Apply EI to the Stages of Innovation

I’m often asked if there’s any direct relationship between emotional intelligence and the ability to innovate. There are several ways EI connects with creativity. One reason is that creativity is a complex process – the famous “Aha!” moment of a creative insight is just one stage in the process.

Let’s take individual (as opposed to team) creativity. One classic model of the creative process sees several stages. In the first you recognize the creative challenge and immerse yourself in anything that might be relevant to the solution. This takes good self-management.

After immersion, you let go – it’s the unconscious parts of the brain that have the widest networks of association, and that put novel elements together in a new way to find a creative insight. It takes a combination of self-awareness and self-management to switch off the immersion and its goal-focus and switch into free association and reverie.

It’s in that free floating state that many of our best ideas come to us, from the unconscious. That’s why so many great inspirations and insights have occurred while people are doing something else – like showering or taking a walk – or nothing in particular.

Once you get a creative insight that can be useful, the final stage is implementation. That typically involves getting other people excited and on board with your idea to follow it through. This means that being able to communicate it forcefully and persuade – relationship and empathy skills – become important.

When it comes to teams, the group EI is very important for creativity. People are most free to offer their most innovative (and sometimes whacky) ideas and insights when there is an atmosphere of high trust. If people are afraid of ridicule, put-downs or dismissals, they keep their ideas to themselves. High EI teams have high trust levels.

Then there’s implementing the best ideas. That takes a high level of collaboration and harmony, which help any teams work at their best. And the key to these is, again, team EI.