Daniel Goleman has been enthusiastically spreading the word about EQ since his landmark book Emotional Intelligence was published in 1995. He continues to write prolifically on the subject including a business-focused book titled Primal Leadership, and his most recent works, Ecological Intelligence and the e-book The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights. Widely considered the first to be associated with the science of social and emotional intelligence, Dr. Goleman credits John Mayer and Peter Salovey as having “invented the whole field.” Since these researchers’ influential journal article was published over 20 years ago, numerous models and applications, like Six Seconds’, have been developed around the world. Goleman views this as “a sign of the vibrancy of the field”.
This vibrancy is evident in a recent conversation between Daniel Goleman and members of the Six Seconds’ EQ Network on LinkedIn. Over the last year, the EQ Network has quickly grown to 20,000 members. With group discussions covering a wide range of topics, from using EQ to align a senior leadership team, to inquires about the influence of EQ application on future generations, it is clear that people from across the globe are turning to EQ for the tools to face life’s challenges. Does Emotional Intelligence really have that kind of reach? The answer is yes, and Goleman tells us just how.
According to Six Seconds’ research, people with higher EQ are better able cope in stressful situations. Goleman explains this EQ advantage from a neurobiological perspective.
He describes the neurological response to stress, or a threat, as a pure survival mechanism designed to guide us through “a short-term emergency” which has evolved into “an ongoing hazard for performance.” This ongoing hazard is the neurological spiral of stress that has us trapped. Goleman explains that our, “attention narrows to focus on the cause of the stress, not the task at hand; our memory reshuffles to promote thoughts most relevant to what’s stressing us and we fall back on over learned habits. The brain’s executive centers – our neural circuitry for paying attention, comprehension and learning – are hijacked by our circuitry for handling stress.”
Thus, we’re stuck until we become aware of our own stress spiral. Those with more emotional awareness and stronger skills in managing feelings are able to turn this cycle around more quickly. From a neurological standpoint Goleman notes, “people who can manage their emotions well are able to recover more quickly from stress arousal.” Once we recognize that we’re on a destructive path, we can actively work to retrieve the brain’s executive centers from the stress spiral and begin to make better decisions. As Goleman describes it, our “attention becomes nimble and focused again, our mind flexible, and our bodies relaxed. And a state of relaxed alertness is optimal for performance.” Thus our stressful situation becomes more manageable and the bigger picture is once again visible.
Arati Suryawanshi, a university professor from India, shifts the conversation to this big picture with concerns of how emotional intelligence can help to develop ecological intelligence. Daniel Goleman sets out to diagnose the problem as follows: “This is the first geological epoch in which the activities of a single species are steadily degrading the global biogeochemical system. But our brains do not register this at the emotional level as a threat; our warning radar for danger is still attuned to earlier ages [in which we were dodging predators.] Our perceptual system has a blind spot for the global threats – they are too macro or micro. So we (apart from a small number of engaged activists) do not act as though this were an emergency.” The challenge is to take the logical awareness of the problem and increase the emotional intensity so we can take useful action.
So how can we bridge the gap between what we know and what we do? Goleman cites emotionally intelligent self-awareness as the first skill, allowing us to realize the “true ecological impacts of what we do.” In the Six Seconds Model, this is called Know Yourself. From understanding, we then need to utilize the emotion intentionally – what the Six Seconds Model calls, “Choose Yourself.” The self-awareness and self regulation will provide the “data for point-of-purchase eco-transparency websites which are creating a new market reality: information symmetry between shoppers and sellers on ecological impacts.” Goleman envisions a world in which emotionally intelligent and environmentally friendly consumers control the market and demand a positive change. This application for positive change is captured in the “Give Yourself” part of the Six Seconds Model.
Six Seconds’ Joshua Freedman points out that impulse control or consequential thinking is the crucial turning point for individuals in such a grand paradigm shift. By “blending head and heart into our evaluations” this competency activates a change in ourselves from reaction to intention. Thus, “letting emotion in as a guide, but not as the driver.” While the research suggests that “emotion trumps reason,” the 21stcentury challenges will require both head plus heart to forge the complex, long-term solutions to today’s problems. Capacities such as ecological literacy require delayed gratification and unfortunately the research is finding that emotions are driven more from a sense of urgency rather than importance. What will it take to make the switch in circumstances like environmental responsibility? How do we transfer that emotional energy of instant gratification and reaction to an intentional decision making state? Freedman suggests this is a process of shifting emotional intensity from “what I want now,” to “what we need in the future.” This can begin at a very young age.
Goleman sees that social emotional learning is key to teaching people to improve decision-making. He cites results from research done on children’s social and emotional learning as “an impressive argument for enhancing skills like impulse control.” These results show improvement in behavior and attendance, as well as a decrease in substance abuse and an increase in test scores. Most encouraging was the data referring to at-risk kids in which, “the improvements [tended] to be bigger in the schools — and with the children — that need it the most.”
Sanjoli Chimni, an investment banker from Chandigarh, takes this thought one step further and asks, “Is emotional intelligence possible when basic needs like food, clothing and shelter are not met?” Goleman argues that while food, clothing, shelter, and safety are priorities; Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) provide children with the resources to navigate life. “While SEL is mainly associated with school-based programs, remember that throughout human history these same skill sets have been passed from generation to generation in the midst of life, not in a pre-packaged format. Just as the best SEL programs are woven into the culture of a school, the same lessons can be imparted as part of the everyday interactions between any adult and a child,” Goleman says. Take any of the key tenants of an SEL model, like the Emotional Literacy or Consequential Thinking competencies from the Six Seconds model, and apply it to the life of a child in the developing world. This child would learn that emotions are not good or bad, but information designed to help them survive. In this example one can see the inherent benefit of Emotional Intelligence in helping children in poverty have the best life possible. Goleman mentions research that shows privileged children’s IQ advantage can be met with SEL learning of the underprivileged. Imagine then the progress that could me made in lives of their posterity having been given both the EQ and IQ advantage. He goes on to conclude that “anyway you can help disadvantaged children learn to enhance their emotional intelligence skills will, in the long run, help them have better lives.”
Whether in this broad development arena, in schools, or in a corporate setting, one key challenge is making the case for emotional intelligence. Cynthia Barlow, a professional leadership trainer from Toronto, understands the possibilities emotional intelligence holds, but wonders about taking the next step; convincing the decision makers to invest in and commit to EQ integration. Many organizations and their leaders are learning the importance of EQ as an aspect of professional development, but are still unsure of its ultimate value. Cynthia relates her experience as an EQ trainer in which a business client asked, “ Could we possibly not include the words ‘emotional intelligence’ in the title of the training?” Joshua Freedman sees this type of reaction as evidence that, as a culture “we’re still demonizing emotions as something destructive and chaotic” rather than recognizing all emotions as helpful information. The Six Seconds method to EQ training has skeptics like Cynthia’s client in mind. Freedman describes it as a “scientifically rigorous approach founded in neuroscience that uses metrics to measure organizational dimensions such as trust and team collaboration.” This method of teaching builds confidence in the concepts before “going deeper into the experiential” emotional aspect of the model. He summarizes this process as moving from “awareness toward commitment and into transformation” and goes further into the case for EQ Learning in his article, “What makes EQ Learning Work.” In order to begin this process Freedman concludes “we’ve got to get better at communicating the value of EQ in a cynical, fast-paced, financially focused environment. Six Seconds has worked to address this communication need, learn how in “The Business Case for EQ.”
Evident in the discussion was the relevance of EQ to a broad range circumstances from daily stress to saving the worldwide ecosystem and improving the lives of poverty stricken children. Six Seconds defines Emotional Intelligence as the capacity to blend thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions. Understanding that human interaction and reaction is present in all these decisions and inherent throughout each of these circumstances explains the potential to improve outcomes by applying EQ. As Daniel Goleman puts it, “the future of the planet, and the course of life for each one of us, depends in part on how we balance our impulses with considered response.”
Thank you to Daniel Goleman and the members of the LinkedIN EQ Network for joining the discussion, and to Michael Sjostedt of MoreThanSound.net for coordinating the opportunity. To learn more about Goleman’s recent work, please see The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights (http://www.morethansound.net/store/cat_37.html)
To join the EQ Network on LinkedIN, see http://tinyurl.com/EQnetLI
About the Author: Alyssa Ewing is an intern at Six Seconds, and a graduate of an elementary school that included Six Seconds’ social emotional learning program.
- Enhance Emotional Literacy - July 13, 2023
- Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions: Feelings Wheel - March 13, 2022
- Technology Loneliness: EQ Tips from Daniel Goleman - October 24, 2020
Interesting thoughts – EQ has a place in all learning – thanks for sharing
The comment about “Could we possibly not include the words ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in our training?” caused me to reflect a bit. I think that introducing EQ for the first time is a challenging task. At last year’s October conference one of the sessions was on how to “sell EQ” and there was an emphasis on the “30 second hook” to engage your prospective client.
While I agree that the pace and “bottomline” orientation of today’s organizations makes it difficult to capture their attention, I feel like crafting a “hook” is not really living EQ. Somehow, we have to slow down a bit to start a conversation.
Perhaps the starting point is not selling EQ, but beginning a relationship. Knowing more about where the other party is, and who that person is etc. provides a foundation to explore EQ in a manner that is real to that person….
I realize that this may feel not as immediate, but it may be more lasting….
Here’s my second thought. I’ve been working not only coaching EQ with individuals, but also working through Leadership Development using the Six Seconds DHP modules. Since we have been rather aggressive in this (all 14 modules in less than a year – we’re three quarters done), the participants have been actively working with emotions, and it’s less about selling EQ, and more about them “discovering” and validating for themselves how emotions are always with us, and how they help us (and can also get in the way) and have impact on our lives at work too.
I don’t have to go too heavy on the model at this point, though we do refer back to it. I guess my point is that we are desensitizing the “demonology” of emotions in the workplace. That is, I am hearing people using terminology and considering the impact of emotions in their actions and decisions more now than before. It’s a good thing.
I have just been reintroduced to EQ after having the book on my shelf since 1997. My on-ramp to EQ is through my thirty plus years of working with disadvantaged communities and painfully realizing after 30 years of investment primarilary (taxpayer funding) that our outcomes are severely limited. After a significant assessment and experience of seeing these services delivery systems fail, I concluded that our service delivery systems and practitioners are categorically operating from a faulty assumption. The assumption that if you bring resources to bear and if you bring them in unlimited quantizes that inevitably the person(s) lives will change for the better.
What is more likely and consistent with my forty years of counseling experience- is that if you give a person insight into their own(emotional) behavior and you assist them to develop and seeking the tools that they need to manage their everyday impulses-there is a greater likelihood that that person will not make the fatal errors that have exponential potential and impact in poor communities.
Overlooking emotional self assessment and emotional self management as the onramp to emotional literacy activates this merry-go-round of doing the same thing over and over. Imagine if in one year five thousand low income boys can manage and negate their impulse to be involved in criminal behavior -thus keeping them out of jail and allowing them to finish school. Or ten thousand teen age girls are able to redirect the impulse to have premature sex. Now multiply this possibility. I believe that the term Emotional Intelligence is the exact term that we should be using with the understanding that initially we are not trying to convince everyone but those who have demonstrated interest. I will be seeking to use this exciting science to bring the possibility of solutions where Iive and anticipate many challenges along the way.l
Hi Robert – I certainly agree that expanded emotional insight helps people make better decisions. In the Six Seconds Model, we start with the competency: Enhance Emotional Literacy, which includes accurately identifying & understanding emotions. I’ve seen first hand, and in research, that this literacy is a key step to facilitating more robust thinking. I’d like to see more than 1/10,000!