More professionals and leaders are paying attention to EQ (emotional quotient or emotional intelligence) than in previous years. IQ used to give people a lot of credibility. But like a powerful engine with no driver, IQ doesn’t do any good if someone doesn’t know how to work with people. If IQ is about sheer intelligence, EQ is the ability to relate to, empathize with, and motivate people.

One story tells it all. In their book, The EQ Edge, Steven J. Stein and Howard E. Book tell the tale of two students studying to be dentists, one brilliant, the other average and a bit plump. The brilliant one scored high A’s and a prestigious school accepted him into their program. The other student barely made it through because he spent so much time enjoying people and going to parties. When the dentists finally opened office, the brilliant one barely got by while the average student enjoyed a dental business that exploded with success.

Following are key quotes and thoughts I culled from their work:

The limitations of self-esteem

We certainly aren’t minimizing the idea of feeling good about yourself. The problem is that an undue emphasis on self-esteem leads to blindly pumping yourself up. Telling yourself how great you are may or may not be a valid part of an approach to repairing a damaged ego, but it’s not an end in itself. This is why educators and psychologists have recently begun to reexamine the two-decades-old inculcation of self-esteem in young children that was supposed to serve as a sort of inoculation against aggressive tendencies and other emotional difficulties (104).

Ladling out lavish and indiscriminate praise without making sure that you’re helping the child actually achieve something that merits approval can lead to devastation when the world fails to continue to pat him or her on the back for success that wasn’t earned (105).

Self Actualization

If you’re genuinely interested and involved in a wide variety of activities, you’re obviously going to be able to connect with a wide variety of clients. You’ll function far more effectively and be apt to achieve more in your chosen field (114).

Self Actualization

We admit that self-actualization sounds a bit like psychological jargon, but the concept is really quite integral to individual well-being. Abraham Maslow was the first to coin the term, in the 1940s, as part of his “hierarchy of needs” theory. He believed that there are five basic needs that must be satisfied if we’re to survive and then go on to live happy and fully realized lives (114).

Basic Needs

First, we need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and a tolerable temperature. Then we must achieve safety, so that we aren’t in pain or peril. Next comes love—the need to belong, to be wanted and cared about by friends, relatives and family. Fourth is esteem—the need to achieve self-respect, to take pride in our accomplishments and know that they’re recognized by others. Then comes self-actualization, which Maslow defines this way: "One must do what he or she can do” (114).

Career Success

Career success is very seldom based on career duress—what a person believes he or she has to do in order to make a living. That’s not a very shining prize. It may get you a paycheck, but it won’t get you where you want to (and ought to) go. We don’t supposed that Bill Gates set out with the specific goal of becoming the world’s richest self-made business magnate. He set out to gratify his personal passion for computers, and pursued that passion with vigor. Everything else flowed from this well-founded decision (117).

Or take Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computers, whose family urged him to become a physician. Dell actually enrolled in a premed course at the University of Texas, but spent most of his time selling the computers he’d cobbled together while studiously neglecting his classes. As we know, he then very wisely followed his true inclination, his true calling in life. Thanks to Dell’s innovative marketing techniques, his firm grew into the worlds largest computer manufacturer (as of 2001, ranked #1 in global market share), worth—at time of writing—about $49.2 billion in revenue (fiscal year 2005) (117-118).

Empathy

At its core, empathy is the ability to see the world from another person's perspective, the capacity to tune in to what someone else might be thinking and feeling about a situation—regardless of how that view might differ from your own perception (126).

...[E]very time others feel as if you're in tune with them, they feel validated. The emotional bond between you strengthens, and the other person is more apt to work with, not against you (127).

Empathetic statements begin with the word "you," as in "you must be feeling or thinking [a certain way]" (127).

Some people believe that by making an empathetic statement, they'll seem to be agreeing with or approving of the other person's position, when in fact, they might be opposed to it. Not so. Empathy is simply an acknowledgement that the other party holds that viewpoint. By expressing empathy, you admit its existence without passing judgment on its validity (128).

Relationship Building and Meeting Strangers

The easiest ice-breaker with a stranger is simply to smile back and introduce yourself (153).

Three general areas that can be regarded as “safe” to discuss are current events, careers and shared interests. Most of us, if we’re inclined to talk at all, have something to say about what’s happening in the world, our working lives or our hobbies (154)

...[B]e aware that a conversation flows more freely if you pay attention to the other person, remembering clearly what he or she has said. Sometimes when we meet someone, we’re so concerned about our own issues—how we look, what sort of first impression we’ll create, whether or not we’ll say the right things—that the conversation dwindles into separate monologues, instead of establishing or increasing the bond between the two parties (154).

People who are proficient at building strong interpersonal relationships intuitively know that such relationships are founded on mutuality: a reciprocity of “give and take.” Relationships that flounder can usually be traced to a lack of reciprocity: either one of the two indivdiduals weakens the relationships because he or she is always taking and never giving, or is always giving and seems unable to receive (155).

Problem Solving, Leadership, and Diagnosis

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem - G. K. Chesterson, 1935.

Leadership and Mission

Successful leaders put their egos behind their missions, move forward with the times, and aren’t afraid to alter their positions as necessary. (183)

Relationships, Eternity, and Investment

Today’s magazine is tomorrow’s birdcage liner  ~ James O. Jackson, senior writer and editor at Time magazine (195).

Parenting Teenagers

An excess of rigidity is not the way to an adolescent’s heart

Steven J. Stein and Howard E. Book, The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success (Mississauga: Jossey Bass, 2006).