Incorporating Emotional Intelligence into the Preparation and ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

constituencies: the individual travelers (i.e., students and professor), the international travel course, thegroup of travelers, and the sponsoring institution.The Individual TravelerFor individual students, the international travel course is a multi-faceted activity with the followingcommon, inter-related challenges: international travel, travel in a group, travel with fellow students whoare unlikely to be well known to you, travel with a supervising professor/administrator, and travelparticipation to be graded for course credit. These components, separately and together, delivercomplexity and likely strong emotions including uncertainty, stress, and fear. Travel participants whobecome aware of and perhaps even increase their EI, will better manage their own emotional reactions(Matthews & Zeidner, 2000) and as a result the group of travelers will experience an increased grouplevel of EI and effectiveness (Druskat & Wolff, 2001).Students who can learn to recognize their emotions will better understand their energy ebbs andflows throughout their travels. As a result, they may ask for help from their colleagues when faced with aproblem or seek quiet time when they are exhausted. Similarly, students who can control their reactions(e.g., making distasteful facial gestures, in view of their hosts, when provided an unfamiliar form of food)are less likely to embarrass themselves, and are more likely to be able to accept feedback when they aretold of a mistake. Obviously, students who can be persistent in the face of setbacks will handle problemswith greater equanimity. As a result, people who are most in touch with, and in control of their emotionswill be available to gain the greatest learning from their international travel experience. This will happenbecause those who are intra-personally adept will use neither time nor energy in ways that underminetheir learning opportunities.While our focus in this article is predominantly on the travel experience itself, we want toacknowledge that people with more, rather than less EI have been found to generally experience greatersuccess in their accomplishments and relationships (e.g., Goleman, 1998, Sosik & Megerian, 1999; Staw& Barsade. 1993). Bush and Bush (1998) report that practicing marketers rank the following EI skillsamong the top ten predictors of career success for international marketing students: having patience (i.e.,self control), demonstrating perseverance (i.e., motivation), communicating misunderstandings (i.e. socialskill), and dealing with different communication styles (i.e., empathy). While this research was not anexplicit test of EI concepts, the competencies are the same. Such studies highlight an added benefit of EItraining for students during international travel courses – the EI knowledge and training may serve notonly the travel experience, but personal and career objectives as well. Taking this wider view, theinternational travel course can be viewed as a sort of boot camp for EI training. With a facilitator onboard, multiple intense days of opportunity for practice, and a continual stream of challenging events,students on a multi-week journey can practice and develop their skills at EI while engaged in real-time,meaningful situations (Cherniss & Goleman, 2001b).EI training can also benefit the international course trip leader. Like their students, trip leaders facethe challenges and trials of international travel but they carry an additional burden as their role sets themapart. Students are not peers and leaders lose some easy camaraderie as a result of their role. Managingthe social “off” hours is a particular challenge for group travel leaders – do they party and sightsee withthe students, and if so, to what degree, or do they maintain a professional distance? In addition, the leadershoulders the ongoing responsibility of keeping the group safe, engaged, and satisfied. This requires thatthey be constantly on call and ready to handle crises. As a result, being a trip leader can be lonely:support networks of peers may not be easily accessed and the demands of the job may require that toughdecisions be made and enforced. An increased proficiency at employing EI skills can give trip leadersbetter coping skills, higher energy, enhanced creativity, and improved decision making (Cooper & Sawaf,1996; Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). This could benefit their personal travel experience as well astheir professional competence (Schettler, 2002).Emotional Intelligence Competency Building for International Travel Course Participants 6
The CourseWe believe that the travel course overall benefits from the inclusion of EI. This happens in a numberof ways. First, study and discussion of EI legitimizes real concerns that students have about the travelcourse process. By allowing for open and honest discussion of concerns, the underlying fears can bemanaged rather than staying hidden to crop up later, perhaps with unfortunate consequences. Second, thetravel course that takes account of process issues is likely to run more smoothly than the one that doesn’t.Third, the inclusions of EI serves as a model of advanced planning that all students interested incompetent business management derive benefit in observing (for more on the addition of EI training tothe classroom, see Tucker and Sojke, 2000). Fourth, by adding process issues to a course where they arenot expected, student value is delivered above and beyond what had been anticipated. Finally, a wellmanagedcourse is more likely to attract student attention and demand. This builds course enrollment andencourages the development of additional travel courses by the institution.The Group of TravelersAs the long history of research into teams and groups has demonstrated, groups of people willbehave in ways that individuals will not. Additionally, it is recognized that groups (in this case the studenttravelers) develop in predictable stages. Introducing the ideas of EI up front during the forming andnorming stages allows the topics of emotions, stress, coping, and relationships to be legitimized as anappropriate element of the course of study and of the group’s experiences. This will then hopefully provevaluable in the inevitable storming stage (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). Moreover, when a group of relativestrangers travels together over many days and long distances, it is certain that stresses, incompatibilitiesof personalities, honest disagreements, and ineffective communication will lead the group to be less thanoptimally successful. As a result, it is imperative that the EI competencies of collaboration, cooperation,and communication be dealt with directly and carefully. The benefits to this proactive approach will likelyinclude increased listening, growth from conflict and adversity, the facilitation of effectivecommunication, and the development of a more closely-knit community (Druskat & Wolff, 2001).The Sponsoring InstitutionWhen students travel internationally they become de-facto ambassadors not only of their homecountries but also of their sponsoring institutions. Hosts and others in the visited country will formimpressions of the institution based on the behavior of the students. It is for this reason that the institutionhas a great deal to gain/lose by the laudable/deplorable behavior on the part of its students. For example,some years ago one of our students traveled to Asia where the standards of food preparation wereconsiderably different from those in the States. This student, who had previously been a nurse (and wastherefore especially knowledgeable about sanitation), became greatly concerned about her health andsafety. Unfortunately, her concern was so extreme (and in reality based on limited evidence) that it notonly interfered with her ability to participate in meals with her colleagues, but also led her to makefrequent, vocal complaints that her colleagues found disruptive. Moreover, the hosts were greatly insultedand expressed some concern about inviting our students back in the future! Clearly, this individual’s poormanagement of her reactions had immediate negative repercussions. Her responses also had the potentialto damage the reputation of our institution and our ongoing relationship with our hosts.Suggestions for Incorporating EI Competency Building into the Planning and Delivery ofInternational Travel CoursesOur suggestions for incorporating EI competency building into the planning and delivery ofinternational travel courses are based on our own experience in integrating this practice into an MBAtravel course curriculum and on the literature that has developed around training for increased emotionalintelligence (Cherniss & Adler, 2000; Cherniss & Goleman, 2001b). We take into consideration the factEmotional Intelligence Competency Building for International Travel Course Participants 7
Page 1: Incorporating Emotional Intelligenc
Page 4: Table 1: The Five Competencies of E
Page 10 and 11: Continued/Table 2: Ten Suggestions
Page 12 and 13: ReferencesAshforth, B. E., & Humphr
Page 14 and 15: APPENDIX I: Suggested Outline of Cl

Incorporating Emotional Intelligence into the Preparation and ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?