Rating: 
Summary: A mostly excellent application of previous ideas
Review: Since the publication of Daniel Goleman's first book, Emotional Intelligence he has generated a remarkable industry around the topic. In this book from 2000, Goleman applies the ideas of his previous book to the workplace. Why should executives bother with this soft stuff? According to research cited by Goleman (see the summary in Appendix 2) almost all of the abilities that distinguished stars from average performers were emotional competencies. While pattern recognition and "big picture" thinking were correlated with outstanding performance, cognitive abilities in general - above a certain threshold - did not have significant correlation. "Emotional intelligence" refers to a set of competencies that characterizes how people manage feelings, interact, and communicate. Building on previous work by others, Goleman characterizes emotional intelligence as being founded on five personal and social competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills. Each of these five is further analyzed into 12 personal and 13 social competencies such as Accurate Self-Assessment, Self-Control, Initiative, Developing Others, Influence, Conflict Management, and Building Bonds.
Unlike IQ, we can continue to improve emotional intelligence. Working With Emotional Intelligence is not a how-to book in the usual sense. It will help any executive understand the importance of EI in all its diverse aspects as well as showing examples of strong and weak EI in individual and organizational contexts. Improving is not easy work. Goleman explains the neurological basis of much of EI, including the role of the amygdala (which can make us impulsive and which affects our resilience under stress) and its interaction with the prefrontal lobes (which together also affect the ability to adapt to change), and the role of the catecholamines adrenaline and noradrenaline (which allow us to distinguish good stress from bad stress). Goleman looks at "empathic design" (p.139ff) and the contagious effects of emotions on groups, among other important applications in the workplace. He also provides a three-page list of "Guidelines for Emotional Competence Training". Although parts of Working With Emotional Intelligence will strike you as the obvious dressed up with stories, you can extract some important information by scanning through this book. In an age of record levels of job stress (according to an October 2002 study), any words of wisdom on this subject deserve a hearing.
Rating: 
Summary: More "dumbing down" of America
Review: The author asserts that EQ is the critical competency for success even in highly technical fields such as medicine and engineering. Yes individualism and ability are passe and what really matters is how well you can schmooze and get along with the team. How often have we seen this demonstrated as those with less ability are promoted through the ranks because they are excellent politicians. Well according to Goleman, those were the correct placement decisions.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb approach
Review: The author has done well with his latest book. Again, he challenges us to look at success at work from a different perspective using EQ, a concept that works and improves performance. Its insight and well-written style is worth the purchase.Even if you're completely sold on the EQ idea, it never hurts to complement your toolkit with a book on leadership skills development, a process that also works. My company uses several in its training programs; I recommend a class favorite: ""The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills.""
Rating: 
Summary: The emotional competence framework
Review: The author suggests five competencies in which we can manage ourselves: Self awareness (Emotional Awareness, self-accessment, self-confidence) Self Regulation (Self-Control, Trustworthiness, adaptiblity, innovation) Motivation (achievement driven, commitment, initiative, optimism) Empathy (understanding others, developing others, service oriented, politically aware), Social skills (influence, conflict management, leadership, catalyst, building bonds, collaboration and cooperation, and team). The book's frame-work focuses on the five competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social skills. I liked the personal stories illustrating the positive effects of soft skills. The storie sources came from friends, associates, and research cases. I disliked the conclusions drawn from the stories suggesting confidence in cause and effect of EQ results. I liked what Dr Goleman was advocating about the importance of people skills: social radar, arts of influence, and collaboration and teams. I disliked lack of detail methodology to achieve the desired results. I felt there was too much contrast between IQ verse EQ. The book provides a strong case argument for an investment in Emotional Intelligent. One shocking point the author makes early in the book, states that the top 1 percent of the Emotionally Intelligent in the IT field are 1200 percent more productive. I would have liked to read more cases studies about these observations and conclusions for his study. That statement alone sparked a ton of curiousity about EQ. I'm very interested in learning how effective IT managers are in accessing the emotional needs of their employees and customers and how to implement EQ to improve performance. I disliked the lack of practical application. There was a disconnect between converting ideas of EQ into action. I felt the book focused too much on the principles of EQ, rather than the practical application of EQ. Basically he did not effectively answer the question, " How can I uses the EQ in my job to make a difference." I didn't get the opportunity to say "cool EQ works for me"
Rating:
Summary: Managers will enjoy it
Review: The book will aid with the trend of creating a ideology to support the idea that individuals with little ability outside of 'management' (IQ or technical skills) should be leading. Conformity is being declared a new form of 'intelligence'. Maybe it is, depending on one's goals. Unfortunetly, for the rest of us who may simply want to have a job and be left alone, it will help to justify both personality testing and discrimination based on unpopularity. Corporate America has been going this way for decades and now is trying to throw the authority of social science behind it's goals... I'd recommend a re-reading of The Organization Man.
Rating:
Summary: It will validate your theories about successful people.
Review: The content of the book gets 5 stars; the delivery gets 3 stars averaging out to a 4 star rating. The content is quite extraordinary. He makes a case for attributes like good communication skills, good interpersonal skills, ability to work well with others, common sense, and self=motivation in the work place. What we all knew intuitively is now confirmed in his writing and gives the reader a sense of validation. Every manager who reads this will now have the dilemma of choosing 5 Joe Schmoe's with above average emotional intelligence working together producing a good group IQ rather than 5 Albert Einsteins working independently for their company. That being said, the delivery could have been a little better. I am not in the industrial psychology field (I am in health care) and I felt I was sorting through research findings/notes at times, something I don't care to do in my easy chair at night. The chapter outline/construction of the book could have been better organized also seeming somewhat hodgepodge rather than sequential. All in all though, the content makes up for any deficiencies in delivery. Go out and buy it.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read book for all leaders and managers.
Review: The study of emotional intelligence in relationship to fire and emergency services is going to be historic. Having high emotional intelligence for our emergecny response personnel is far more important to our professions than just a high IQ. After having spent thirty-two years in the fire service with eleven different organizations, five times as a fire chief, I have found an individual with high emotional intelligence is more important to quality customer service. This book reflects what emergency service professionals have known for some time now. This book now makes it more acceptable to have emotional intelligence testing performed during pre-employment testing and promotional evaluations for law enforcement, fire, EMS, correctional and managers. More video testing programs are needed to help managers, supervisors and leaders to accurately measure emotional intelligence. At last, we now have a book that validates what we have long known but have been unable to prove.
Rating:
Summary: disappointed: neither logical nor practical
Review: The title of this book is definately misleading, there is no practical advice on "How " to work with emotional intelligence besides endless anecdotes and examples.
Even with this entire book of loosely collected anecdotes, the auther still failed to convince me that his conclusion is based on serious, scientic research with logical analysis.
I think the auther is very biased on EQ vs IQ, the importance of EQ is overly stated. We all know IQ provides a basic framework/blueprint of a person, while EQ can really make a person excel compared with other people in similar IQ level. It should also put these two concepts in context, how important EQ/IQ in a person's success is really a variable, depending on what field, what job and what role a person is playing. In high-tech field, for example, for a technical position, I would rather hire a person with extraordinary IQ with average EQ, cause I know s/he could possibly perform as efficient as a group of 5 to10 people with average IQ. But for a tech manager position, a person with high EQ, reasonable IQ and profound knowledge in respective field would be a good fit. The way the author presents EQ is very simplistic and misleading!
Rating:
Summary: A book all employees should read
Review: This book covers aspects of personalities in the workplace that can poison moral. It touches on things that seem like common sense and common courtesy but way too many people forget. The book, like most of the business and management books out there, would be better served in a Cliffs Notes version. Most of what is usefull would fit in two chapters. But what is usefull in the book can have an impact on every level of any business where one person interacts with another. The bottom line. Be mature, professional, and treat others with respect. Duh !
Rating:
Summary: Could have been better
Review: This book is rather long and boring. It presents much of the same information found in "Emotional Intelligence", and fills much of the rest of the space with vague generalization and even some indefensible platitudes like "the bigger the group, the higher the group IQ". However, despite the annoying tendency to run-on and assert vague and pleasant-sounding but questionable filler, the book contained enough "aha!" paragraphs to be a worthwhile read. There are some gems in this one, as long as you don't mind sifting through the sand.
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