Working with Emotional Intelligence [Paperback]

The author suggests five competencies in which we can manage ourselves:

Self awareness (Emotional Awareness, self-accessment, self-confidence)

Self Regulation (Self-Control, Trustworthiness, adaptiblity, innovation)

Motivation (achievement driven, commitment, initiative, optimism)

Empathy (understanding others, developing others, service oriented, politically aware),

Social skills (influence, conflict management, leadership, catalyst, building bonds, collaboration and cooperation, and team).

The book's frame-work focuses on the five competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social skills.

I liked the personal stories illustrating the positive effects of soft skills. The storie sources came from friends, associates, and research cases.

I disliked the conclusions drawn from the stories suggesting confidence in cause and effect of EQ results.

I liked what Dr Goleman was advocating about the importance of people skills: social radar, arts of influence, and collaboration and teams.

I disliked lack of detail methodology to achieve the desired results. I felt there was too much contrast between IQ verse EQ. The book provides a strong case argument for an investment in Emotional Intelligent.

One shocking point the author makes early in the book, states that the top 1 percent of the Emotionally Intelligent in the IT field are 1200 percent more productive. I would have liked to read more cases studies about these observations and conclusions for his study. That statement alone sparked a ton of curiousity about EQ. I'm very interested in learning how effective IT managers are in accessing the emotional needs of their employees and customers and how to implement EQ to improve performance.

I disliked the lack of practical application. There was a disconnect between converting ideas of EQ into action. I felt the book focused too much on the principles of EQ, rather than the practical application of EQ. Basically he did not effectively answer the question, " How can I uses the EQ in my job to make a difference." I didn't get the opportunity to say "cool EQ works for me"

Daniel Goleman followed up his bestselling classic Emotional Intelligence with this equally classic sequel that focuses on how emotional intelligence is applied in the workplace. Insightful and richly detailed, Goleman's work educates and inspires without ever sounding trite or sappy, like some annoying quick-fix scheme. If you are leadership bound and think success is all about strategy and technique, this will provide some very useful insights into what people really think about managing and being managed. The most intriguing sections focus on the application of emotional intelligence at work, but it would be pretty useful at home, too (if we could just get out of the office). If you think that you don't need to be more aware of the emotional undercurrents all around you, we warn that you need to read this most of all.

Since the publication of Daniel Goleman's first book, Emotional Intelligence he has generated a remarkable industry around the topic. In this book from 2000, Goleman applies the ideas of his previous book to the workplace. Why should executives bother with this soft stuff? According to research cited by Goleman (see the summary in Appendix 2) almost all of the abilities that distinguished stars from average performers were emotional competencies. While pattern recognition and "big picture" thinking were correlated with outstanding performance, cognitive abilities in general - above a certain threshold - did not have significant correlation. "Emotional intelligence" refers to a set of competencies that characterizes how people manage feelings, interact, and communicate. Building on previous work by others, Goleman characterizes emotional intelligence as being founded on five personal and social competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills. Each of these five is further analyzed into 12 personal and 13 social competencies such as Accurate Self-Assessment, Self-Control, Initiative, Developing Others, Influence, Conflict Management, and Building Bonds.
Unlike IQ, we can continue to improve emotional intelligence. Working With Emotional Intelligence is not a how-to book in the usual sense. It will help any executive understand the importance of EI in all its diverse aspects as well as showing examples of strong and weak EI in individual and organizational contexts. Improving is not easy work. Goleman explains the neurological basis of much of EI, including the role of the amygdala (which can make us impulsive and which affects our resilience under stress) and its interaction with the prefrontal lobes (which together also affect the ability to adapt to change), and the role of the catecholamines adrenaline and noradrenaline (which allow us to distinguish good stress from bad stress). Goleman looks at "empathic design" (p.139ff) and the contagious effects of emotions on groups, among other important applications in the workplace. He also provides a three-page list of "Guidelines for Emotional Competence Training". Although parts of Working With Emotional Intelligence will strike you as the obvious dressed up with stories, you can extract some important information by scanning through this book. In an age of record levels of job stress (according to an October 2002 study), any words of wisdom on this subject deserve a hearing.