The book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is authored by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. It is a book about human emotions. It would be better to call it a handbook on personality development and emotional quotient.
The book is innovative in the manner that it asks you to undergo an EQ test and suggest you certain specific strategies. These strategies help you in developing your Emotional Intelligence. However, the exciting part of the book ends here. An interested reader may be disappointed to find that most of the strategies are largely superficial in nature. And putting them in the practice itself requires a high level of EQ.
It seems like a typical western version of some Indian medicine. It is better to read Gita, practice yoga and spend time with people who are unfortunate than you instead of reading this book for increasing your emotional quotient. The strategies are devoid of any real content. It should have been enriched with some text, case studies, real-life situations and examples. It is more like an Indian Baba giving his disciples lecture on how to attain Moksha, something which I am doing nowadays daily on my blog. But the reality is one has to go through that process, those mental states, those agonies, and emotions before developing a deep insight into his own and other person's emotion. The book is EQ-redux. It has reduced EQ promotion to a mechanical exercise of following certain rules and practicing them like a maths question. But emotions are not mere rational thoughts. It takes time, strong observational skills, willingness to change and egoless behavior to accept your true self before we can emerge as truly high EQ person.
The strategies offered are somewhat abstract. It is more of a what-to-do type of suggestions instead of how-to kind of things. Though there is a very thin line between what and how. It is difficult to understand that how those strategies would translate into real life. It is more like a handbook. Instead, it should have been like a work or practice book. Except one or two strategies, rest are a common day knowledge.
For these reasons, I decided to write a summary of the book instead of writing a review. For instance, the subject of EQ is divided into four quadrants namely Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness, and Relationship management. For each section, certain strategies are mentioned.
For self-awareness (honest understanding for your emotions),
1. Quit treating your feelings as good or bad
2. Don't ignore your emotions
3. Observe the ripple effect of your emotions
4. Notice your emotional sensations
5. Know what pushes you and what not
6. Observe yourself from a neutral position
7. Keep a journal about your emotions
8. No decision in a bad mood
9. No decision in excitement
10. Ask yourself why you do the things you do?
11. Ask yourself what are the values that I wish to live my life by?
12. Your body is good indicator of your mood
13. Spot your emotions in books or movies
14. Ask for feedback from friends, colleagues, and family members
15. Notice your emotion when you are in stress [For example, I often come under stress when I unnecessarily waste my time or I fail to achieve certain goal.]
The beauty of self-aware is once you know yourself, it becomes very easy to deal with the rest of the world. You stop feeling neurotic.
For self-management (Ability to use your awareness to manage your emotions),
1. Take long breath
2. Make your goals public
3. Count to ten when in distress
4. Give time and have patience (Leo Tolstoy termed these two as greatest warriors)
5. Find a high EQ manager
6. Laugh a lot and smile a lot
7. Daily 15 minutes time to connect with nature, away from the world
8. Replace never or always into just this time or sometimes
9. Replace I am idiot with I made a mistake
10. Accept responsibility for your action and don't carry other's burden
11. Visualize yourself succeeding
12. Take proper sleep and proper sunlight
13. Accept the fact that life is not fair and now focus on what you have
14. Keep your body language in check
15. Take neutral person's opinion
16. Learn from people you meet
17. Accept changes
For Social Awareness (Skills to recognize and understand the mood of people around you)
1. Greet people by name
2. Watch, watch and watch their body language
3. Raise the right question at right time
4. Develop a back pocket question to change the topic
5. Don't take notes at the meeting
6. Plan your social meetings
7. Sort out your internal clutter
8. Live in the moment
9. Take tour of your workplace
10. Watch EQ at movies
11. Practice the art of listening
12. Go for people watching
13. Understand the cross-cultural sensitivities
14. Ask yourself, Why a person might be behaving in a certain manner
15. Find the context
16. Notice the mood in the room
For Relationship Management (Develop relationships)
1. Be open and curious about the other person
2. Enhance your natural communication style
3. Avoid giving mixed signals
4. Warmness in your speech
5. Accept feedback in neutral sense
6. Build trust
7. Be angry but with a purpose.
8. Do not avoid the inevitable
9. Acknowledge the other person's feeling. They may be different from yours.
10. Complement the other person's emotion
11. When you care, show it
12. Explain your decisions. Don't just make them
13. Give a direct and constructive feedback
14. Tackling a tough conversation.
a. start with an agreement
b. Ask the person to understand his or her side
c. Resist the urge to plan a "comeback" or a rebuttal
d. Help the other person in understanding your side, too
e. Move the conversation forward
f. Follow up the resolution
However, I liked the idea of having a test and diagnosing your EQ like a doctor does and suggest you some pills for EQ promotion. This approach is my single most important take away from the book.
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