Emotional intelligence is more than simply focusing on your own emotions. It is how you interpret the emotions of those around you, how you read the room and identify the type of audience that you’re talking with so that you can address them accordingly.
“The Non-Obvious Guide to Emotional Intelligence” by Kerry Goyette is a very interesting read in a format that’s easy to consume and digest.
The book’s short chapters are easy to skim so you can find relevant topics that are of interest to you and your business.
I particularly enjoyed the section about how the brain works and what it actually means to have emotional intelligence.
The book focuses on how to overcome the current business environment in which we find ourselves: surrounded by things that are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. It’s important that with our customers we tailor our interactions with them so that we can best meet their needs.
This book has some very actionable examples presented via case studies that the author has done with clients. In each of these, you can find some principles of wisdom to apply in your business and with your employees or customers.
If you need help improving your decision-making ability, learning how to be more effective at emotional intelligence will really help.
This book also helps you uncover if you are stuck in a rut with your automatic decision making. You’ll learn how to trace problems back to their root causes so that you can solve them more easily.
There’s an interesting section in this book about how we motivate our employees and our customers. The old carrot versus stick analogy is broken down and you’ll see why motivation doesn’t quite work the way we think it does. See how to get to the inherent intrinsic motivation that your employees have to motivate them to do the job that you would like them to do.
At the end of the book, read about common motivation and personality types you’ll find in your customers and employees. With these insights, you can start to look at people and realize what’s actually motivating them. Thus you can customize your conversations with them and adjust how you serve them to get the best possible outcome.
Emotional intelligence is really about finding a way to better understand the situation that you find yourself in and make better decisions through that.
At the end of each chapter, there are self-reflective questions that help you apply the principles covered therein.
I recommend you check out “The Non-Obvious Guide to Emotional Intelligence” by Kerry Goyette
You’ll find some nuggets in there that will help you in your business ventures.
You can pick up a copy of this book on Amazon, here’s a link.
What does emotional intelligence mean to you? Have you had any success adapting how you respond to situations by seeking out emotional intelligence yourself?