQi in Indonesia is just beginning to grow and become accepted and understood. The potential for growing the awareness of the importance of EI and the usefulness of the EQi 2.0 is fantastic!
How well known and how accepted do you feel that EI is in Indonesia?
At this moment I am still in the proccess of introducing the benefit of EI in the organization and for leadership. As my work is more with corporate clients, most of them have heard briefly about EI and some has read about it but people in Indonesia still have very limited knowledge about EI. I think EI is well accepted or at least people have an understanding that nowdays they cannot depend on IQ alone.
They are starting to understand the needs or importance to develop EI.
From the result that I get after a few clients have done the assesment and coaching they are very excited about the results and especially with the coaching which is an eye opener for most of them. They can now fine tune or focus on which area of the EQ -i that they want to work on.
What are some of the challenges?
In my personal opinion all great products have a tough time being accepted in the beginning and you need more patience and extra effort to convince people. I’m trying to find a good formula in combining EI with other development programs so my clients can digest it better. And for my self, the more I do the coaching and presentations on EI, the more I have confidence in using the EQ-i assessment. Practice makes perfect!
The EQi 2.0 is a fantastic tool! Once we can understand it, it will align automatically with any companys human values . When I ask the HR department in any organization about their organizational values, most of them will point to the EQ-i scales and sub scales that connect directly or indirectly to the values…. after that it is easier for me to explain what is the importance of EI
Andreas Marta is using EI for Improving Selection and Hiring of Management Trainees In Indonesia.
Most of my clients are financial institutions, and in my experience they are the people that considers IQ more important in terms of performance.
I once had a group of 14 persons, all of them Management Trainees. These people are filtered from more than 500 applicants before they are hired, based on interview and of course, their school results. These 14 people come from top universities locally and internationally, and they have high IQs and are considered to be highly intellectual.
After the first 3 months of boot camp the mentor starts to notice and realize the differences in how these people behave and play in the teams. They are divided into: High, Medium and Low Performers.
So I proposed to the mentor that the trainees should have an EI check up to see in which areas their strenghts are and where they are struggling. They all did the EQi and just before I showed the result to the mentor I asked her to give me the names of the people in the groups of High, Medium and Low Performers. As I showed the result it fell exactly as her prediction on who’s in the High, Medium and Low group.
After the one- to -one coaching we have decided to do another 3 coaching sessions for the 3 persons that have the lowest EI in the group and were willing to be coached. So far, after the second coaching, they are progressing nicely and working on the skills that they are lacking the most.
What I have discovered from the many hired young talented people that I have worked with during training or EQ assessments is, that with limited time and a group that all have excellent school results, it is hard for corporations and organizations to select the ones that are best suitable for the job.
What I see during the hiring can be put into these 3 steps :
- School result or ranks: this is pure intellectual cognitive capacity
- Interview: this is pure guts and confidence
- Behavior or EI: this is what we cannot see during a normal hiring proccess and often the surprise we get when we put this people together in a playing team.
My suggestion to the mentors after seeing the EI results (especially the low ones) is to try to deal with the cards they have in their hands in terms of where they place the Management Trainees and what kind of support they will need. This will also give the Trainees a better understanding about their placement and in which areas of EI they need to develop in order to improve.