Working with Emotional Intelligence

Dr. Goleman did an excellent job with his second book on Emotional Intelligence because he gives more detail on how to correct the lack of Emotional Intelligence in the business and professional world. On page 26 he tells us how to do a check up on our missing competences for emotional intelligence( both personal and social competencies) and he also mentions that there must be a continious follow up on this program to achieve a lasting effect over the change of our un-wanted bad habits and he alos mentions the guidelines for emotional competence TRAINING which is very helpful in the seminars to train management executives. Dr. Goleman explains also that it takes months to be able to modify our personality, so that some people will not dispair because they can not get an overnight change, it takes time, perseverance and practice to become a proficient and capable executive with good emotional intelligence. Dr. Goleman also explains the effect that stress has on CORTISOL and how it affects mistakes, memory and health and overall management; so this is an excellent book that should be a required textbook on all the MBA programs and for all the project management personnel. In other words Dr. Goleman is helping everybody to modify their personalities to be able to produce more with less stress and wear (or exhaustion). Good luck to all the readers and see you at the top.

No commentary of mine on Daniel Goleman's contributions to ourunderstanding of human nature can possibly do full justice to them. Hegained well-deserved praise for his previously published EmotionalIntelligence in which his focus was primarily on education. Only briefly in one chapter of that pioneering work did he suggest that his insights could perhaps have broader implications for any workplace; indeed, for organizational life throughout our entire society. How fortunate that he then began a two-year study to explore those broader implications. The results of his efforts are shared in Working with Emotional Intelligence. It is a stunning achievement.

In the first chapter, Goleman observes: "The rules for work are changing. We're being judged by a new yardstick: not just by how smart we are, or by our training expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other. This yardstick is increasingly applied in choosing who will be hired and who will not, who will be let go and who will be retained, who passed over and who promoted." As explained by Goleman, emotional intelligence is not simply "being nice" nor does it mean giving free rein to feelings -- "letting it all hang out." Rather, "it means managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals." For many persons, perhaps, the descriptives "emotional" and "intelligent" are mutually exclusive. As does Howard Gardner in Intelligence Reframed, Goleman explains that each of us is blessed with a multiple of intelligences. They must be developed and nourished differently. All are needed. A mature person, therefore, is one who has her or his multiple intelligences (MI) is proper balance, who manages and expresses each in appropriate (hence effective) ways. All of us know highly analytical adults whose emotional development seems to have stopped in the "Terrible Two" phase. We also know other adults who possess exceptional sensitivities but are unable to complete the simplest of calculations.

Goleman organizes his material in five parts: Beyond Expertise, Self-Mastery, People Skills, A New Model of Learning, and The Emotionally Intelligent Organization. Goleman's purpose is to explain the importance of having "the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships." If indeed any organization's "most valuable assets walk out the door at the end of each day", it stands to reason that every effort should be made to integrate and coordinate the multiple intelligences of those human assets.

For Goleman, the "good news" is that emotional intelligence can be learned. Therefore, at the individual level, elements of emotional intelligence must be identified, assessed, and upgraded. Only then can the "emotionally intelligent organization" be established and sustained. In his final remarks, Goleman observes: "But apart from the emotional intelligence of the organizations we work for, having these capabilities offers each of us a way to survive with our humanity and sanity intact, no matter where we work. And as work changes, these human capacities can help us not just to compete, but also nurture the capacity for pleasure, even joy, in our work."

Even if your organization is unwilling and/or unable to become "emotionally intelligent", this book can be of incalculable value to your efforts to recognize and understand your feelings as well as those of others, to motivate yourself, and to manage your emotions more effectively...especially in your relationships with others, whoever and wherever they may be.

I couldn't help thinking as I read this book that this is a guide for what parents should teach their children and how parents should act to be good role models for their children. I agree that emotional intelligence can be learned and that the most successful leaders "have it". In fact, perhaps the high turnover that we see in senior executives today is that we are no longer willing to tolerate those without emotional intelligence. Many of the 25 emotional competencies are values that we see during interviews where we match the candidate' value to those of the company's. In effect, we are valuing their ability to work together at an emotional level. The good news is that based on this book and the many case studies, you do not have to be strong in all of the areas. WORKING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE also stresses the success of the optimistic, and goes beyond other books in explaining why this occurs. Finally, one critical strength of the emotionally intelligent is the ability to communicate with many people in many ways. I have just read THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, and Robert Metz. Their chapter on The Communications Stall describes the inability to make progress without good communications and what good communications requires. Their other stalls also complement WORKING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by describing the problems of not being able to accept new ideas or adapt to change or do what must be done. Combine learning how to increase your emotional intelligence with THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION'S identification of where you are "Stalled" and how to make rapid progress and you are well on the path to being a successful leader in family and business.

This is a wonderful book, and is truly an insightful look at what helps us to be successful in leadership positions in the workplace. The old model of senior management was based on owning all the information and knowledge and being able to understand what everyone does in fine detail, and was often the "promoted-up-through-the-ranks" type of leader. But with modern business involving so much change, and constantly shifting market demands and organizational structures, what worked well yesterday will not move the organization or your career ahead tomorrow.

The author uses as a platform the work on Emotional Intelligence, which unlike typically defined intelligence, focuses on the ability to apply emotional and inspirational information in a variety of social settings and through a vast array of relationships. It is this ability he concludes that predicts success in today's workplace.

Among the areas of discussion are five competencies in which our ability is revealed. The first is "Self Awareness" which includes emotional awareness, self-assessment, and self-confidence. How many times have we worked for or with someone who could not control their emotions and lacked the self awareness to understand how their actions impacted those around them? The importance of balancing performance while exhibiting the values of the organization through a positive culture has never been more in need. Many who have the intelligence to do the work, lack the emotional intelligence to build the relationships and culture needed to get the work done through others. The book explores these pitfalls and discusses suggestions for change.

The other areas are similar: "Self Regulation" (self-control, trustworthiness, adaptability, innovation), "Motivation" (achievement driven, commitment, initiative, and optimism), "Empathy" (understanding others, developing others, service oriented, politically aware), and "Social Skills" (influence, conflict management, leadership, catalyst, building bonds, collaboration and cooperation, and teamwork).

All of the five competencies are presented well, with examples and suggestions for improvement. Some reviewers have noted the lack of "scientific" type of analysis, but I feel that misses the point. The first hurdle to overcome if one wants to be as successful as possible is a basic awareness of the importance of interpersonal skills, and building strong working relationships with others. The opportunity for a purely autocratic style to operate in today's business is rare and therefore the majority of those leading businesses will need to focus on how they apply their EQ, not just their IQ.

This book does an excellent job at presenting what EQ success looks like and why it is important. It is not a step by step manual for improving one's business success, as that would ironically be an IQ approach. The book instead is a great eye-opener of the importance of emotions, and how we read others and interact with them. Highly recommended, and a great starting point for improving your ability to lead others in today's business environment.

"More and more companies are seeing that encouraging emotional intelligence skills is a vital component of any organization's management philosophy. 'You don't compete with products alone anymore, but how well you use your people,' a manager at Telia, the Swedish telecommunications company, put it to me. And Linda Keegan, vice president for executive development at Citibank, told me, 'Emotional intelligence is the underlying premise for all management training'...A 1997 survey of benchmark practices among major corporations, done by the American Society for Training and Development, found that four out of five companies are trying to promote emotional intelligence in their employees through training and development, when evaluating performance, and in hiring...If so, why write this book? Because many or most organizations' efforts to encourage emotional intelligence have been poor, wasting vast amounts of time, energy, and money...My mission in writing this book is to act as a guide to the scientific case for working with emotional intelligence-as individuals, in groups, as organizations. At every step I have sought to validate the science with the testimony of people in jobs and organizations of all kinds, and their voices will be heard all along the way" (pp.7-13).

In this context, Daniel Goleman firstly defines emotional competence as a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work, and emotional intelligence as a potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its elements. Thus, throughout this invaluable book, he discusses the relationship between the five dimensions of emotional intelligence and the twenty-five emotional competencies as listed below:

A. Personal Competence- These competencies determine how we manage ourselves.

I- Self-Awareness- Knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.

1. Emotional awareness: Recognizing one's emotions and their effects.

2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one's strengths and limits.

3. Self-confidence: A strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities.

II- Self-Regulation- Managing one's internal states, impulses, and resources.

4. Self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.

5. Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.

6. Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance.

7. Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change.

8. Innovation: Being comfortable with novel ideas, approaches, and new information.

III- Motivation- Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.

9. Achievement drive: Striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence.

10. Commitment: Aligning with the goals of the group or organization.

11. Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities.

12. Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

B- Social Competence- These competencies determine how we handle relationships.

IV- Empathy- Awareness of others' feelings, needs, and concerns.

13. Understanding others: Sensing others' feelings, and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns.

14. Developing others: Sensing others' development needs and bolstering their abilities.

15. Service orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers' needs.

16. Leveraging diversity: Cultivating opportunities through different kinds of people.

17. Political awareness: Reading a group's emotional currents and power relationships.

V- Social Skills- Adeptness of inducing desirable responses in others.

18. Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion.

19. Communication: Listening openly and sending convincing messages.

20. Conflict management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements.

21. Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups.

22. Change catalyst: Initiating or managing change.

23. Building bonds: Nurturing instrumental relationships.

24. Collaboration and cooperation: Working with others toward shared goals.

25. Team capabilities: Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

Daniel Goleman writes that "this list offers a way to inventory our strengths and to pinpoint competencies we may want to bolster. Part 2 and 3 of the book give more detail and insight into each of the competencies, showing how they look when displayed in full power-or when they are lacking. Readers may want to turn directly to the competencies most relevant to their interests; the chapters describing them do build on one another to an extent (as do the competencies they describe), but they need not be read in a fixed order."

Strongly recommended.