Teaching Soft Skills to Engineers

How Bosch Rexroth Successfully Used the MBTI Tool to Increase Emotional Intelligence

In highly technical environments, convincing leadership and employees about the importance of personal development can be challenging.

“We want people to overcome all kinds of changes and develop themselves,” says Steven Huylebroeck, Managing Commercial Director at Bosch Rexroth in Belgium. He’s been with the company for 30 years and worked his way up from the warehouse through different departments. And he’s also on a mission: to embed personal development into the company’s culture through the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment.

Leading the manufacturing industry, Bosch Rexroth adopted the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment as part of their management training in Northern Europe. Their goal was to increase self-awareness (the cornerstone of emotional intelligence). Immediate results exceeded expectations:

  • 95 percent voluntary employee participation rate, increasing the chances of creating the right company-wide culture
  • In-house training delivered by trusted employees, increasing session success
  • Improved understanding between departments leads to improved customer experience

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Embedding emotional intelligence culture in a technical DNA

Bosch Rexroth profiles itself as a learning company. It trains and develops technical employees, helps them get qualifications, and creates career opportunities. They used the MBTI assessment as foundational emotional intelligence training, creating pre-training information sessions and having in-house practitioners deliver the training.

“We called the whole program Competence World. [It’s] like an adventure park—you have thrills, perhaps you’re excited, sometimes afraid. You come through the entrance, which is MBTI foundation training. After that, you can go where you want and choose your direction,” says Mette Boeegh-Nielsen, Commercial Director for Bosch Rexroth Denmark.

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Solving real-life challenges with self-awareness

Currently, training for the Belgium office is well underway and the Denmark office is even further ahead. According to the company, initial responses have been exceptionally positive.

“There’s been huge interest from people across the business―managers, associates, student workers, trainees―and it’s been open to everyone. We’re doing teams and problem-solving now. These are full-day workshops where we bring departments together so we can see the interplay between them. It reflects daily working life,” says Boeegh-Nielsen.

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