2

A Brief Primer on Emotional Intelligence

Before we discuss the details of applying emotional intelligence to projects, it will be helpful to explore the background of emotional intelligence. This chapter provides more detail on the concept of emotional intelligence and how the writings of Daniel Goleman and other emotional intelligence researchers have contributed to the field. Using Goleman’s generic model of emotional intelligence as a starting point, we will discuss an adaptation of that framework which is applicable to projects and PMs. We also provide some useful definitions for emotions, families of emotions, and emotional intelligence. Finally, we will conclude this chapter with some resources on where to go for additional information on emotional intelligence.

  The Popularity of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a popular though often misunderstood term. It would be hard to have missed the buzz about it since Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ became a national bestseller. What made Goleman’s book so popular were two claims: (1) that emotional intelligence may be more important than intelligence quotient (IQ) and (2) that you can improve your emotional intelligence. Those claims are what made headlines and got emotional intelligence noticed. And while I believe those claims are true, it is not as simple as that to be successful with emotional intelligence.

I suspect that the PMs who bought Goleman’s first book hoping to improve their performance and project success rates were sadly disappointed. The book was interesting and even entertaining in some places, but it fell short of providing the practical means of applying emotional intelligence to project management or to life in general. The PMs I know are interested in learning things that will help them become better PMs and leaders. They want to understand how to apply techniques to improve their projects.

This chapter will help you to understand the basic concepts of emotions and emotional intelligence and how important these concepts are to PMs.

  Some Useful Definitions

Emotions

There is a little bit of controversy among researchers over exactly what are emotions. While most researchers agree on a core set of emotions, they differ on including less well-known emotions, such as ecstasy, vigilance, adoration, and disgust.

I have learned to use a simple approach to understand a wide range of emotions. This approach uses six primary feeling words to represent groups of emotions as described by David E. Carlson in his book, Counseling and Self-Esteem. The primary feeling words can be summed up in the acronym SASHET: sad, angry, scared, happy, excited, and tender.¹

Figure 2-1 shows these six primary feeling words, as well as the range of emotions each of these words represents. Notice that the figure shows an increasing intensity of each emotion as you move from the center of the wheel to the outside.

As you can see, the SASHET framework includes three “negative” families of emotions: sad, angry, and scared. These emotions are negative only in the sense that they are perceived as negative. As we will see, all emotions provide us with data about ourselves and our environment. Just because we experience negative emotions doesn’t mean that we feel negative.

Figure 2-1: The SASHET Families of Emotions.

The SASHET framework also includes the three “positive” families of emotions, which are happy, excited, and tender, and all the subtle variations of those emotions.

Using the SASHET framework, we learn to distinguish among the various groups of emotions. It is not critical that we pinpoint the exact emotions we are feeling. However, it is important to know which of the feeling families we are experiencing.

Emotional Intelligence

We briefly introduced emotional intelligence in Chapter 1 and provided some of the definitions used by various researchers. Emotional intelligence is sometimes called emotional quotient, or EQ, to show the relationship to IQ, or intelligence quotient. Some researchers use emotional intelligence, EI, and EQ interchangeably. For the remainder of this book, we will use the term EQ to mean emotional intelligence.

As previously noted, Daniel Goleman is the most recognized emotional intelligence researcher and journalist. He gets credit for the popularity of emotional intelligence. However, he wasn’t the first to study EQ. As indicated in Chapter 1, the first emotional intelligence researchers included Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer. Some would also credit Harvard education professor Howard Gardner as the initiator of the original research work on emotional intelligence.

While some of the research work on emotional intelligence is common, each researcher uses a slightly different approach. This is not unexpected for a field that is relatively young, but other factors are also at work. There is a great deal of prestige and financial reward at stake and that has led to controversy among the researchers. For example, there is disagreement over something as simple as exactly how to define an emotion. There is even disagreement over some of the claims made in the popular press about the value of emotional intelligence.

We briefly mentioned emotional intelligence assessments in Chapter 1; this is another area of disagreement in the research community. Can we objectively measure emotional intelligence? If objective and accurate emotional intelligence tests were available, they would be at least as valuable as IQ testing—perhaps even more valuable. Unfortunately, this has led to a proliferation of various emotional intelligence instruments (as evidence, my brother and I developed the simple tool found in Chapter 1). It has also fostered a great deal of criticism among the various authors of emotional intelligence instruments. At this stage, my recommendation is to use the assessment that provides the information you need. Information about some of the most popular emotional intelligence assessments can be found in Appendix F.

The good news is that some level of agreement has been reached about the framework to be used for applying emotional intelligence. This has not always been the case. Mayer and Salovey published one of the earliest frameworks for applying emotional intelligence in their article “Emotional Intelligence” (1990). Daniel Goleman first published a framework for emotional intelligence in his 1998 book, Working with Emotional Intelligence. Figure 2-2² shows the Mayer and Salovey framework and highlights the areas where Goleman’s work overlaps it.

Figure 2-2: Comparison of Early Emotional Intelligence Frameworks.

Figure 2-3: Goleman’s Framework of Emotional Competencies.

The various frameworks have evolved and converged a little in the years since they were first introduced. In particular, the Goleman framework has become better organized and easier to understand and apply. Perhaps because of this—or because of the popularity of his books—Goleman’s framework has become the de facto standard for applying emotional intelligence. This framework is shown in Figure 2-3.³

This framework is made up of four quadrants. Two of the quadrants represent personal competence or a focus on self. The other two quadrants represent social competence or a focus on others.

Goleman’s framework is very helpful and easy to understand and apply. However, I found it necessary to adapt his generic framework to better meet the needs of PMs. Starting with the Goleman framework, I drew out the most relevant aspects of the model as they apply to projects and PMs. I then added other competencies and factors that were important for PMs. The resulting framework is shown in Figure 2-4. This framework was modified specifically to focus on the most relevant concepts of emotional intelligence for PMs and to show the application of those concepts. Here is a summary of the differences between the generic model and the PM-focused model:

Figure 2-4: Emotional Intelligence Framework for Project Management.

1.  The structure has been changed. I put the first competencies to be mastered at the bottom to show upward progression. I also added a fifth category called Team Leadership as an overarching group of competencies to be mastered after the first four emotional intelligence domains.

2.  Some competencies were deemphasized, including self-confidence and self-assessment.

3.  Some competencies have been dropped altogether to allow a focus on the most important competencies for PMs. They include trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, achievement drive, initiative, service orientation, influence, change catalyst, building bonds, and teamwork and collaboration.

4.  I added the social awareness competency of emotional boundaries, and the relationship management competency of truth telling.

This is the framework we will use throughout this book. Let’s take a brief look at this framework and the five domains.

Self-Awareness

The first domain of the framework is self-awareness, which means understanding ourselves and our emotions. It involves the competencies of emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. Self-awareness is the first building block of emotional intelligence. Until we understand how we feel and can accurately assess our emotional state, we will understand emotions from only an intellectual point of view. We need to be able to understand emotions at a gut level—what is going on with us.

Accurate self-assessment includes understanding our own strengths and weaknesses and being willing to explore them both on our own and with others. Self-confidence is the ability to be grounded, secure, and self-assured in whatever situation we find ourselves.

Self-Management

Building on the emotional understanding we gain with self-awareness, we use self-management to manage and guide our emotional state. Self-management is the ability to control our emotions so they don’t control us. In fact, the domain of self-management includes just one competency—self-control.

Self-control is a critical competency important for everyone. We have all experienced people and situations that have pushed our buttons and tried our patience. Self-control is what helps us to maintain our cool and not “lose it.”

Social Awareness

Social awareness occurs when we expand our awareness to include the emotions of those around us. The domain of social awareness includes empathy, organizational awareness, seeing others clearly, and emotional boundaries.

Empathy is a critical skill for PMs and leaders of all types. Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to the feelings of others; to put ourselves in their shoes. Organizational awareness is the ability to interpret the context for emotions in an organization. It includes the spoken and unspoken rules and values that guide each organization.

Seeing others clearly is the ability to accurately assess and understand others. As PMs, it is important that we are able to understand and interpret the emotions of our team members and other stakeholders. We all have this skill in varying degrees.

Emotional boundaries help us to understand where we end and where others begin. If we have a solid command of emotional boundaries, we are more likely to speak up and say no when we should, we will have more realistic expectations of others, and we will take responsibility for our own emotions and actions and let others be responsible for theirs.

Relationship Management

Relationship management means using the awareness of our own emotions and those of others to build strong relationships. Those strong relationships will serve us on our projects. After all, projects are nearly always team efforts. The domain of relationship management includes the competencies of stakeholder relationships, developing others, and truth telling.

Stakeholder relationship includes the systematic identification, analysis, and management of the relationships with our project stakeholders. Developing others is making an investment in the growth and development of those we work with through feedback and coaching. Finally, truth telling looks at responsible ways in which we can be direct and honest.

Team Leadership

Team leadership is focused on the emotional skills needed to effectively lead project teams. This includes communications, conflict management, and inspirational leadership.

PMs need to be great communicators. There is no way around that fact. The larger the team, the more important communications become. The communications competency includes the ability to understand and manage the emotional tone of the project team through communications, as well as the ability to be congruent between actions, one-on-one communications, and communications in groups.

An important part of project management is conflict management. The conflict management competency is not new, rather, the focus is on ways to resolve project conflict using emotional intelligence.

Inspirational leadership looks at how project team leaders need to cast a vision that will engage, motivate, and inspire the team.

  How to Improve Your Understanding of Emotional Intelligence Concepts

The good news is that after reading these first two chapters, you probably already know more about applying emotional intelligence than most of your fellow PMs. I highly encourage you to continue reading and learning more about emotional intelligence through a variety of sources.

In my November 2005 survey, I asked PMs how they learned about emotional intelligence. The sources most frequently cited were discussions, magazines/journals, books, classes, and blogs or web sites. Let’s look at each of these sources in detail.

Magazines and Journals on Emotional Intelligence

Magazines were cited most often as the source of information about emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is frequently referenced in PM Network Magazine and other popular magazines. Visit your local library or search the Internet for articles.

Books on Emotional Intelligence

Appendix E contains a list of books on emotional intelligence, with a quick summary of each. For those interested in just one or two books, you will find my favorites listed here.

Coaches and Mentors

I highly recommend working with a mentor or coach. Working with my personal coach, Rich Blue, was essential for me in learning emotional intelligence techniques and improving my effectiveness. A staggering number of emotional intelligence coaches can be found on the Internet using Google or other search engines.

Assessments

Emotional intelligence assessments can also provide some information for us. Despite the limitations already mentioned, any information is better than no information. More information on available assessments can be found in Appendix F.

  Learning About Emotional Intelligence Is Only the First Step

While it is important to learn about emotional intelligence, that is only the first step. I learned about emotional intelligence through a combination of coaching, studying, and ongoing application. I won’t downplay the importance of coaching and study but I truly believe that people learn best by doing. There is a big difference between studying a concept and applying it. Thus, this book focuses on the application of the topics and concepts.

To make the most of what we learn about emotional intelligence, we need to apply it to our lives and projects. This book is heavy on application. Each chapter provides a series of techniques that are summarized at the end of the unit. Choose some or all of the techniques and put them to use after reading each chapter. This will help you to get the most out of this book.

¹ David E. Carlson. Counseling and Self-Esteem. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1995.

² Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer. Emotional Intelligence, Imagination Cognition, and Personality, 1990, 9(3).

³ Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002, p. 39.