In his phenomenal bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman mapped the territory where IQ meets EQ, where we apply what we know to how we live. Spending over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, Emotional Intelligence provided the evidence for what many successful people already knew: being smart isn't just a matter of mastering facts; it's a matter of mastering your own emotions and understanding the emotions of the people around you.
Now, in Working With Emotional Intelligence, Goleman shows why emotional intelligence has become the new yardstick for success for CEOs and junior hires alike. Drawing on both unparalleled access to business leaders and in-depth research, he documents that star performance in every field depends more on emotional intelligence than IQ or technical skills. And the impact of emotional intelligence is even greater at the top of the leadership pyramid.
Goleman vividly shows how self-awareness, motivation, influence, conflict management, and team-building play out in some of the top corporations in the world today, and points out the damage done when they are lacking. He also creates a strategy for the "emotionally intelligent organization" that will shape training and development programs for years to come.
With examples from real-life businesses, including successes and failures, this program is a blueprint for all who want to thrive with integrity and satisfaction in the new global economy.
In his phenomenal bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman mapped the territory where IQ meets EQ, where we apply what we know to how we live. Spending over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, Emotional Intelligence provided the evidence for what many successful people already knew: being smart isn't just a matter of mastering facts; it's a matter of mastering your own emotions and understanding the emotions of the people around you.
Now, in Working With Emotional Intelligence, Goleman shows why emotional intelligence has become the new yardstick for success for CEOs and junior hires alike. Drawing on both unparalleled access to business leaders and in-depth research, he documents that star performance in every field depends more on emotional intelligence than IQ or technical skills. And the impact of emotional intelligence is even greater at the top of the leadership pyramid.
Goleman vividly shows how self-awareness, motivation, influence, conflict management, and team-building play out in some of the top corporations in the world today, and points out the damage done when they are lacking. He also creates a strategy for the "emotionally intelligent organization" that will shape training and development programs for years to come.
With examples from real-life businesses, including successes and failures, this program is a blueprint for all who want to thrive with integrity and satisfaction in the new global economy.
Overview
In his phenomenal bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman mapped the territory where IQ meets EQ, where we apply what we know to how we live. Spending over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, Emotional Intelligence provided the evidence for what many successful people already knew: being smart isn't just a matter of mastering facts; it's a matter of mastering your own emotions and understanding the emotions of the people around you.
Now, in Working With Emotional Intelligence, Goleman shows why emotional intelligence has become the new yardstick for success for CEOs and junior hires alike. Drawing on both unparalleled access to business leaders and in-depth research, he documents that star performance in every field depends more on emotional intelligence than IQ or technical skills. And the impact of emotional intelligence is even greater at the top of the leadership pyramid.
Goleman vividly shows how self-awareness, motivation, influence, conflict management, and team-building play out in some of the top corporations in the world today, and points out the damage done when they are lacking. He also creates a strategy for the "emotionally intelligent organization" that will shape training and development programs for years to come.
With examples from real-life businesses, including successes and failures, this program is a blueprint for all who want to thrive with integrity and satisfaction in the new global economy.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781559277006 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Macmillan Audio |
| Publication date: | 03/28/2002 |
| Series: | Leading with Emotional Intelligence Series |
| Edition description: | Abridged |
| Pages: | 3 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 5.77(h) x 0.81(d) |
About the Author
Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. is CEO of Emotional Intelligence Services in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He covered the behavioral and brain sciences for the New York Times for twelve years. He has taught at Harvard, where he received his doctorate in psychology and is a consultant who addresses groups and businesses around the world. Emotional Intelligence, his fifth book, has been translated into twenty-five languages and has been a number one bestseller everywhere, from the U.S. to Brazil, Japan to England. In addition to Emotional Intelligence, his previous books include Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Creative Spirit, and The Meditative Mind.
Read an Excerpt
The New Yardstick
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 and 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 retained, who passed over and who promoted.
The new rules predict who is most likely to become a star performer and who is most prone to derailing. And, no matter what field we work in currently, they measure the traits that are crucial to our marketability for future jobs.
These rules have little to do with what we were told was important in school; academic abilities are largely irrelevant to this standard. The new measure takes for granted having enough intellectual ability and technical know-how to do our jobs; it focuses instead on personal qualities, such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness.
This is no passing fad, nor just the management nostrum of the moment. The data that argue for taking it seriously are based on studies of tens of thousands of working people, in callings of every kind. The research distills with unprecedented precision which qualities mark a star performer. And it demonstrates which human abilities make up the greater part of the ingredients for excellence at work--most especially for leadership.
If you work in a large organization, even now you are probably being evaluated in terms of these capabilities, though you may not know it. If you are applying for a job, you are likely to be scrutinized through this lens, though, again, no one will tell you so explicitly. Whateveryour job, understanding how to cultivate these capabilities can be essential for success in your career.
If you are part of a management team, you need to consider whether your organization fosters these competencies or discourages them. To the degree your organizational climate nourishes these competencies, your organization will be more effective and productive. You will maximize your group's intelligence, the synergistic interaction of every person's best talents.
If you work for a small organization or for yourself, your ability to perform at peak depends to a very great extent on your having these abilities--though almost certainly you were never taught them in school. Even so, your career will depend, to a greater or lesser extent, on how well you have mastered these capacities.
In a time with no guarantees of job security, when the very concept of a "job" is rapidly being replaced by "portable skills," these are prime qualities that make and keep us employable. Talked about loosely for decades under a variety of names, from "character" and "personality" to "soft skills" and "competence," there is at last a more precise understanding of these human talents, and a new name for them: emotional intelligence.
A Different Way of Being Smart
"I had the lowest cumulative grade point average ever in my engineering school," the codirector of a consulting firm tells me. "But when I joined the army and went to officer candidate school, I was number one in my class--it was all about how you handle yourself, get along with people, work in teams, leadership. And that's what I find to be true in the world of work."
In other words, what matters is a different way of being smart. In my book Emotional Intelligence, my focus was primarily on education, though a short chapter dealt with implications for work and organizational life.
What caught me by utter surprise--and delighted me--was the flood of interest from the business community. Responding to a tidal wave of letters and faxes, e-mails and phone calls, requests to speak and consult, I found myself on a global odyssey, talking to thousands of people, from CEOs to secretaries, about what it means to bring emotional intelligence to work.
This search has taken me back to research I participated in while a graduate student, and then faculty member, at Harvard University. That research was part of an early challenge to the IQ mystique--the false but widely embraced notion that what matters for success is intellect alone. This work helped spawn what has now become a mini-industry that analyzes the actual competencies that make people successful in jobs and organizations of every kind, and the findings are astonishing: IQ takes second position to emotional intelligence in determining outstanding job performance.
Analyses done by dozens of different experts in close to five hundred corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide have arrived independently at remarkably similar conclusions, and their findings are particularly compelling because they avoid the biases or limits inherent in the work of a single individual or group. Their conclusions all point to the paramount place of emotional intelligence in excellence on the job--in virtually any job.
Some Misconceptions
As I've toured the world talking and consulting with people in business, I've encountered certain widespread misunderstandings about emotional intelligence. Let me clear up some of the most common at the outset. First, emotional intelligence does not mean merely "being nice." At strategic moments it may demand not "being nice," but rather, for example, bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth they've been avoiding.
Second, emotional intelligence does not 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.
Also, women are not "smarter" than men when it comes to emotional intelligence, nor are men superior to women. Each of us has a personal profile of strengths and weaknesses in these capacities. Some of us may be highly empathic but lack some abilities to handle our own distress; others may be quite aware of the subtlest shift in our own moods, yet be inept socially.
It is true that men and women as groups tend to have a shared, gender-specific profile of strong and weak points. An analysis of emotional intelligence in thousands of men and women found that women, on average, are more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, and are more adept interpersonally. Men, on the other hand, are more self-confident and optimistic, adapt more easily, and handle stress better.
In general, however, there are far more similarities than differences. Some men are as empathic as the most interpersonally sensitive women, while some women are every bit as able to withstand stress as the most emotionally resilient men. Indeed, on average, looking at the overall ratings for men and women, the strengths and weaknesses average out, so that in terms of total emotional intelligence, there are no sex differences.
Finally, our level of emotional intelligence is not fixed genetically, nor does it develop only in early childhood. Unlike IQ, which changes little after our teen years, emotional intelligence seems to be largely learned, and it continues to develop as we go through life and learn from our experiences--our competence in it can keep growing. In fact, studies that have tracked people's level of emotional intelligence through the years show that people get better and better in these capabilities as they grow more adept at handling their own emotions and impulses, at motivating themselves, and at honing their empathy and social adroitness. There is an old-fashioned word for this growth in emotional intelligence: maturity.
Why This Matters Now
At a California biotech start-up, the CEO proudly enumerated the features that made his organization state-of-the-art: No one, including him, had a fixed office; instead, everyone carried a small laptop--their mobile office--and was wired to everyone else. Job titles were irrelevant; employees worked in cross-functional teams and the place bubbled with creative energy. People routinely put in seventy- and eighty-hour work weeks.
"So what's the downside?" I asked him.
"There is no downside," he assured me.
And that was the fallacy. Once I was free to talk with staff members, I heard the truth: The hectic pace had people feeling burned out and robbed of their private lives. And though everyone could talk via computer to everyone else, people felt that no one was truly listening to them.
People desperately felt the need for connection, for empathy, for open communication.
In the new, stripped-down, every-job-counts business climate, these human realities will matter more than ever. Massive change is a constant; technical innovations, global competition, and the pressures of institutional investors are ever-escalating forces for flux.
Another reality makes emotional intelligence ever more crucial: As organizations shrink through waves of downsizing, those people who remain are more accountable--and more visible. Where earlier a midlevel employee might easily hide a hot temper or shyness, now competencies such as managing one's emotions, handling encounters well, teamwork, and leadership, show--and count--more than ever.
The globalization of the workforce puts a particular premium on emotional intelligence in wealthier countries. Higher wages in these countries, if they are to be maintained, will depend on a new kind of productivity. And structural fixes or technological advances alone are not enough: As at the California biotech firm, streamlining or other innovations often create new problems that cry out for even greater emotional intelligence.
As business changes, so do the traits needed to excel. Data tracking the talents of star performers over several decades reveal that two abilities that mattered relatively little for success in the 1970s have become crucially important in the 1990s: team building and adapting to change. And entirely new capabilities have begun to appear as traits of star performers, notably change catalyst and leveraging diversity. New challenges demand new talents.
A Coming Crisis: Rising IQ, Dropping EQ
Since 1918, when World War I brought the first mass use of IQ tests on American army recruits, the average IQ score in the United States has risen 24 points, and there has been a similar rise in developed countries around the world. The reasons include better nutrition, more children completing more schooling, computer games and puzzles that help children master spatial skills, and smaller family size (which generally correlates with higher IQ scores in children).
There is a dangerous paradox at work, however: As children grow ever smarter in IQ, their emotional intelligence is on the decline. Perhaps the most disturbing single piece of data comes from a massive survey of parents and teachers that shows the present generation of children to be more emotionally troubled than the last. On average, children are growing more lonely and depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive.
Two random samples of American children, age seven to sixteen, were evaluated by their parents and teachers--adults who knew them well. The first group was assessed in the mid-1970s, and a comparable group was surveyed in the late 1980s. Over that decade and a half there was a steady worsening of children's emotional intelligence. Although poorer children started out at a lower level on average, the rate of decline was the same across all economic groups--as steep in the wealthiest suburbs as in the poorest inner-city slum.
Dr. Thomas Achenbach, the University of Vermont psychologist who did these studies--and who has collaborated with colleagues on similar assessments in other nations--tells me that the decline in children's basic emotional competencies seems to be worldwide. The most telling signs of this are seen in rising rates among young people of problems such as despair, alienation, drug abuse, crime and violence, depression or eating disorders, unwanted pregnancies, bullying, and dropping out of school.
What this portends for the workplace is quite troubling: growing deficiencies among workers in emotional intelligence, particularly among those newest to the job. Most of the children that Achenbach studied in the late 1980s will be in their twenties by the year 2000. The generation that is falling behind in emotional intelligence is entering the workforce today.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.....................................................ixBeyond Expertise
Self-Mastery
People Skills
A New Model of Learning
The Emotionally Intelligent Organization
Some Final Thoughts................................................312
Appendix 1 Emotional Intelligence.................................317
Appendix 2 Calculating the Competencies of Stars..................319
Appendix 3 Gender and Empathy.....................................322
Appendix 4 Strategies for Leveraging Diversity....................324
Appendix 5 Further Issues in Training.............................326
Notes..............................................................331
Index..............................................................373
Contacting Daniel Goleman..........................................384
What People are Saying About This
Impressive in its scope and depth, staggering in its implications, Emotional Intelligence gives us an entirely new way of looking at the root causes of many of the ills of our families and our society.
Daniel Goleman transcends the role of reporter to make an original contribution to the question that has fascinated thinkers for millennia: How are we to use the passions to understand our circumstances and engage in communal life?
Reading Group Guide
1. Working with Emotional Intelligence argues that the business environment has changed radically since the 1970's, producing new challenges, and hence, a demand for new talents. "Data tracking the talents of star performers over several decades reveal that two abilities that mattered relatively little for success in the 1970's have become crucially important in the 1990's: team building and adapting to change. And entirely new capabilities have begun to appear as traits for star performers, notably change catalyst and leveraging diversity." Do you agree? Have you noticed this trend in your own field? How do these changes manifest themselves in the job market?
2. Why do you think businesses and colleges continue to ignore emotional intelligence when assessing an applicant's strengths, and focus almost exclusively on measures of IQ? Is there a way of accurately gauging emotional intelligence? Do you think there should be widespread use of emotional intelligence testing? How might such tests be standardized?
3. Goleman draws a distinction between "good stress" and "bad stress, " arguing that they result in different biological responses; producing adrenaline and cortisol, respectively. What are the challenges that you find invigorating, versus those that overwhelm, or paralyze you? Do you believe it's possible to transform your biological response to these challenges through a heightened emotional intelligence? What are some steps you might take to increase your desired emotional competencies?
4. How might businesses use the information in Working with Emotional Intelligence to transform their companies? Whatare some specific tools that Goleman provides to a CEO, enabling them to cut costs and increase earnings?
5. Each job demands different emotional competencies. Which do you think pertain to your chosen field? How would you rate your own level of ability in those competencies? Do you feel proficient in any emotional competencies that are superfluous to your work? When do these abilities come into play?
6. Goleman describes an integrated program for developing emotional intelligence in the workplace, and notes that optimum success is seen when all of the elements are used in combination. Which of the "best practices" do you think is most difficult to implement? Which ones are you currently using in your own workplace? Which elements present a new challenge for you?
7. Emotional intelligence does not mean, "being nice" or "giving free reign to feelings." When does an excess of social sensitivity become distracting and harmful? When can positive qualities, such as affiliation, initiative, empathy, and gregariousness get in the way of productivity and success? What is it that enables us to strike the desired balance? How does that balance shift according to differing environments and different jobs?
8. The book points out a frequent disparity between how well people fare academically and their subsequent success level upon joining the work force. "Paradoxically, IQ has the least power in predicting success among that pool of people smart enough to handle the most cognitively demanding fields, and the value of emotional intelligence for success grows more powerful the higher the intelligence barriers for entry into a field." Why do you think this is so? Do you know of academic geniuses who failed to measure up to their potential? Do you think their lack of emotional intelligence was at fault?
9. "An emotional competence is a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work." Our emotional intelligence determines our potential, our emotional competence indicates "how much of that potential has been translated into on-the-job capabilities." Are you living up to your emotional intelligence potential? What emotional intelligence talents do you feel you possess, that remain untapped, or undeveloped?
10. Throughout the book, Goleman links many aspects of emotional intelligence to evolutionary developments that took place hundreds of thousands of years ago. Do you agree that these sensitivities are rooted in our species' development? What are some evolutionarily inherited behaviors that are no longer applicable to modern life?
11. Goleman writes, "The rhythm and pace of modern life give us too little time to assimilate, reflect, and react-- We need time to be introspective, but we don't get it - or don't take it." How do you take the time to be introspective, and process your emotions? What form do your moments of quietude take? Meditation? Gardening? Walks? Do you wish you had more such "do nothing" time? How might you find additional opportunities to listen to your "inner voice"?
12. A list of common blind spots that might prevent someone from pursuing self-awareness are: blind ambition, unrealistic goals, relentless striving, drives others, power hungry, insatiable need for recognition, preoccupation with appearances, need to seem perfect. Do any of your co-workers exhibit such tendencies? Does it restrict their emotional competencies? Do any of the above qualities impair your own sense of self? What other blind spots can you think of?
13. Goleman stresses the importance of "team capabilities" and the notion that it is a group's collective emotional intelligence that propels a company's success much more than any individual's talents. In an ideal group, each individual contributes different, complimentary emotional competencies that produce a "critical mass" for success. Have you seen such EQ team work in action and noticed its positive results? In your own work, do you collaborate with individuals whose emotional competencies compliment your own? Or are there certain important deficiencies you all share?
Interviews
A:
When I wrote Emotional Intelligence, which mostly focused on children, I was amazed at the global response I got from the business community. People saw the need. It intrigued me. So I started looking into it and found the most amazing data. For effective performance, emotional competence matters twice as much as IQ and expertise. This is true in all kinds of jobs.
Q:
What percentage of people have emotional intelligence?
A:
We all it have it to some extent or another. Emotional intelligence ranges from how self-confident you are to how well you can control your temper and impulses (which our president has been having trouble with lately). Emotional intelligence does not mean "being nice." It means managing feelings so they are expressed appropriately and effectively. It's also your motivation and your drive to succeed. It's empathy, how well you can collaborate and work on a team. There's a whole spectrum of skills. People who are truly exceptional have at least six.
Q:
If you're hiring someone, how do you evaluate his or her emotional intelligence?
A:
There's a paradox in trying to ask people to assess themselves. It's best to ask people who know the candidate well. Find people who have worked with him or her. One thing you can do is ask candidates to describe two or three times when they did well and two or three times when they blew it. Listen carefully for their competencies. Were they adaptable? Were they able to use a network? Did they bring any of the collaborative skills into play?
Q:
What if you sense you're deficient?
A:
If you're getting feedback that you're not such a good listener, or that you can't collaborate, the good news is that all of this is learnable. However, it takes some time, effort, and motivation.
Q:
In your book, you are rather critical of corporate programs for instilling emotional competence. What other ways are there to learn?
A:
I have guidelines in the book for what to look for in a program. One key is that you pick a program where they tailor the training to you. Use your network. Get a coach or a buddy to help you. You should also be able to practice for several months. This has to do with habit change, and behavioral change takes time.
Q:
What do you do if you're working for someone who is not emotionally competent?
A:
In a sense, you can lead from anywhere within an organizational hierarchy. Build a network, build bonds for communication, even if it's not the official channel. You also can lead upward. You can coach your boss. Coaching and development are another set of capabilities.
Q:
If you are emotionally intelligent, does this mean you can forgo traditional education and still succeed?
A:
Bill Gates is a dropout, but his drive to achieve is world-class. His ability to regulate his emotions is not so good. He blows up at people. If he didn't own the company, he'd never get to the top. No matter what the job, you have to have the basic IQ requirements to perform the job. But if you ask what it takes to be a star, then it's emotional intelligence by a two-to-one margin. And at the top levels, it's a factor of 85-90 percent.
Q:
Is it ever appropriate to blow up in the workplace?
A:
Almost never. It may be appropriate to have a strong response, but generally the negative repercussions of a blowup are all on the downside. People just want to avoid you afterward.
Q:
What implications are there for handling emotions through electronic communication, such as for telecommuters?
p>A:
If your form of communication is mainly electronic, you need emotional intelligence more than ever. You're disconnected from the everyday fabric of work life. You lose your touch points. You need to make an extra effort. And with electronic communication, there's the danger of flaming because you can't see the immediate reaction the other person is having to what you're saying.
Q:
You talk in your book about following your gut feeling. If your gut feeling tells you you've walked into the wrong situation, how long should you wait before getting out of it?
A:
The gut feeling is a theory that tests itself every day. If the feeling is getting stronger that it's wrong, that's probably right. But maybe with time the feeling will get stronger that you can work it out somehow. Don't act on your first impulse. Gather more data before making a decision.
Q:
What are you reading now?
A:
Future Perfect by Jeff Greenwald. It's about "Star Trek" and its impact on our culture. It's a terrific book.
bn.com InterviewQ:
Why did you write Working with Emotional Intelligence?
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