The last decade, despite its bad news, has also seen an unparalleled burst of scientific studies of emotion. Most dramatic are the glimpses of the brain at work, made possible by innovative methods such as new brain-imaging technologies. They have made visible for the first time in human history what has always been a source of deep mystery: exactly how this intricate mass of cells operates while we think and feel, imagine and dream. This flood of neurobiological data lets us understand more clearly than ever how the brain’s centers for emotion move us to rage or to tears, and how more ancient parts of the brain, which stir us to make war as well as love, are channeled for better or worse. This unprecedented clarity on the workings of emotions and their failings brings into focus some fresh remedies for our collective emotional crisis.
I have had to wait till now before the scientific harvest was full enough to write this book. These insights are so late in coming largely because the place of feeling in mental life has been surprisingly slighted by research over the years, leaving the emotions a largely unexplored continent for scientific psychology. Into this void has rushed a welter of self-help books, well-intentioned advice based at best on clinical opinion but lacking much, if any, scientific basis. Now science is finally able to speak with authority to these urgent and perplexing questions of the psyche at its most irrational, to map with some precision the human heart. This mapping offers a challenge to those who subscribe to a narrow view of intelligence, arguing that IQ is a genetic given that cannot be changed by life experience, and that our destiny in life is largely fixed by these aptitudes. That argument ignores the more challenging question: What can we change that will help our children fare better in life? What factors are at play, for example, when people of high IQ flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well? I would argue that the difference quite often lies in the abilities called here emotional.
Beyond this possibility looms a pressing moral imperative. These are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed, when selfishness, violence, and a meanness of spirit seem to be rotting the goodness of our communal lives. Here the argument for the importance of emotional intelligence hinges on the link between sentiment, character, and moral instincts. There is growing evidence that fundamental ethical stances in life stem from underlying emotional capacities. For one, impulse is the medium of emotion; the seed of all impulse is a feeling bursting to express itself in action. Those who are at the mercy of impulse—who lack self-control—suffer a moral deficiency: The ability to control impulse is the base of will and character. By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy, the ability to read emotions in others; lacking a sense of another’s need or despair, there is no caring. And if there are any two moral stances that our times call for, they are precisely these, self- restraint and compassion.
Not education. Not experience. Not knowledge or intellectual horsepower. None of these serve as an adequate predictor as to why one person succeeds and another doesn’t. There is something else going on that society doesn’t seem to account for. We see examples of this every day in our workplaces, our homes, our churches, our schools and our neighborhoods. We observe supposedly brilliant and well-educated people struggle, while others with fewer obvious skills or attributes flourish. And we ask ourselves why? The answer almost always has to do with this concept called emotional intelligence. And while it is harder to identify and measure than IQ or experience, and certainly difficult to capture on a resume, it’s power cannot be denied.
And by now, it’s not exactly a secret. People have been talking about emotional intelligence for a while, but somehow they haven’t been able to harness its power. After all, as a society we continue to focus most of our self-improvement energy in the pursuit of knowledge, experience, intelligence and education. This would be fine if we could honestly say we had a full understanding of our emotions, not to mention the emotions of others, and an understanding of how our emotions influence our lives so fundamentally every day. I think the reason for this gap between the popularity of emotional intelligence as a concept and its application in society is twofold.
First, people just don’t understand it. They often mistake emotional intelligence for a form of charisma or gregariousness. Second, they don’t see it as something that can be improved. Either you have it or you don’t. And that’s why this is such a helpful book. By understanding what emotional intelligence really is and how we can manage it in our lives, we can begin to leverage all of that intelligence, education and experience we’ve been storing up for all these years. So, whether you’ve been wondering about emotional intelligence for years or know nothing about it, this book can drastically change the way you think about success. You might want to read it twice. Patrick Lencioni