BOOK
REVIEW
By Julia Sui
By Daniel Goleman
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ A CEO of Toyota Motors once quoted, ?We hire people based on
their personality, not just on their grades in college.?À So what does Goleman?s message in the book,
?Working with Emotional Intelligence? and the President of a giant corporate
CEO have in common?À They both know that
GPA?s and ?papers? don?t reveal the personal qualities such as initiatives and
empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness (Goleman, Daniel 2000).À The topic of ?Emotional Intelligence? and
other pop-psychology topics such as ?Multiple Intelligence? (Howard Gardner)
have become increasingly popular, important, and practical in discerning
people?s personal competence and specialized abilities, at schools and
at work.
Expertise such as surgeons may be highly
intellectual and competent in what they do, but are they necessarily ?people
smart??À Can they sustain a long-term
patient care, which requires people skills, not surgical skills?À Or are they simply an expert in extracting a
tumor from a patient and move on to another O.R. to amputate a leg of
another?À Can we judge people?s work
performance by how smart they are?À This
rather new phenomenon of ?rules? on personal qualities applies in choosing whom
to hire or fire.À Why do classes and
training sessions such as, ?How to talk to your Patients?? for doctors exist?
I very close friend of mine are doctors,
the wife has a PHD in statistics from Stanford and the other, OBGYN trained at
Stanford as well.À The wife claims that
her husband, who is a medical doctor is not an intellect, but intelligent, with
excellent ?clinical? skills that require empathetic qualities when seeing
patients.À She claims that he has so
much more common sense and than she does, which makes him a very successful
doctor.À
Little did I know that she was more of an
intellect, and he, ?intelligent?, but with a lot more common sense than
she.À My friend also said that just
because one is ?intellectual? doesn?t mean that he/she is a good doctor.
?They get too analytical and get caught up
in intellectualizing a problem, they end up sabotaging their own goals.?À
The topic of ?emotional intelligence at
work? is definitely a public concern.
Brian Uyesugi?s multiple murders of his co-workers at the Xerox Co.
in Honolulu, as well as the notorious postal workers? constellations of
murderous vengeances may be the results of rage, uncontrollable negative
emotions and irrational thoughts.À The
society must grasp the subtle but profound message that defines emotional
competencies (knowing one?s internal states), self-regulation (one?s internal
states), empathy, social skills (adeptness at getting desirable responses from
others), self-control (managing one?s disruptive emotions), and political
awareness in order to create a safe, and positive working environment.À
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ In general, this
book basically suggests that honing people skills will take you farther than
what your IQ scores alone had predicted in how successful you will become in
your future career.À
The main problem addressed in the book is: when corporations and organizations hire people, they can no longer rely on the people?s qualifications in technical expertise and IQ alone.À What they find more important is to hire people with emotional intelligence, and what it means to bring people with EQ to work.À The emotional ineptitude of some high profile upper management personnel had cost company losses in the millions.À Goleman gives a simple solution; train their emotional intelligence by strengthening workers in skills from listening and leadership to team building and handling change.À Most training programs have been academic model, Goleman suggest that companies and institutions need an entirely new way of thinking about what it takes to help people boost their emotional intelligence.
Recently, I interviewed my friend, Michael
Shimoko, who is the president of Sparx Investment and Research Inc., USA. (a
subsidiary of Sparx Asset Management & Investment Co.,À Japan).À
This company handles 270 billion Yen for institutional Investment (one
of their high profile clients include Sears & Roebuck).
The reason for the interview was mainly
because 1) I wanted to find out how successful companies hire people, what they
look for and what their company philosophy is based on.À I wanted to be able to relate the concept of
?emotional intelligence at work? into a real life situation based in
Honolulu.À 2)À Sparx is a rather new investment company, run by a young group
(ages 30?s and early 40?s) of Iolani and Punahou graduates.À This company is the prototype of
working with emotional intelligence evidenced by their unrelenting success and
excellent reputation.
According to the president, Mike Shimoko
(I will call him Mike since he is a very good friend of mine), the company
motto in hiring is simple:À Hire a
smart, good people with integrity.À For
his company, one of the requirements is to hire ?intellectually smart?
people.À He admits that they are of a
?different? breed, and it is quite imperative for their people to match the
high profile intellectual market.À
However, they look for good (?You can call it nice?, said Mike)
people.À Their attitude toward this character
combination is: ?If you?re smart and good, no matter where you put them,
they?ll always be a team player and produce well?.
Sparx relies heavily on the Toyota Motors
Company concept: ?Tanoko? or the ?Multi-functional Professionals?.À The idea here is to hire smart professionals
who are also good people and who are capable of various functions within the
company.À Of course certain specialists
and expertise are indispensable part of any company, but the key idea is that
for any company to grow and succeed, team members of the company must be
multi-functional.À For example, Jack Welch,
a retired CEO of 25 years at GE is considered the CEO of the century.
His autobiography, ?Jack, Straight from
the Gut? explains that his success was due to his ?boundary-less concept?.À This philosophy is very similar to the
?multi-functional professionals? in that if a GE employee can understand the
production of a light bulb he should also be able to understand the jet engine
or media (GE also owns NBC).À It is the
GE culture, and almost a requirement that the best people (executives) in the
company are placed in the best place, and share knowledge with each other.À The jet engine executive or the finance
executive, or the media executive must all share their expertise with each
other.À This is team building,
collaboration and the group IQ (Goleman, 2001 p. 198) for one company, GE.
Another executive, James Lenhart Vice
President of Hawaii Coffee Company (a $150 billion company which includes Lion
Coffee, Superior Coffee, and Paradise Beverages) stressed that hiring people
with ?people skills? is imperative, and ?smartness? and expertise are a
secondary requirement.À
?You can always train people in the areas
of expertise, but character building and ?people skills? sometimes are just not
trainable.?
I was pleased, and somewhat motivated
after the (phone) interview, in that what I read in Goleman?s book was indeed a
reality and not a pop-psychology myth.À
I was able to verify with to two executives of a two very different but
highly successful corporations in Honolulu, and the secret of their success? :
working with emotional intelligence not only works but has become an essential
tool for success!À I also like to add
that they are both very respected and liked by their subordinates, and
peer.
There are five major topics in this book:
1.
Beyond
Expertise: this section
of the book basically addresses the
notion of how much more important excellence in emotional
competence compared to technical skills and intellect is.À Technical skills and intellect are not the
sole factor that leads to success.À It
is indicated in the chapters 1-3, that EQ was twice as important in
contributing to excellence as intellect and expertise.À It accounts for profitability, leadership,
teamwork, and success of companies.
One of the examples I included in this report was about the doctor
who is blessed with lots of common sense and people skills!À He is much more successful not only in his
career, but his marriage!
2.
ÀSelf-Mastery encompasses the notion of knowing yourself
and self- maintenance.À Self-awareness
helps control your impulses and emotions.À
EQ isn?t genetically fixed, we continue to grow through life and learn
from experiences.À By being aware of our
strengths and weaknesses, we ?mature? as we hone our empathetic and social
skills.
3.
People
Skills.À
It is the management skills of social adeptness and the requirement of
the management philosophy, which necessitates the concept of, ?how well we use
our people? vs. ?competing with products.?À
It is therefore important that we understand people in general: their
needs, sensitivities (being able to ?read? people), rapport building,
communicating, and leading by example in order to influence them in a positive,
productive way.
As mentioned in the interview section of this report, teamwork and
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ ÀÀÀÀ
collaboration come hand in hand with strong leadership skills.À The
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ ÀÀÀÀ
foundation to this concept is EQ.À
Good leaders have problem solving
skills that require common sense, logical, and critical thinking,
(as the VP of Hawaii Coffee Co. said, ?I have to deal with putting
out fire everyday.À People
are lined up, out in my office withÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ problems every day, I have to be patient, but I
also have to solve them.?).À There is no
backlog to fluid communication if only
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ ÀÀÀÀ
leaders are empathetic and willing to listen to his subordinates.ÀÀÀÀ
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ ÀÀÀÀÀ
À
4.
ÀA New Model of Learning- This
section encourages the readers that
there is still a chance to improve ourselves.À It suggests practical, scientifically
grounded guidelines for the best way of improving emotional intelligence.À
5.
The
Emotionally Intelligent Organization- The final part of the book
explains what It means to be an emotionally intelligent
organization in performance and as a desirable place for employees to work
for.À It talks about how companies that
ignore emotional realities have difficulty surviving especially during the more
turbulent times.À They are putting
themselves and the company at risk.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ This book is
relevant to education and children.À
What is taught at school
does not necessarily translate to success in the future of the
children.À Success
takes more than intellectual excellence or technical superiority,
it takes survival skills, and leadership skills.À As the job market becomes more turbulent, it is the ones who have
inner qualities such as resilience, adaptability, initiative, and optimism who
survive and succeed.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ According to
Goleman?s survey of children in America, there are more emotionally ?troubled?,
and emotionally intelligent deficient children now than ever before.À These children manifest problems with drugs,
depression, eating disorder, violence, crime, and dropping out of school.À These are also the same
children who grow up to fill our society and work place.À We can imagine how frightening that thought
could be.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ If these children
are plagued with emotional disorders now, how can they deal with stress and
with work related problems in their adulthood?À
How can we expect them to live a healthy (both mentally and physically)
life if they are incapable of being resilient, adaptable, and optimistic.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ I believe this
book is universal in that anyone could benefit from reading it, regardless of
occupation.À It could easily apply to
families, parents, and children where team collaboration and problem-solving is
a constant issue.À
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ What I found to be
the strength of this book is the statistical findings and facts that back up
this phenomenon.À However, my main
problem is that Goleman does not address the importance of moral values.À He treats all competencies are of equal
value.À I disagree.À Willing to make sacrifices for the company
(at what price?), or do you have self confidence (how do you improve
self-confidence?).À There are many
requirements to being emotionally intelligent, and many suggestions of what
would be the solution to these requirements and emotional deficiencies, but
what is missing from this book is to teach the readers ?HOW TO? achieve
everything that?s mentioned in the book.À
If we don?t know how, then how could we improve ourselves even if we
wanted to.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ Media plays a role
in this topic.À There is definitely a
promotional effort on Goleman?s agenda, appearing on American television shows
such as Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue, and catering to multi-national
corporation who could afford high priced consultants to seek exactly what
Goleman puts on silver platter, ?the perfect employees, and how to get them?,
type of a hype.
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ Steve Hein?s
Emotional Intelligence Site: http://equi.org/
supports this idea of mass marketing a concept which was originally not
Goleman?s but of two American university professors; John Mayer (U. of New
Hampshire), and Peter Salovey (Yale).
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ Warren Bennis
wrote an article ?It Ain?t What You Know?, in relation to the book also.À The web site is: www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/25/reviews/981025.25bennist.html
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ Despite my own
criticism, I do believe that this book is relevant to the new generation of
people in our present society in which virtue, loyalty, discipline, and
integrity had lost its place in our value system.