Working with Emotional Intelligence
by Daniel Goleman
List Price: $15.95
Pages: 383
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0553378589
Publisher: Bantam Books
Do you have what it takes to succeed in your career?
The secret of success is not what they taught you in school. What matters
most is not IQ, not a business school degree, not even technical know-how
or years of expertise. The single most important factor in job performance
and advancement is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence
is actually a set of skills that anyone can acquire, and in this practical
guide, Daniel Goleman identifies them, explains their importance, and
shows how they can be fostered.
For leaders, emotional intelligence is almost 90 percent of what sets
stars apart from the mediocre. As Goleman documents, it's the essential
ingredient for reaching and staying at the top in any field, even in high-tech
careers. And organizations that learn to operate in emotionally intelligent
ways are the companies that will remain vital and dynamic in the competitive
marketplace of today--and the future.
Comprehensively researched, crisply written, and packed with fascinating
case histories of triumphs, disasters, and dramatic turnarounds, Working
with Emotional Intelligence may be the most important business book
you'll ever read.
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The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your
group's reading of Working with Emotional Intelligence. We hope
they will enrich your understanding of the follow-up work to Dr. Goleman's
groundbreaking international bestseller, Emotional Intelligence.
Working with Emotional Intelligence further expands Dr. Goleman's theories
of how emotional intelligence is more important than IQ, specifically
in relation to today's fluid work environment. Drawing on numerous tests
and studies, as well as countless personal histories, he draws an electrifying
argument in support of Working with Emotional Intelligence.
Not only do star performers excel as individuals, but they are the ones
who are best able to maximize a team's potential, through their use of
such emotional competencies as building bonds, collaboration, and creating
group synergy in pursuit of collective goals. The good news is, we can
all learn from these star performers. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence
can be developed; we can train ourselves out of bad habits and into good
ones, we can heighten our emotional sensitivity to others, and we can
expand on our own self-awareness.
Working with Emotional Intelligence is a must read for anyone interested
in maximizing their potential. The book sets down the guidelines for effective
emotional competence training, and points the way for employers and employees
alike to better themselves and their organizations in the face of these
increasingly unstable times.
Questions for Discussion
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? What are 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?
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"A thoughtfully written, persuasive account explaining emotional intelligence and why it can be crucial to your career."
—--USA Today
"Good news to the employee looking for advancement [and] a wake-up call to organizations and corporations."
—--The Christian Science Monitor
"Anyone interested in leadership...should get a copy of this book. In fact, I recommend it to all readers anywhere who want to see their organizations in the phone book in the year 2001."
—--Warren Bennis, The New York Times Book Review
