Book review
Applied EI: The Importance of Attitudes in Developing Emotional Intelligence
By Tim Sparrow & Amanda Knight
Jossey-Bass (2006) ££24.99 Hardcover
ISBN 0-4700-3273-1
I have only recently been introduced to Applied Emotional Intelligence (to differentiate what Tim and Amanda are working with from the EI that Daniel Goleman and others describe). I found Goleman difficult to get through because I couldn’t always see how I could use EI with my clients. And it was jargon rich. There is very little jargon in this book and what there is, is well explained.
For some time now I have felt there was something missing as I worked with leaders on organisational change… I could co-create the change methodology and what we would do and I could explain to them that how they behaved was important to whether or not the change would be successful, but I didn’t have a consistent model to share with them around ensuring the right behaviours. So, it was with a big ‘Ah-hah!’ that I read about Applied EI and realised that I now had a consistent model/tool.
Applied EI is eminently usable and easy to explain to people. Tim and Amanda believe (as do I) that leadership can be taught. In their view, the key to good leadership (and, incidentally, a successful life) is emotional intelligence. This starts with Self Awareness – once a leader has sufficient self awareness he/she can use it to manage him/herself. Then awareness of others (Other Awareness) can be worked on and through that Relationship Management. Being effective in all four areas leads to effective overall performance.
Our thinking and feeling together give us what we do, so it is vital to understand the feeling aspects of our attitudes. Emotional intelligence integrates feeling, thinking and doing. All of us have the capacity to behave with emotional intelligence however most of us have interferences (beliefs, attitudes and habits) which stop us. In other words Performance = potential – interference (based on Timothy Gallwey’s work).
The first part of the book explains what Applied Emotional Intelligence is and the premise behind their work. The second part of the book looks at how to develop emotionally intelligent attitudes and the third part looks at applying them.
To develop EI one needs to measure it and Tim and Jo Maddox have developed diagnostic tools to provide a base line for people to work with. This helps people to identify where their interferences lie. Part II describes the 18 scales used in the diagnostic tool. These are:
- Life Position (1-3) – which has to do with your self regard and regard for others;
- Awareness (4-5) – awareness of self and others;
- Self Management (6-11) – emotional resilience, personal power, goal directedness, flexibility, personal openness and connectedness and invitation to trust;
- Relationship Management (12-16) – trust, balanced optimism, emotional expression and control, conflict handling and interdependence
- Learning to know yourself (17-18) reflective learning and how accurate you are in self assessment.
Part III is about applying EI. It goes into detail about how you would use it - for instance - when working with change, or when doing appraisals. This section helped me to see where the real benefit was when using it in my practise. If you are a leader reading this book, there is a whole chapter on EI in leadership, complete with some self assessment and ideas on how to improve. The last chapter is on assessing EI with plenty of links to the psychology behind it (this was a bit heavy for me).
The book is well referenced, there are comparisons with other methodologies (for example NLP) and it is easy to read. I think it is a great introduction to Applied Emotional Intelligence and for those who are interested to know more – there is a link to the Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence at the back.