Working With Emotional Intelligence

I’m delighted to share with you matters close to my heart, ideas that I find stimulating, and some practical tips and leads that you might find useful. At the heart, of course, you’ll find emotional intelligence. But my interests also go far beyond; you’ll get a taste of that range here. PLUS news you can put to use in your life or work – or in both.?Please join me each month.

Let's dive in...

How To Work With Anyone (Even Difficult People)

I recently interviewed Amy Gallo on her new book,?Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) . This is a must listen for anyone who has ever had a job. Gallo identifies eight types of difficult people and shares how you might deal with insecure managers, passive aggressive people and other folks who keep us up at night.

A workplace expert who writes and speaks about gender, interpersonal dynamics, difficult conversations, feedback, and effective communication, Gallo is also the author of?The?HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict .

Listen to our conversation here.

Onward...

My Three Big Bets

Looking back over the decades of my work life, I see that early on I’ve had some intuitive hunches that turned out to be right.??

The first was that meditation matters.?

I started to meditate regularly as an undergrad and found the sessions an effective way to calm down my anxieties.? When I then traveled to India as a grad student, that insight was reinforced by meeting yogis, lamas, and other “meditation professionals” who struck me as the most cooled-out, loving people I had ever met.? Something good was going on here.

So when I returned to Harvard to do my Ph.D. thesis, I wanted to show with research that meditation had a beneficial effect.

My faculty mostly thought this was a waste of time – it was the 1970s, and there were no strong studies yet to support my hunch.

But I persevered, and did my research, “Meditation as an Intervention in Stress Reactivity.” Fast forward: Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin and then my fellow grad student and I circled back to survey the several thousand journal articles on meditation that now exist, picking the strongest studies, for our book Altered Traits .

We found the data that meditation works overwhelmingly positive, for everything from greater calm, clarity and compassion to – at the high end – remarkable alterations in brain function.

That was Bet One.

The second big bet in my career was on emotional intelligence (EI).?

When I wrote my 1995 book by that name, there was again slim evidence that this concept worked.? Peter Salovey and John (“Jack”) Mayer had published their article on EI only in 1990, and there were scant studies to back it up by the time my book was done.? I mostly cited anecdotal evidence, and converging research that pointed to the usefulness of the idea.

Cary Cherniss, a Rutgers professor, and I were for the next 25 years Co-Directors of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, or CREIO . Our mission: bring together academic researchers and frontline executives and consultants to gather good data on EI.??

At first the EI idea was (understandably) attacked, especially in academic circles.

Frankly at first there was little evidence to support it.? But as the years wore on that data built up.? Today Cary and I are rounding up the best findings in a book that will, like the one with Davidson, make a solid case for the benefits of emotional intelligence, particularly in the business realm.

That’s Bet Two.

My third big bet: full transparency about the true eco-impacts of products and services will, in coming years, create a market force that will have companies compete to be open and sustainable regarding their environmental impacts.

That’s an argument I’ve detailed in my little-read book Ecological Intelligence . We won’t know for some time –maybe decades – if this bet pans out.

Next Up...

CREIO'S New Podcast Series, Working with Emotional Intelligence

The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations has launched a new monthly podcast series where?Dr. Robert Emmerling?interviews members of the EI Consortium to explore the relevance of emotions and EI research in the modern workplace.

This is a must listen for anyone who wants to know more about the science behind EI or the many benefits of focusing on developing EI within their company.

Click?here ?to listen to an episode.?

To Close...

Marshall Goldsmith discusses Goleman Consulting Group 's new strategies for creating team-based, real time feedback as a scalable, affordable way to leverage Emotional Intelligence throughout an?organization.?

“I love what you’re doing. I?think it’s totally complimentary, and I think it works at all levels…I love?your organizational impact. I love the idea of working together as a team.” - Marshall Goldsmith

The program includes engaging content and also features?Sharon Riegal, Business Leader of Compensation and Benefits for Progressive Insurance Company.?View?the full episode here.