In a recent episode of the ‘Procurement Show’ podcast, host Jonathan O’Brien (CEO of Positive Purchasing) discusses how good emotional intelligence can be an important factor in a successful and healthy life, both personally and professionally.
O’Brien and co-host Paul Philpott are joined by Tom Mills “The Procurement Protagonist” to discuss what exactly is emotional intelligence. Can you learn it? Can you teach it? And how can it help us become more successful in procurement?
Tom shares his two key reasons why procurement professionals should be talking about emotional intelligence.
“Number one, I think it’s an absolute key to the impact you can have in an organisation. So, in procurement, you’re only as effective as the relationship you build internally. Unless you’ve got a really good set of soft skills then you’re not going to build those partnerships, those relationships to be able to drive through compliance, to be engaged at the right time throughout value and to be able to deliver real business impact,” he said.
“The second reason, and why I think it’s becoming even more critical, is in the world of artificial intelligence, with technology having such an influence across everything we do, it’s actually soft skills that will be the differentiator for procurement. Things like decision making; effective communication; building really good, collaborative and strong partnerships will become even more critical when artificial intelligence is effectively democratising everything else. Now is the time that we really need to be thinking about investing in soft skills.”
The Procurement Show from Positive Purchasing is a podcast that takes a different approach to procurement, tackling the topics we all need to think about and exploring ‘the more interesting bits’ of procurement.
Listen here or via Apple and Spotify.
