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.

Drawing on unparalleled access to business leaders around the world and studies in more than 500 organizations, Goleman documents an astonishing fact: in determining star performance in every field, emotional intelligence matters twice as much as IQ or technical expertise.

Readers also discover how emotional competence can be learned. Goleman analyzes five key sets of skills and vividly shows how they determine who is hired and who is fired in the top corporations in the world. He also provides guidelines for training in the "emotionally intelligent organization," in chapters that no one, from manager to CEO, should miss.

Working with Emotional Intelligence could prove to be the most important reference for bottom-line businesspeople in the first decades of the 21st century.

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The author uses as a platform the work on Emotional Intelligence, which unlike typically defined intelligence, focuses on the ability to apply emotional and inspirational information in a variety of social settings and through a vast array of relationships. It is this ability he concludes that predicts success in today's workplace.

Among the areas of discussion are five competencies in which our ability is revealed. The first is "Self Awareness" which includes emotional awareness, self-assessment, and self-confidence. How many times have we worked for or with someone who could not control their emotions and lacked the self awareness to understand how their actions impacted those around them? The importance of balancing performance while exhibiting the values of the organization through a positive culture has never been more in need. Many who have the intelligence to do the work, lack the emotional intelligence to build the relationships and culture needed to get the work done through others. The book explores these pitfalls and discusses suggestions for change.

The other areas are similar: "Self Regulation" (self-control, trustworthiness, adaptability, innovation), "Motivation" (achievement driven, commitment, initiative, and optimism), "Empathy" (understanding others, developing others, service oriented, politically aware), and "Social Skills" (influence, conflict management, leadership, catalyst, building bonds, collaboration and cooperation, and teamwork).

All of the five competencies are presented well, with examples and suggestions for improvement. Some reviewers have noted the lack of "scientific" type of analysis, but I feel that misses the point. The first hurdle to overcome if one wants to be as successful as possible is a basic awareness of the importance of interpersonal skills, and building strong working relationships with others. The opportunity for a purely autocratic style to operate in today's business is rare and therefore the majority of those leading businesses will need to focus on how they apply their EQ, not just their IQ.

This book does an excellent job at presenting what EQ success looks like and why it is important. It is not a step by step manual for improving one's business success, as that would ironically be an IQ approach. The book instead is a great eye-opener of the importance of emotions, and how we read others and interact with them. Highly recommended, and a great starting point for improving your ability to lead others in today's business environment.

43 of 48 found the following review helpful:

"The Emotional Competence Framework"Jan 26, 2001
By Turgay BUGDACIGIL
"More and more companies are seeing that encouraging emotional intelligence skills is a vital component of any organization's management philosophy. 'You don't compete with products alone anymore, but how well you use your people,' a manager at Telia, the Swedish telecommunications company, put it to me. And Linda Keegan, vice president for executive development at Citibank, told me, 'Emotional intelligence is the underlying premise for all management training'...A 1997 survey of benchmark practices among major corporations, done by the American Society for Training and Development, found that four out of five companies are trying to promote emotional intelligence in their employees through training and development, when evaluating performance, and in hiring...If so, why write this book? Because many or most organizations' efforts to encourage emotional intelligence have been poor, wasting vast amounts of time, energy, and money...My mission in writing this book is to act as a guide to the scientific case for working with emotional intelligence-as individuals, in groups, as organizations. At every step I have sought to validate the science with the testimony of people in jobs and organizations of all kinds, and their voices will be heard all along the way" (pp.7-13).

In this context, Daniel Goleman firstly defines emotional competence as a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work, and emotional intelligence as a potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its elements. Thus, throughout this invaluable book, he discusses the relationship between the five dimensions of emotional intelligence and the twenty-five emotional competencies as listed below:

A. Personal Competence- These competencies determine how we manage ourselves.

I- Self-Awareness- Knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.

1. Emotional awareness: Recognizing one's emotions and their effects.

2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one's strengths and limits.

3. Self-confidence: A strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities.

II- Self-Regulation- Managing one's internal states, impulses, and resources.

4. Self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.

5. Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.

6. Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance.

7. Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change.

8. Innovation: Being comfortable with novel ideas, approaches, and new information.

III- Motivation- Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.

9. Achievement drive: Striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence.

10. Commitment: Aligning with the goals of the group or organization.

11. Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities.

12. Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

B- Social Competence- These competencies determine how we handle relationships.

IV- Empathy- Awareness of others' feelings, needs, and concerns.

13. Understanding others: Sensing others' feelings, and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns.

14. Developing others: Sensing others' development needs and bolstering their abilities.

15. Service orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers' needs.

16. Leveraging diversity: Cultivating opportunities through different kinds of people.

17. Political awareness: Reading a group's emotional currents and power relationships.

V- Social Skills- Adeptness of inducing desirable responses in others.

18. Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion.

19. Communication: Listening openly and sending convincing messages.

20. Conflict management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements.

21. Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups.

22. Change catalyst: Initiating or managing change.

23. Building bonds: Nurturing instrumental relationships.

24. Collaboration and cooperation: Working with others toward shared goals.

25. Team capabilities: Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

Daniel Goleman writes that "this list offers a way to inventory our strengths and to pinpoint competencies we may want to bolster. Part 2 and 3 of the book give more detail and insight into each of the competencies, showing how they look when displayed in full power-or when they are lacking. Readers may want to turn directly to the competencies most relevant to their interests; the chapters describing them do build on one another to an extent (as do the competencies they describe), but they need not be read in a fixed order."

Strongly recommended.

37 of 42 found the following review helpful:

All anecdotes, very little adviceAug 14, 2001

Like many reviewers before me, I bought this book thinking that it will suggest ways one can go about improving one's emotional intelligence. However, what I ended up getting is endless anecdotes.

Goleman spends the entire book, listing anecdotes after anecdotes, explaining "why" emotional intelligence is important, but not "how" to become more emotionally intelligent.

I do not need to know "why" EI is important; I bought the book, I know it is important.

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