UZH Emotionally Intelligent Organization seminar successfully concluded
17 June 2022
Click on the picture to watch the course video!
Shaping the future of organizations in a novel master course
Organizational life is rife with emotions, but many organizations are not yet set up in ways that effectively embrace their employees’ emotions. In Spring 2022, the UZH CLFW launched an innovative Master course called “The Emotionally Intelligent Organization.”
Twenty-five carefully selected students from the University of Zurich explored in five teams the science behind emotions at work, discovered the role of emotional intelligence, and elaborated on how relevant findings apply at the organizational level.
The course, designed and directed by Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges, took place over eight sessions from February to June 2022. Students embarked on a learning journey consisting in three phases combining classic academic work and creative practice-oriented work:
Learning phase: students were first equipped with theoretical knowledge to understand why emotions and emotional intelligence matter at work, and how to understand and conceptualize organizations as collective systems.
Experience phase: students then explored ways in which organizations have already developed ideas and practices to embrace employees’ emotional intelligence more effectively, by conducting interviews with practitioners and attending a panel discussion with HR experts.
Application phase: after identifying a specific challenge, students used design-thinking methods to develop initial ideas for solutions helping to promote emotional intelligence at the collective level.
Our heartfelt congratulations go to our winning team for imagining an elegant, emotionally intelligent solution leveraging the employee login process to improve inter-cultural understanding in global organizations: Milosch Gressly, Edoardo Guidali, Glenn Hauser, Ann-Christine Lindner and Taika Nummi.
Our congratulations also go to the runner up team for developing a solution using a new employee on-boarding process to mainstream the use of emotional intelligence in the workplace: Jonathan Frischknecht, Sebastian Lutz, Niki Ntokou, Oliver Schwertfeger, and Alessia De Vecchi.
And our congratulations go to all other teams for the fantastic results they accomplished and for the learning process they went through as part of the course.
Thank you to our thoughtful jury members for joining our final session of the course and for providing enlightening feedback:
Prof. Dr. Laura M. Giurge, Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Reshma Ramachandran, Group SVP and Head of Transformation, The Adecco Group
Dr. Hans Werner, Board Chairman, Careum Foundation
Thank you to our brilliant guest panelists for sharing their time and experience with students:
Anabel Fall, Group Head of People Innovation and Transformation, Zurich Insurance Company
Vlad Gheorghiu, Co-founder & Co-CEO, Kyan Health
Orsolya Kovács, Associate Director, Boston Consulting Group, Zurich
Birgit Maillefaud, Head of People & Culture (HR), Marketing & Finance, Logitech; Advisory Board Member, CoachHub
Dr. Thomas Schneider, Co-owner, Great Place to Work Switzerland
Thank you to our wonderful mentors for providing valuable feedback:
Simon Amrein, Head of Delivery, Solution Factory, Trivadis
Lorenz Bauer, Head of Supply Chain and Production, Burckhardt Compression
Michael Bühler, Regional Sales Manager, SFS unimarket
Stephane Faivre, Head Customer Service Security Systems, Siemens Schweiz
Daniel Heinzer, Internal Consultant - Matchwork-HR, AXA Versicherungen
Simon Inderbitzin, Manager Development, Roche
Patrick Lilienthal, Head of Sales & Marketing, Brunner-Anliker
Dr. Sabine Mayer, Head of Department Radiation, Protection and Safety, Paul Scherrer Institut
Cornelia Studer, Head of HR Top Management and Group Divisions, SBB
Christina Wentz, Manager Center for Surgical Research, Universitätsspital Zürich
Last, but not least, thank you to our dynamic team of instructors: Florence Bernays, Vera Hampel, and Leonie Hentrup.
Inspired? Interested in taking the use of emotional intelligence to the next level in your organization? Get in touch to be involved as we continue innovate the organization of the future.