T+D Blog

What Is Your Emotional IQ?

So, what is your emotional IQ? For that matter, what is emotional IQ? Is it more important than intellectual IQ? Some people believe it is.

Emotional IQ is a person's ability to understand his or her own emotions and the emotions of others and to act appropriately based on this understanding. It is the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions.

Authors Daniel Goleman and Cary Cherniss are credited with bringing EQ into the public arena.

Is it something you are born with or can emotional intelligence skills be taught? What skills can you teach?

EQ in Harry Potter

Along the lines of HR Lessons Learned from Star Wars, now comes EQ in Harry Potter, a whitepaper put out by TalentSmart.

The paper examines a conversation between Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione in the fifth book of the series, The Order of the Phoenix, and dicusses how Harry's two best friends respond with emotional intelligence to his bad mood. It then offers a four-step strategy for conflict management drawn from the conversation.

Ok, it's a stretch, and not funny like the Star Wars piece, but an okay try. I think the strategy of linking hot pop culture topics to information you want to get out there--if done well--can be very effective. It definitely gets people's attention.

If you can use humor with it, even better. Store Wars is another example--a fabulously clever and funny one that also happens to impart a lot of good information.

Maybe something to try with training initiatives you're developing?