Sure, you're smart. Yes, you're good looking. Of course, you're talented and motivated and hard working. But you're also honest, and so you must admit that despite all your gifts, you still have not achieved the success you desire and deserve.
The reason?
Emotionally, you're an idiot.
That's right! Time to face your old bugaboo, emotional intelligence, or as we call it in the world of pop-biz books, EQ.
EQ isn't like IQ, according to Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, authors of the recently published "Emotional Intelligence 2.0," a copy of which was pressed into my hot little hands by a predatory PR person attempting to utilize mind control on someone with the emotional intelligence of a head of broccoli.
According to the authors, you can't improve your IQ, no matter how many episodes of "Brooke Knows Best" you watch, but your EQ is a work in progress. All it takes to take your EQ from moron to marvel is a little self-awareness and self-management. Of course, because people with low EQs lack the ability to be self-aware and self-managing, your personal improvement program may be a tad slow in getting off the ground. No problem. From what I've noticed, after a weekend of carousing with your lowlife friends, you're a little slow to get off the ground, as well.
The authors provide a link to an online EQ test in which you rate your reactions from "never" to "always" on a variety of situations. This requires judging how often you "do things you regret when you are upset" or "admit your shortcomings." (Clearly, the test itself has shortcomings. How can you admit shortcomings when you don't have any?)
My only problem with the test was that it was too short. I answered the first batch of questions honestly, thinking that I could make up for my obvious lack of EQ as the exercise progressed. Imagine my surprise when I was dumped into the results section and found my EQ was a dismal 67 out of a 100. It's a number so low, more than 79 percent of folks in my demographic group beat me.
On the positive side, my low score does suggest I have management potential. Based on the authors' research on 500,000 workers at every level of the org chart, "for the titles of directors and above, scores descend faster than a snowboarder on a black diamond. CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace."
Someone call HR and lease me a Mercedes E-class. This boy is destined for Mahogany Row.
If you are determined to raise your EQ, the book provides a panoply of techniques to improve your performance in each of four key areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. To increase your score in the self-awareness arena, for example, you should "watch yourself like a hawk." To the authors, this means to "slow yourself down and take in all that is in front of you, allowing your brain to process all available information before you act."
To accelerate the slowing process, may I suggest that instead of starting your day at Starbucks with a Frappuccino, you switch to the Kit Kat Klub where you throw back a dry martini with two olives, a twist, and an Ambien. When you get to work, lean back in your Aeron chair and rest your Ferragamos on your desk. Let the hectic workday world rush frantically around you, while you "slow yourself down." (In case you get too slow, make sure the office defibrillator is nearby.)
The authors also suggest a nifty strategy to improve your Social Awareness score: "Don't Take Notes at Meetings." As they so correctly point out, "by having your head focused on your tablet and your hand scribbling away, you miss the critical clues that shed some major light on how others are feeling and what they may be thinking."
So true! If you didn't have your nose buried in your notes, you would notice the subtle visual clues in the meeting, like pencils being snapped in half and chairs being thrown through the window, simply because you grabbed the first doughnut, and the last doughnut, and every doughnut in between.
Yes, improving your EQ will definitely boost your career, right up until the moment you meet an EQ idiot like your boss, who will crush you like a bug. But at least this time you'll be sufficiently self-aware to notice!
