Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
BOOK REVIEWS BY BINOD
BINOD’S RATING: 8/10In the fast lane of work today, people spend far more time on computer keyboards, smartphones, presentations and conference calls than in actual face-to-face communication. In this increasingly unnatural and complex environment, emotional intelligence is more important than ever before. This handy book is filled with invaluable insights and practical tips that can potentially transform you as a person and as a professional.
“I want to do for every aspect of the human world a little bit of what Charles Darwin did for biology and get you to see past the illusion of design, to see the emergent, unplanned, inexorable and beautiful process of change that lies underneath.”
Key points
Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships
We were born with varying IQ levels, but EQ is the only quality that is resilient to change over time if we actively seek to improve it.
Emotions serve an important purpose—they clue you into things that you’ll never understand if you don’t take the time to ask yourself why.
Since our brains are wired to make us emotional creatures, your first reaction to an event is always going to be an emotional one. You have no control over this part of the process. You do control the thoughts that follow an emotion, and you have a great deal of say in how you react to an emotion—as long as you are aware of it.
EI is made up of two buckets- Personal competence and Social competence. Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills. Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills. These four make up the pillars of EI.
Self-awareness:
Is the process of getting to know yourself from the inside out and the outside in. People high in self-awareness are remarkably clear in their understanding of what they do well, what motivates and satisfies them, and which people and situations push their buttons.
Part of self-awareness is knowing what you’re going through even if you can’t totally change it.
Makes you see that your bad mood is hanging a cloud over everything you see and reminds you that your moods are not permanent. Your emotions change all the time, and low moods will pass if you allow them to.
Self-management:
is your ability to use your awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and direct your behavior positively.
Self-management is more than just resisting explosive or problematic behavior. The biggest challenge that people face is managing their tendencies over time and applying their skills in a variety of situations.
Ample self-awareness is necessary for effective self-management because you can only choose how to respond to an emotion actively when you’re aware of it.
Much of self-management comes down to motivation, and you can use the expectations that other people have of you as a powerful force to get you up off the proverbial couch.
Social awareness:
is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.
Social awareness is a tough one for a lot of people to increase because to be socially aware, you have to spot and understand people’s emotions while you’re right there in the middle of it.
Listening and observing are the most important elements of social awareness. To listen well and accurately observe, you have to stop talking, stop the monologue that’s running through your mind, stop anticipating the point the other person is about to make, and stop thinking ahead to what you are going to say next.
One important part of social awareness is being good with names (Yes!). I’ve always been quite good with names of my students (and that helped a LOT in CFA prep class) and I was always surprised and dismayed that some other trainers were not half as good. Because you can’t say that you are 'bad with names'. No one is ‘bad with names’. Not knowing people's names isn't a neurological condition; it's a choice.
Relationship management:
is your ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.
This ensures clear communication and effective handling of conflict.
Relationship management is also the bond you build with others over time.
“CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace”
I wish someone had told me all these when I was younger. It would have saved me a LOT of frustration, failure and would have made life and career much easier.
What rocked
Explanations are not riddled with jargon. The info is easily digestible and more likely to stick. This is a refreshingly simple and down to earth book with common sense being explained to the level of a child with straight forward explanations.
The logical structure of the book
The case examples are a great inclusion
Physically, the book is the right size, shape and weight and hence quite handy to carry around.
Unlike most bestselling books, this one doesn’t unnecessarily stretch out the content. Hence it packs short, concise definitions and concrete, actionable takeaways. Truly a breath of fresh air.
A book that gives how to's rather than just what to's. We need no more convincing that emotional intelligence is at the core of life success. What we need are practical ways of improving it.
“Approaching everyone you encounter as though they have something valuable to teach you—something that you will benefit from—is the best way to remain flexible, open-minded, and much less stressed.”
What sucked
The book is riddled with examples of bad science. Here are some great examples of the book's various claims, NONE OF WHICH HAVE CITATIONS. Statements like "EQ is so critical to success that it accounts for 58 percent of performance in all types of jobs " or "The link between EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1,300 to an annual salary" or "Only 36 percent of the people we tested are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen". That sounds so scientific and credible but where are the citations?
I doubt you will follow all these techniques for more than a few weeks. Eventually, it will be like joining a gym for a year, going for hardcore exercises for the first few weeks and then never again getting off the couch-based-TV-phase for the rest of your life.
There is nothing earthshakingly new in the book. The concepts are not new although some of the strategies look new and interesting enough.
Conclusion
If these techniques are not practiced regularly, it is like a muscle that is not trained. From personal experience, EI is critical for, inter alia, career success but unlike learning a new “skill” it’s quite difficult to develop and it’s a long journey. Buy and read this book only if you want to transform yourself.