To succeed in today’s business climate it’s not enough to have general intelligence coupled emotional intelligence to be a success! Social Intelligence is also an essential requirement.

Over the past year I’ve been spending increasing amounts of time working with aspiring executives and explaining that their colleagues want the top job as much as they do and that often the only difference between candidates is their social intelligence.

it’s more than a smile, walking around the office thanking people for their work, being at the top of people’s party list or even having a sense of humour. Social intelligence is the ability to set oneself apart and to be identifies as the candidate for leadership because people are attracted to you and will follow.

I so enjoy working with people to develop their social radar and create an understanding of what will create and harm reputation. So the manager who accepted that having the 007 theme tune on his mobile phone was’t  the “coolest corporate image” was in fact demonstrating a distinct lack of social intelligence.

Creating a personal presence so that we can empathise with people’s feelings and, here’s the difference with emotional intelligence, being able to manage how we work with others despite our internal emotional feelings is now an essential tool.

Loads of shops say they deliver an “excellent shopping experience” who, in reality, don’t. So I’ve decided to award these businesses my own “Poor Shopping Experience Medal” and the first is awarded to Homebase in Bridgend.

Yesterday I needed some bubble wrap, the stuff that protects fragile objects. Homebase in Bridgend allowed me to buy it by the metre at £1.49 (meter in USA) and some kind assistant walked me to the back of the store and cut a length after measuring it against a ruler.

I took my neatly rolled bubble wrap to the counter to pay. “Three metres of bubblewrap” I helpfully told the young lady behind the till. “I’ll have to measure it” she said as it was unravelled. Then looked at me as if I was trying to steal the crown jewells “It’s five metres”.

Now I’m sure that Homebase suffers from people trying to walk out of their store without paying for some items but I can think of more valuable things that two metres of Bubble Wrap!

“But I only want three” I protested. She turned to the manager and shouted “He says he only wants three, can we call Fred to recut it”. Having originally waited five minutes for Fred to arrive to cut the original amount I could see this taking more valuable minutes and hold up an ever increasing number of annoyed people in the line behind me. “I’ll take it” I said in frustration. The bubble wrap was passed over to me to refold with a look of “I knew you were trying it on” from the lady and probably by others in the line behind me.

Can I suggest that Homebase could save time, misunderstanding and embarrasment when their shop assistants cut lengths of bubble wrap, or anything else for that matter, that the customer is given a note to show at the pay counter as proof of the amount requested. Self cut lengths could then be measured in the usual manner. Then I would suggest Homebase train the cutters in measuring a metre length. Until then my award medal for poor shopping experience goes to Homebase in Bridgend, South Wales.