Recognizing a Good Office Professional Fit

Whether your recognize it or not, your office has a culture. It has a certain way of doing things, of perceiving its mission and carrying out its vision. There are certain types of people who are an excellent cultural fit, and there are those who aren’t. Introverted people, for example, probably aren’t a good fit on the floor of the stock exchange. It’s nothing personal. It’s just the way business works.

Despite particular personality traits, we all want to work with people who are smart, and not just in an academic sense. We want to work with colleagues who possess a healthy amount of emotional intelligence. This article elaborates, “’Emotional intelligence’ is a buzzword (er, buzz-phrase) that means the ability to perceive others’ emotional conditions; to some, it’s a better measure of practical intelligence than traditional IQ.”

Emotional intelligence is something idiots at your office do not have. For example, the guy at your office who eats other people’s food from the refrigerator without asking has zero emotional intelligence. Who would jeopardize their entire career for a few leftover scoops of General Tsao’s chicken? The person who clips their toenails in their cubicle has no emotional intelligence (or hygiene for that matter). And that woman who openly discusses her gout problems on the phone? She doesn’t have emotional intelligence either.

Companies must determine whether or not the people they hire are going to be a good fit for the office culture. This begins with emotional intelligence. Do you work with someone who has no emotional intelligence? How do you know?

Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan.