SUNDAY REWIND: The importance of EQ for product development teams by Nikkia Reveillac

This week’s Sunday Rewind takes us back to 2021’s #mtpcon Digital Americas conference and a talk from Twitter’s former head of research Nikkia Reveillac on why emotional intelligence is the key ingredient in the highest performing product development teams.

Nikkia starts with a story about the US and Trinidad and Tobago football teams both trying to qualify for the World Cup in 1990. They played each other, the US needed to win to go through, but Trinidad and Tobago only needed to draw. The US won the game and went through, and post-match analysis concluded that Trinidad and Tobago hadn’t played together as a team.

She says the key message from her talk is that product development is a sport, it’s a team sport. However, a collection of superstars does not make an exceptional team. Exceptional teams are made of stars who understand how to work well together.

Nikkia also goes through seven qualities that indicate emotional intelligence in teams. They are: self awareness, empathy, humility, a growth mindset, relationship building, effective communication and personal influence.

She then looks at what can happen if emotional intelligence is missing from a team. It can result in a lack of trust, poor communication, and lowered performance.

Finally, Nikkia runs through some practical tips for building emotional intelligence into teams. You might include behavioural questions in preliminary candidate screening or work with executive coaches to train for emotional intelligence, for example.

Read the original post and watch the video, The importance of EQ for product development teams by Nikkia Reveillac