“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?
