Harvard Emotional Intelligence Class

Chapter 9 Smartness equals EQ plus IQ (1)
When we talked about intelligence in the past, we almost always referred to "physiological" intelligence, or IQ, and there have been a lot of terms used to describe various levels of intelligence development, such as "intelligent", "brained", "loving". Einsteinian," "dumb," or "brainless."

Emotional intelligence has emerged from the early 20s to the present, but it is only a term formed in more than ten years.There are also various colloquial expressions for emotional intelligence, such as "tempered", "acting without a clue", and so on.

(Section [-] Different Types of Intelligence

Cognitive ability and emotional intelligence are two different abilities, which are the manifestation of the activity of different parts of the brain.Intelligence is fully rooted in the late-evolving neocortical activity at the top of the brain, while the emotional center is located deeper in the brain, in the more primitive lower cortex.Emotional intelligence is concerned with the activity of these emotional centers and is coordinated with intellectual activity.

"Oxford Dictionary" defines intelligence as "comprehension, understanding".And in particular, "comprehension, understanding" is defined as "the ability of reasoning, understanding and thinking that is completely different from emotion".With this in mind, we have a narrow definition of intelligence: the kind of ability that can be measured using an IQ test, the outcome of which is a theory test.For a long time, during the first half of the last century, this was the form of intelligence to which most psychologists were devoted.

By the 20s, Howard Gardner published his theory of multiple intelligences, a breakthrough study that broadened the boundaries of the subject.He argues that success in life depends not only on IQ, but also on a variety of other intelligence types, which may include:
language intelligence.The ability to use and understand language.A person who has shown excellence in this field, including writer, speaker, scholar, and good listener.

Logical reasoning intelligence.Ability to solve logical reasoning problems and mathematical problems.The eminent representatives produced in this field are mathematicians, philosophers, statisticians, accountants, logicians and scientists.

spatial intelligence.Ability to work within visual and spatial forms and patterns.Excellent representatives of this field are pilots, engineers, painters, sculptors, and navigators; it can also include those who "interpret" crystal balls for astrology, fortune-telling, and geomantic omen.

musical intelligence.Include appropriate musical competence.Outstanding representatives in this field include composers, instrumentalists, orchestra conductors and singers.

Kinetic intelligence.The ability to use one's body with dexterity and flexibility.Prominent representatives of this field include athletes, actors, dancers, surgeons and artists.

Natural observation intelligence.The ability to observe, identify, touch or pay attention to plants and animals, to understand the life cycle of flora and fauna or the production laws of man-made objects.Excellent representatives include farmers, botanists, hunters, ecologists and garden designers.

interpersonal skills.The ability to get along well with others by understanding their inner thoughts and feelings and responding appropriately to their intentions and emotions.Traditionally, this skill has been of great importance to salespeople, teachers, psychologists, administrators and corporate managers.

personal inner skills.The ability to monitor one's own subtle thoughts, feelings, consciousness and emotions, and be guided by these to make correct decisions.It includes gaining the ability to relate to personal aspirations, dreams, hopes and values.Theologians, psychologists, and philosophers are representative of those with this skill set.

Among the above eight types of intelligence, the first six can be defined as cognitive ability, and the latter two can be defined as emotional intelligence.The degree to which individuals have these types of intelligence varies widely, and in real life, there are many examples of people who show "genius" in one intelligence type and "idiot" in another intelligence type.We can often see similar examples in movies: great pianists with a tendency to tantrums (musical intelligence but lack of personal inner intelligence); ); university professors dance clumsily like elephants (high intelligence to teach subjects but lack kinetic intelligence).And in a business environment, such caricature-like situations abound.

(Section [-] Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is an ability built on emotional intelligence that is developed through practice.Emotional intelligence requires that a person must induce or suppress emotions in order to maintain the appearance of producing an appropriate mental state in others.Emotional intelligence is an honorable skill that is essential to success at work and happiness in life.

So, what is emotional intelligence?Emotional intelligence is the ability to influence our decisions through an understanding of our own and others' emotions, enabling us to take more productive actions.For example, warm and thoughtful service to customers is an ability based on empathy; similarly, reliability and trustworthiness are also an emotional ability based on self-discipline, impulse restraint, and emotional control.Serving customers and earning their trust are all competencies that enable people to perform well at work.Research shows that career success depends largely on how best we use these skills.People with good emotional intelligence are able to reach the top of their careers because they are self-confident, understand the secrets of self-motivation, and are not dominated by out-of-control emotions.They may be disappointed by setbacks, but they are quick to see its dangers and overcome them.However, simply being in control of your own inner world is not enough.A person with good emotional intelligence must also be able to express their own feelings very tactfully to the outside world.Their empathy for others enables them to understand and influence others in their work.

High or low EQ determines people's potential to learn specific skills, but high EQ alone does not guarantee that people will learn the emotional competencies that are critical to the job.A high EQ simply means that people have a great potential to learn emotional abilities.For example, a person may be very good at putting themselves in someone else's shoes, but not necessarily master the empathy-based emotional competencies that are necessary to turn empathy into first-rate work--or first-rate Flight instruction may bring together a divided working group.This is similar to the emotional ability framework in the music table. A person has a perfect voice, but he still needs to learn singing skills to become a good singer; if he does not learn singing skills, he cannot engage in a singing career, even if he With Pavarotti's talent, it is absolutely impossible to become famous in the music world.

★Lily's road to EQ
Because of the trouble of too little communication with the management, because of the desire to grow and do something new, Lily left the original company and came to another company to work.

Lily's first year at the new company was like a day in a big city.She is very excited to have more time to do more things.She often trots into the lab, which is used to make new cancer drugs, and often invites people to participate in discussions about the company's plans for clinical trials.Lily was given the privilege to offer her opinion in the trials that they used to test the effectiveness of new drugs used to treat cancer.

As time passed, Lily began to feel that her voice was being drowned out.Sometimes, her advice is accepted, which makes her very happy; but many times her good advice is often ignored.She felt neglected for not being invited to provide further advice on clinical trial design.She knew she had more skills to develop the lab, but she worried that speaking too much about it would be unpopular.For months she remained silent, almost suffocated by her work situation.It got worse when she realized that she had fallen into the same confusing quagmire again, from which she had only pulled herself out a few years earlier.Once again she was dissatisfied with her job.

Deep down, Lily knew something had to change.She didn't want to waste her time in a stagnant lab, but she couldn't see an obvious place in a growing company for her skills.She spent the next two weeks preparing to explain her feelings to her boss.

Lily sits primly in a chair during a meeting with her boss.She cleared her throat and nervously explained to her boss that she no longer liked the constraints of her current job; She felt suffocated; she finally told her boss she wanted to leave the lab.The room fell silent, and the boss didn't say a word.He sat in a chair and seemed to look through her.He was angry but more shocked by her unexpected behavior.

To break the terrible silence, Lily placed the report on her lap on the boss's desk.The points in the report are all very succinct analyzes of the gaps in the company's current drug trials.Lily made suggestions for improving the experiment, explaining that the mistakes would cost the company a lot of money.She could see that the boss was impressed by her report... After another painful silence, the boss revealed that he had no idea that Lily disliked her current job so much.He regretted that the company's fast-growing business prevented him from communicating with her, and told her that while the report was impressive, he could not commit to it—it would require the entire management team to decide whether she Can transfer to a new job position to oversee clinical trials of the company's new drug.

The boss made recommendations to the rest of the management team after that week.His proposal was approved, and Lily was allowed a six-month trial.Six months later, Lily's efficiency in operating the experiment was very high, which allowed her to obtain the supervisor's position and salary improvement.Her insight increases her pay and gives her a wider scope of work, which makes her feel great.Interestingly, it was the years of work that had stalled Lily that led to that conversation, and it was this conversation that was followed by the boss's comment that he believed in Lily's courage and her ability to confront the situation head-on. Response, and applaud her courage for it.

Lily later discovered that emotional intelligence played a role in successfully navigating the difficult situations she faced.She reviewed the experience with an emotional intelligence coach, exploring the specific behaviors she took to get results.The coach identifies how she utilizes four categories of emotional intelligence skills—self-awareness skills, self-management skills, social awareness skills, and relationship management skills.Taken together, the four skills describe people's ability to recognize and understand emotions, and to use that awareness to manage behavior and relationships.

Lily embodies the first emotional intelligence skill—the self-awareness skill—by looking objectively at her situation.She recognized that the confusion and stagnation she had experienced in her new job versus her previous job was painful.Once she recognized this fact and took the time to figure out how she felt, she knew which messages needed to be changed.Then she used awareness of her situation to spur action, and then she used a second emotional intelligence skill—self-management—to develop a sound plan and execute it: She sacrificed evenings to write reports, gradually increased Time for self-reflection, walking into her boss's office and confronting her boss were all challenges she needed to overcome, and they had to be overcome by controlling her emotions.She accomplished her established strategy by dealing with the negative emotions that surfaced throughout the process and continuing to work toward her goals.

Before the meeting, Lily applied a third emotional intelligence skill—the social awareness skill.She considered what it might be like to see things from her boss's point of view, and realizing that she couldn't see all the thoughts in her head, she came up with an easy way to get her boss to understand her thinking—writing a report.Finally she applied a fourth emotional intelligence skill—relationship management skills—to the situation and got results: Others couldn't make things go her way, but she knew her boss could help her; trust and go directly to him with questions. ★
Table 3-1: The Four Emotional Intelligence Skills

self awareness skills

self management skills

social awareness skills

relationship management skills

Together, these four skills make up emotional intelligence.The top two skills, self-awareness skills and self-management skills, are more about yourself; the bottom two skills, social awareness skills and relationship management skills, are more about how to get along with other people.

These four EQ skills tend to pair together to form two main EQ competencies: personal and social.Personal competence is the result of the application of self-awareness skills and self-management skills. It is the ability of an individual to be aware of his emotions and manage his behavior and temperament.Social competence is the result of applying social awareness skills and relationship management skills. It is the ability of individuals to understand the behavior and motivation of others and manage social relationships.These pairwise-formed skills of personal and social competence appear together so frequently that they cannot be shown independently in statistical analyses, and no single skill is sufficient to achieve the desired results.

Table 3-2: Correspondence between EQ ability and EQ skills
self conscious
Self-management
Individual ability
Social awareness
relationship management
social skills
Individual ability
Self-awareness skills and self-management skills that reflect personal capabilities focus more on the individual than on the interaction of the individual with other people.Self-awareness skills refer to the ability of individuals to perceive their emotions with certainty at all times and control their emotions according to the situation, including maintaining a unique response to specific events, specific challenges, and even specific people.It is very important to have a clear understanding of one's own developmental trends, which can help individuals quickly figure out what their emotions really represent.High levels of self-awareness skills require willingness to tolerate the discomfort of focusing directly on negative emotions; of course, focusing on and understanding your own positive emotions is also essential.

The only way to truly understand your emotions is to spend enough time thinking about where and why they came from.Emotions always serve a purpose because they are responses to an individual's lived experience, and emotions always come from somewhere.Many times emotions seem to happen for no reason, but it is important to understand why the current situation is so important to create a certain emotional response in your body.People who do this often get to the heart of the emotion very quickly.For Lily above, it was difficult for her to accept the fact that she had become disinterested in her new job.But she did: She spent weeks, frustrated by the fact that her new job status was turning into her old job status.The time it took to accept this fact paved the way for beneficial changes in Lily's emotional intelligence and prevented her from choosing a path that was detrimental to her career.

Self-management skills rely on the individual's self-awareness skills and are the second major component of personal competence.Self-management skills refer to the ability of individuals to apply self-awareness skills to maintain emotional flexibility and positively direct their own actions.This means managing the emotional responses of your surroundings and others.Some emotions create paralyzing fear and confuse thinking so much that you can't find the best way to respond in a situation where some action should be taken.In such circumstances, self-management skills are revealed through the ability to tolerate emotional outbursts; once emotional comfort is understood and established, the direction of the best response comes naturally.

(End of this chapter)