Emotional Intelligence 2.0

Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Who should read: All humans + many cats

Favorite quote: “The biggest obstacle to increasing your self-awareness is the tendency to avoid the discomfort that comes from seeing yourself as you really are.” 

Veterinarians are screened for intelligence pretty intensively. Back in my day, admissions screenings weighed your academic and standardized test scores as 2/3 of your application score! Your GPA and your GRE are the most objective means of screening you. You are further screened if you wish to do an internship or a residency, again based on your performance in school. While that is not to say there aren’t plenty of brilliant, intelligent people that wouldn’t make the cut, and it’s certainly not to say that veterinarians aren’t fully capable of making some pretty foolish mistakes, it’s generally safe to say you probably aren’t a veterinarian if you’re lacking in the gift of intelligence. But, are we really that elite in our intelligence? Aren’t their different kind of intelligences? (Hint, the answer can be found in the title of the book!) Are some intelligent forms more desirable than others? What if I told you that those catoragized as ‘highly intelligent’ (having a high IQ) outperform average IQ counterparts only 20% of the time. But average IQ individuals outperform high IQ individuals 70% of the time. The rubrics we are using for admitting veterinary hopefuls suddenly seems a little suspect, eh? So, what are we missing when we select our future colleagues? Well, according to Bradberry and Greaves, it is Emotional Intelligence (EQ). EQ has been identified as the single biggest predictor of performance in a workplace. If you assess highest performers, 90% of them have a high EQ. So what is this mysterious intelligence that would make us better at our job, better bosses, and highly desirable co-workers?! 

Emotional Intelligence is your pattern of response and relation to emotions. Our brains function in a manner such that every experience and input into our brain passes through the emotional processer (limbic system) before it ever makes it way to the rational processer (the frontal lobe). The limbic system and forebrain are in constant communication, and this communication is the physical manifestation of your emotional intelligence. Some of us have a tendency for our limbic system to hijack our responses and react angrily, bitterly or fearfully. Some of us ignore the limbic system and let the forebrain reign supreme, and thus struggle with empathy, relation and connection with others. Highly emotionally intelligent people engage both components of the brain and are skilled at finding excellent balance between the two before reacting. The good news: Unlike IQ, EQ is most definitely something you can improve and learn! The news you don’t want to know: it’s hard work! 

The primary purpose of the book is to provide the outline and specific strategies for how to improve your EQ. The authors recommend taking their Emotional Intelligence Appraisal assessment before even reading the meat of the book, and then again after you’ve worked on your EQ. Each book comes with a specialized code that gives you free access to the assessment (limited number of assessments). 

After assigning you to take the test, the authors introduce four skills that comprise EQ. 

These skills are divided into two competencies: Personal competence and Social competence.

Emotional Intelligence Skills 

Personal Competence: Focuses on you individually. 

1. Self-Awareness: Your ability to be aware of your emotions and self-management of your behaviors and tendencies. This is considered the foundational skill, required to build the other skillsets of emotional intelligence. 

A highly developed sense of self-awareness: 

• willingly faces the discomfort of exploring negative feelings, realizing that emotions always serve a purpose
• has a clear understanding of what you do well, what motivates and satisfies you, and what people or situations agitate you 

2. Self-Management:Your ability to use your self-awareness to direct your behavior positively. Inherently, this means an ability to manage your emotional reactions, and as a consequence, your ability to manage your tendencies. 

A highly developed ability for self-management: 

• can prioritize larger, more important goals over momentary needs 
• can apply their skills over a wide range of situations and experiences, over a long range of time.

Social Competence: Your ability to understand other’s behaviors, motives and moods. 

3. Social Awareness: Your ability to accurately recognize other’s emotional and situational state, and understand what is happening for them. 

A highly developed social awareness skillset: 

• Actively listens and observes others
• Focuses on other’s experience and perspectives, rather than thinking or acting ahead of the situation at hand

4. Relationship Management: Your ability to use your self-awareness and social awareness to manage your interactions positively with others. Requires competency in the other three skillsets.

A highly developed relationship management skillset: 

• Actively values creating and sustaining a bond with others
• Seeks the benefit of connection with each relationship, even if they don’t particularly like all the individuals

After outlining the foundational skills, the authors walk the reader through an action plan to grow your EQ. They recommend picking one skill to focus on at a time, choose three strategies for that skill to “practice, practice, practice”, and identify an EQ mentor- someone particularly strong in the skill you are working, to provide feedback and direction. They provide 15+ example strategies for each skill for you to choose from, and walk you through the application of those specific strategies. For example, for self-awareness, I chose “Quit treating your feelings as good or bad”, “Keep a journal about your emotions”, and “Spot your emotions in books movies and music”. They recommend after actively working on these skills to reassess your EQ score. 

While schools have made efforts to prepare students for the emotional burden and social skills needed to be a successful veterinarian, there is only so much they squeeze into the cracks of 4 years of very intensive education. And while interviews have become more common-place in the admission process, there is very little screening and attention placed specifically on emotional intelligence. I think you would do yourself an enormous favor, and greatly improve your working environment and quality of life by taking the time and effort to intentionally train your EQ. In fact, I think it’s downright shocking we survive veterinary medicine without this training! In short, I highly recommend this book! 

More resources: 

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: https://www.talentsmart.com/test/

Building self-awareness: Tasha Eurich TEDx talk