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Ravi Rao recently co-hosted a webinar with Angela Thompson for the Columbus Retail Roundtable where they discussed the importance of emotional intelligence at all levels of the corporate arena.

I have a very weird background. Essentially, three chapters.  Chapter one was a decade spent in a science environment at Johns Hopkins and then Harvard, studying the brain, studying the science stuff of how the brain works, starting at the kind of individual brain cell, the neuron level up through the kind of broader structures, and about what do different parts of the brain do and how do we treat patients with diseases of the brain. That was chapter one. Chapter two was a short five years at McKinsey, so learning how to handle business challenges and use consulting services to help clients solve their problems. For five years in a variety of industries, not only retail, but then the third chapter, the one that’s lasted now for the last 15 years, is one where I, as an independent consultant focus specifically on the topic of how do organizations really work not only on the kind of broader structure process technology and talent level, but down to the individual. How do people relate to each other in this organization, how do they relate to each other on teams, how do they relate between different levels of the organization, the MID managers and the executives and the frontline but then also how to individuals within the organization have interactions with customers on the outside and that interaction and relationship basis is what we’ll talk about today, and how. Interestingly, a little bit counterintuitive for a lot of people, the brain has a big role to play and how we actually manage relationships so with that, I do have a few slides just as an introduction, but again they’re meant to be a dialogue starter, not a lecture for which you should have to take notes or anything.

Key points include:

• The heart/head connection
• How the instinct to connect is killed
• Creating the emotional connection in retail

Listen to the full podcast, How Our Brains and Emotions Influence our Brand Experiences, on Community Roundtable.