The Final Chapter

This is the last chapter of Goleman's book. Essentially, it starts our with stories of 'do-or-die' for companies like Unliever and Pacific Rim bank with limited and/or poorly integrated emotional intelligence coaching. Goleman stresses throughout the first half of the chapter about the success of company culture change is a 'top-down' process. The presumption for success is dictated by creating resonance of the five discoveries (ideal self, real self, learning, experimenting, and development) in developing new leadership to change a company, culture, and behavior, except when the "inertia in the culture is too powerful." Essentially, this a repeat of many other situations presented throughout the book to justify EI.

I had to think about this with my current retail supervisory position. The culture of Home Depot is not unique to Home Depot, retail in itself is a business culture. Therefore, can these concepts Goleman provides be truly identified and usable in an industry where employee turnover is built-in--the nature of retail? Additionally, turnover is frequent in retail managment as well. I tried to develop an analogous culture where an industry dictates limited career length for most employees--it seemed to fall in line with low-paying service types, like restaurant, hotel, and most retail markets (coffee drinks, sporting goods, clothing). When analyzing the majority of jobs in the US, retail dictated the largest sum of employees--that it is a big culture to change for substantial resonance with any leadership emotional intelligence training, aside from the negative connotations that retail emits amongst consumers.

Goleman states many requirements for succesful EI in business, such as : business culture change, consistent use of seminars and trainings, EI competencies and evaluation, creative learning and context, and relationship development to facilitate and maintain resonance. Though these are great concepts, as well as the rest throughout the book, Goleman misses one crucial element for cultural development and change for a business--those outside of the business. It could be easily said that cultural change within a business will resonant with those on the outside, let alone those employees that return to their home outside of their work's inner culture; however, public ideology surrounding an industry can be degradative, deterring, and overriding--especially in retail.

Unfortuantely, this book started out with a bang and fizzled out at the end. Validation for me would have come with a simple addressing of cultural influence outside of the work environment. Maybe Goleman needs a follow up book that addresses home life EI, as well as that of public influence. For my current work needs, I belive that these elements will be beneficial, but I do not see Home Depot spending time and money training part-time/full-time college students or retired Master Plumbers on being EI resonant. I am not saying it isn't impossible to find motivation for these individuals, but the buili-in turnover limits/negates an organizations investment on expected employee turnover.

Chapter 10 Reality and the Ideal Vision

This chapter presents previous concepts of emotional intelligence in a practical sense, though it tends to read like a "no duh!" Dynamic Inquiry suggests an open line of communication amongst employees and leaders to get at people's feelings. The purpose is to gain a "truth" about an organization through conversations and open-ended questioning, as well as discover the truth about themselves to achieve a sense of reality. This beginning signifies a start for an emotional intelligent vision that develops out of the discovered dreams, hopes, and truths of the group.

The chapter further addresses "attunement," initiating change that aligns and resonates with a vision: " Success depends on what an organization's people care about, what they do, and how they work together." This success for vision and resonance requires in-depth self-analysis of emotional affectivity to pursue the vision--an interdependency that promotes a positive change. The key is to connect employees to their work emotionally--a collective, affective identity.

Much of chapter ten expresses empathy, emotional identity, and positive interplay through coaching and democratic elements to instill the importance of dream/vision attainment via communication and mindfulness. The ultimate quest is to identify the collective identity and motivate relationships to achieve an interdependent culture for company success.

After I finished reading this, my reflections are of those of intuition, soul searching, and holism for individual and organizational success.

Chapter 9, EI for the Team!

In chapter 9, Goleman shifts from focusing on the individual, and begins to identify the emotional intelligence elements of coworkers in team building and maintenance. Self-awareness and self-management for a group are suggested to be little in difference from the individual in the pursuit of group empathy and mindfulness. The key is to introduce 'collaborative norms'--explicit responsibilities of group members in perpetual practice of positive elements. This is somewhat indicative of operant conditioning with all members of the team reinforcing the others for a cohesion in self-managment.

The benefit of providing EI training to all members of the team speaks to a better group awareness and management, but it is not necessarily essential. Granted, leaders are expected to be the motivating force behind team performance; however, any properly EI trained team member can introduce a social awareness. The success of any EI introduction is dictated by its emotions governed by trust, group identity, and group efficacy. Dissonance within a group can make it difficult to identify with a group's emotional needs. Having a team member being able to identify the underlying issues helps to create self-awareness, thus aiding a leader with identification and action.

Essentially, Goleman tries to relay that there is little difference between an individual and a group in emotional intelligence. Both are prey to emotions and require supportive elements. The key is for a leader to monitor the emotional tone of the group and introduce norms that can be easily practiced to overcome unproductive and dissonant performance.

A thought...

Bob, a recently discharged sniper from the Marine Corp Special Forces (Recon) with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan killing many people as well as being shot himself, was hired by a retailer specializing in alcoholic beverages (a glamourized liquor store). Due to Bob's military training and field experience, he was virtually non-responsive to empathetic and mindful techniques to develop motivation for work performance. The techniques that yielded the best responses and performance were of commanding and pacesetting styles, both of which are considered as negative and counterproductive by Goleman's book.

As a coach/visonary of Goleman design, could these leadership styles be detrimental to those of behavioral development paralleling that of Bob? In other words, if a person was raised in a commanding/pacesetting environment, what would be the assumption for motivation?

Chapter 8, Metamorphosis

Up to this point, Goleman stresses the importance of mindfulness (being attentive, open, and curious to one's surroundings) and empathetic. In chapter 8, Goleman addresses the difficulty of adopting new leadership skills for long lasting implementation. Due to the limbic system being more primal, as well as emotionally driven, trying to override bad habits and stressful reactions to contextual developments require extensive practice as well as intensive self-regulation. Much of an individual's reactions are due to years of exposure to others, as well as autonomic use.

The chapter does make simple inferences to creating personal development goals. This self-directed expectation can be quite difficult. Many of the examples within the chapter point to leaders using trained executive coaches to help develop goals of incorporating self-regulation and repetitive implementation of empathetic processes. The key is to eventually override the engrained habitual reactions to a stress-inducing environment. With coaching help, the goals that develop for this have to be a personal process/motivation, as well as a 'step-by-step' feasibility of progress, for example: Try to listen and let others speak; rationalize objectivity; and ask earnest and clarifying questions.

The goal: Re-wire the brain with overriding pathways to achieve more productive empathy and mindfulness.

Chapter 7

This seems to be the respite of the book. The chapter starts with examples of people adopting leadership skills of Emotional Intelligence. Additionally, it provides methods for self-assessment for the next 15 years, as well as listing out (up to 27), what things a person would want to do before they die. Then, the chapter addresses a self-examination called the "logan test." This is a self-analysis of comparison of current day 'self' with the past 'self.'

Chapter 7 tries to provide methods of self-discovery. I attempted to use them on myself, but did not truly get anywhere. Did I fail? Am I happy or sad? Do I have a grasp on myself?

The only statement throughout the entire chapter that made identification was a story about Naranyana Murthy. In it, Murthy describes himself as "a capitalist in my mind, but a socialist in my heart." This is my living hippocrisy, paradox, and conflict. Can a person be split between logic and emotion?

Nature vs nurture

In chapter 6, Goleman begins to address the physiological predisposition and the contextual development of EI. He sights many examples about the learned elements speaking more than the genetic ones. Essentially, he gives some insight to emotional/motivational conditioning for developing leaders through EI, however he stipulates that the plasticity of the brain for learning information in the limbic system (the part of the brain that is designed for emotional learning) is moderated by slower learning neural connectivity due to its more primal/basic design. This is somewhat ridiculous.

Much of my personal study is on emotional conditioning to maximize learning. Whether happy or afraid, the information gathered at a strong emotional event tends to become more easily engrained. The excitatory effect of strong emotions facilitates the uptake of sensory input as a survival mechanism. Goleman tends to use 'motivation' as a prime mover for EI learning; however, what he states is just a softer/nicer implication for conditional learning. Granted, repeated strong emotional events can become tedious and inhibitory for learning, but I believe that individual design coordinated with varied emotionally related events could provide a better means of EI retention.

At the end of the chapter, Goleman addresses a cyclical means of development called Boyatzi's Theory of Self-Directed Learning. For some, this process may seem like a 'no duh,' but it's main benefit is the reliance on others providing analyses and feedback. Sometimes change is hard going it alone; having someone give you criticism and perspective is essential to truly achieve change. Boyatzi's 5 steps of discovery are simply put; however, I believe that this process is dependent on an EI specialist for guidance.