Emotional Intelligence in Relocation

More and more, external executive hires are failing, and not for the obvious reasons. Some recent research sheds light on what has been previously overlooked in the hiring process.

“Outside hires take twice as long to ramp up as a leader promoted from within. Astoundingly, C-suite executives report that only one out of five executives hired from outside are viewed as high performers at the end of their first year in house. And ultimately, of the 40% of leaders who are hired from outside each year, nearly half fail within the first 18 months. The direct and indirect costs of the failures are staggering, far exceeding the cost of the search that found the executive.” – "For Senior Leaders, Fit Matters More than Skill,” Harvard Business Review.

As an executive relocation coach, my goal is to help the relocation stick and it’s important to understand the facts behind the failures. Steve McKinney, president of McKinney Consulting, Inc., recently shared this info from a three-year study of 5,247 hiring managers from 312 public, private, business and healthcare organizations:

“The study found that 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback [coachability], 23% because they’re unable to understand and manage emotions [emotional intelligence], 17% because they lack the necessary motivation to excel [motivation], 15% because they have the wrong temperament for the job [temperament], and only 11% because they lack key skills [technical competence.” – “Why New Hires Fail,” McKinney Consulting, Inc.

I agree with the next statement McKinney makes, “The failure of new hires should not be a surprise because hiring managers’ focus very little on the emotional aspect of the candidate. More time is spent on evaluating the technical skills of the candidate.”

23 % is significant. When an executive is worried about the assimilation of his family to the new environment where they moved to support his career, emotional intelligence is a valuable skill to cultivate. Not just in managing his own emotions around the job change, the new team, the new systems, but as said above, in “accurately assessing” the emotions of his family and spouse so that he is available to help.


My job as an executive relocation coach is to help the executive and the spouse of the executive assimilate into their new home and geographic environment. We aim to develop their emotional skills by planning for the issues we can predict, and to build emotional intelligence and resilience to deal with what we cannot predict.

Present Moment Awareness in Relocation

Most of us struggle with living in the present moment. Thoughts of the future or the past tend to occupy more of our mind than they should. If this is a common dynamic in regular activities, can you imagine what it is like during a relocation?

When you are moving from one city to another and one home to another, you are often holding two separate locations in your mind at the same time; you are not fully present in either one. As you are packing your current home, you’re visioning furniture placement in the new one. This is a time when, if you are not careful, you can be really scattered.


The two circles in the Holistic Relo logo (pictured below) signify this dynamic of being in two places at one time – straddling two environments. The arc between the two circles symbolizes the need for a fluid connection to the present moment as you navigate these two worlds.



When working with clients, I remind them to be very mindful of their feet. This may sound overly simplistic, but often in the midst of emotional transitions, we have a tendency to rush. And when we rush, accidents happen.

Being aware of our feet not only helps keep us grounded in the present moment, it helps us remain stable. When driving, it keeps us focused on when to gas and when to brake. All too often I receive a call from a client who has injured themselves or had a minor car accident while in the midst of a move.

If you can maintain a connection with the here and now, it will not only allow you to be more productive, it will help you manage the fast pace. Research has proven that living in the present moment leads to decreased stress levels, lower blood pressure and an overall boost to well-being – all things that are critical for a relocation.

Here are five quick ways to achieve present moment awareness in relocation:

1)   Use your breath – Inhale as you silently say “I am…” Exhale as you silently say “right here.”

2)   Find your feet – Press firmly into your feet and feel the ground beneath them. A yoga pose that is a perfect embodiment of this concept is Tadasana, or Mountion Pose.

3)   Choose your words – When asked how you are doing during the relocation, affirm what you want, not what you do not want. For example, “ There is plenty of time to get everything done. I am living in this moment.”

4)   Notice your environment – In the midst of the packing, organizing, and signing of documents, pause and take in something from nature – look out the window, or listen to the song of a bird. When we are focused only on thoughts of future or past, this kind of activity is invisible.

5)   Be thankful – Express gratitude for something present in your life right now, e.g., the friend who listened compassionately, or the health of your body.

Thich Nhat Hanh states, “Your true home is in the here and the now,” and I believe that no matter how many moments we have left in our current home or how many moments left until we close on the new home, each moment is precious and deserves our full attention.

Moving a Middle Schooler

An experienced relocator, my client Ruth (not her real name) thought move #4 would be easy.

Not so much.

This move contained an element not present before – a middle-school girl. The first three moves took place before her daughter had started kindergarten. That fact negated all prior learnings. In fact, it made this move harder for her than any before, and any since.

What made it especially tragic was that her daughter, let’s call her Jenny, had just hit her stride.  She’d always been a very reserved girl, and it took her over a year to find her group in middle school. Halfway through 6^th grade, she was happy on all levels – had a solid, good circle of friends, a dance studio she loved, was able to babysit neighborhood kids, and was experiencing independence for the first time.

Ruth dreaded sharing the news, and put it off for probably longer than she should, but had to tell Jenny unexpectedly one day right after school. An announcement had been printed in the city paper regarding her Dad’s leaving the local company, and Ruth did not want anyone else telling her.

(In hindsight, Ruth realizes her husband should have come home to be part of this conversation. See this post for more relocation communication tips.)

Ruth counts this day as one of her saddest as a mother. She tried to do it right, choosing the most peaceful room in the house. She asked Jenny to join her there as soon as she came in from school. When she told her that they were moving, Ruth reports literally sensing a part of her daughter’s soul slip out the windows. Ruth herself remembers going numb, not thawing out until roughly a full year after the move.

Jenny, in typical 13-year-old girl fashion, cried and raged and slammed the door so hard that a picture fell off the wall, shattering glass everywhere. Ruth keeps that picture unframed to always remind her to be grateful for how her daughter has grown in independence as a result of the relocations.

Having done this before, Ruth was skilled at creating closure with her friends. Ruth used this experience to do her best to create middle school closure – sleepovers, a special quilt with all the girls pictures in the squares, ice cream, cakes, presents, poems, scrapbooks, videos and more. However, no amount of preparation could prevent the pain that was destined to come.

While she expected her daughter to grieve, she was not prepared for how much significant grieving would take place AFTER the move. Unlike adults, 13 year olds typically live in the moment and don’t have an ability to anticipate what is coming. The only way to get through something like this is to go through it – together.