“Academic But Worth It”
I’ve recently had the benefit of working with two managers with very different styles. In seeing how different they are while working in parallel (along with a handful of other managers as peers), I became more conscious of my own choices in leadership styles enough to do some research. I also happened to have been listening to Robert Kiyosaki’s books, which is where I got the reference to this book, “Emotional Intelligence“. I came at this as a manager and as a parent to see what I could learn.
The book starts off a bit self-congratulatory in the preface. And the first chapter or two are a bit surprisingly detailed and academic, when you are expecting a business self-help book. However, by chapter 3 or so you get a real sense of the value that this book is offering. It gives you a great understanding of how the physical wiring in the brain really works and makes tangible what, to me, formerly seemed nebulous.
Emotions can seem nebulous, until you are shown that they actually have physical corollaries in the brain. As an example, emotions have shorter length neurons in the brain than the logical neurons do. And logical and emotional neurons go to different areas of your brain.
The author explains different traumatic situations and discusses how those situations affect patients and participants in large psychological studies. Unlike some “information marketing” books that just touch on a few references enough to add validity to the book, Mr. Goleman’s book is chock-full of research and case studies. Please note that some things discussed are terribly disturbing. There are personal traumas of people of all ages discussed, including very young children.
But putting those aside, the book helps you start to understand how early wiring in children’s minds is heavily shaped by all of the behaviors that they are exposed to as infants and onward. The first 6 years are quite critical. If you are a parent hoping to gain some knowledge on how you can help your child be an emotionally mature adult, just like The Whole Brain Child, this book is worth the read.
If you are a business person hoping to strengthen your own control over emotions, this book also gives you value. It’s not really a business-self help book, but I guarantee you, you will see things differently after listening to it. It also talks about different techniques taught to manage emotions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. My main take-away as a manager is that everyone on my teams (past, present, and future), including myself, has within in his or her set of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT), their level of emotional intelligence. I’m already a huge fan of helping my teammates, who are usually very technically savvy people, improve their soft skills to make them better leaders, have stronger changes of career progression, and be a part of a stronger team. Now, I have another tool I can use to strengthen my insights when trying to relate to my teammates’ frames of reference and needs. In short, I can be a better teammate.
Narration: I’m not really sure that the narrator is tonally the best listening choice, but he does handle a very wordy book quite well. I found after about chapter 4 that listening at 1.25 speed was helpful.