Is Emotional Intelligence Just the Fad du Jour?Written by Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years,” Annette told me. “It just wasn’t called this.” I was explaining to a counselor in Australia about field of emotional intelligence, and she was sure she’d found it first. Likely you'll feel same way.“Oh, I know what you’re talking about,” James tells me, as I present a proposal to coach his staff on EQ. “Team building, leadership, getting along, cutting down on politics. Why didn’t you say so?” Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ (and EI) isn’t a new concept. Most people recognize it right away, or parts of it anyway. It’s what used to be called “social skills,” or “people skills,” or “common sense,” or “gut feeling.” And it’s spreading around world like wildfire. “Let me leave you with million Ringgit question,” writes a Malaysian consultant. “Is it imperative to measure our emotional intelligence and take appropriate steps to bridge our EI gaps? Only you can decide. I rest case with you.” An Australian reporter writes, “Top leaders are getting in touch with their emotions and those of their staff as intuition and emotional intelligence become hottest management buzzwords.” And international EQ conferences are planned this summer in UK and Canada. Emotional intelligence is spreading around world because it's needed, and it's far from a buzz word or fad-du-jour. According to Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., whose book “Emotional Intelligence” popularized concept some years ago, non-cognitive factors account for about 80% of adult success. Researchers such as Martin Seligman, Ph.D., Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., Peter Salovey, Ph.D., Reuven Bar-on, Ph.D., Con Stough, Ph.D. wanted to find out what factors besides IQ contributed to our success and happiness. They’ve named competencies (or qualities, or skills), designed assessments, developed individual and business programs, and made some complex behaviors (like “people skills”) understandable and teachable. Yes, unlike IQ, EQ can be improved over lifetime and according to Goleman, it’s 2-4 times as important to our success and happiness. WHAT COMPETENCIES ARE INVOLVED? Things like self-awareness, managing our own emotions and those of others, team building, leadership, negotiation and communication, constructive discontent, recognizing nonverbal signs and emotional content in poetry and art, personal power, integrity, focus, being self-motivated and able to set priorities, flexiblility, creativity, trust, and good intuition -- to name a few. WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE IN REAL LIFE? Tomorrow, what skills will you need to have atwork besides your degree to forge 10 people from 5 different cultures, 4 religions, 2 generations, 6 ethnic backgrounds, 2 sexes, and 4 departments, with 3 learning styles, 5 communication styles, and 4 occupations, 1 of whom is introverted, 1/3rd of whome are left-brained, 1 of whom is hearing-impaired, 4 of whom are depressed, half of whom are single, 3 of whom you've never met before, and 3 of whom are speaking a second-language, whose IQs range from 110-150, into a team able to produce a work product to specification, on time, and within budget?
| | Success; So Close, Yet So Far Away!Written by Richard Vegas
Have you ever had this feeling? You're standing in front of a huge safe; in this safe, is all wealth, happiness, success, love and health world could offer. This safe has a combination lock on it and you know all numbers to open it, except one. :>( Just one lousy number! And, if you knew that one number, you could open door! What we need is a "safe" bet!I Don't Have A Clue! Often difference between success and failure is a missing ingredient; most of time, just one. If we only could get our hands on that one number, all our prayers would be answered. And, that's way it is for most of our endeavors, just one missing number that makes all difference. Well, here is what happens most of time. I don't want to oversimplify this, but let me make an analogy. Let's say you have a project almost complete, you've studied, planned, or pouted, and laid out slickest dog and pony show even you have ever seen. And, now it's ready for moment of truth. You have all numbers of combination laid out, but success button just doesn't seem to work. You have gone through them over and over and door still won't open. Is it because you've gotten into something over your head? Nah! How many times have you knowingly tackled something you knew you couldn't do? If we think we can't run with big dogs, we'll just keep our pretty selves on porch. Here's reason: It's because there is a missing number. But, instead of looking for that missing number, we keep going through same steps we've already been successful with, hoping that will somehow cause this sucker to work so we can forget about missing number. Well, Just Between You And Me And The Fence Post! We didn't know what to do about missing combination anyway. So, it would suit us just fine if that missing number would take a hike. Well, I tell you from lots of personal experience, that missing number ain't going to take a hike to make your life easier. But, one thing that missing number will do; is cause this project to bow to your commands and cause your success to come shinning through. I am firmly convinced that success is easy in everything we attempt. Now don't get all choked up. :>) Although I know it seems to be sometimes impossible during heat of battle. I can hear somebody saying to me now; "boy, you are just a few fries short of a happy meal". Stay with me now. Ok, hot shot, why do you say success is easy? Well, what makes it seem so difficult is; we are continually going back through same steps we discovered that works, and project is screaming find final number. We know something is missing, but we don't know what it is. So, we keep doing same things over and over pretending final number doesn't matter hoping for a different result. Someone said; that's definition of insanity. Consider this: think about a huge success you have achieved sometime in your life. Think about how difficult it was while you were working on it and before it was completed. Now, think about how easy it would be right now to accomplish that same task from zero. Piece of cake. Why? Because you now know all numbers in combination.
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