Category: Books

Wow! I give this book a 10. This is a great book to read and live by. I highly suggest for you to read it if you are looking for a book to help improve yourself, your skills and your leadership.There is a test that you should take first in order to understand yourself and what the book is teaching you. You can find the test online. It is call the Emotional Appraisal Test. Taking the test now provides a baseline against which you can gauge your improvement as you read on and learn .The Emotional Intelligence 2.0 has one purpose – increasing your EQ. Those pages will take you far beyond knowing what EQ is and how you score.Emotional awareness and understanding are not taught in school. We enter the workforce knowing how to read, write and report on bodies of knowledge, but too often , we lack the skills to manage our emotions in the heat of the challenging problems that we face.Since our brains are wired to make us emotional creatures, your first reaction to an event is always going to be an emotional one. You have no control over this part of the process. You do control the thoughts that follow an emotion, and you have a great deal of say in how to react to an emotion- as long as you are aware of it.Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.There was a very good point the author mentioned in this book that I will keep with me let me share: “People may be intelligent but not emotionally intelligent”. There is a lot of truth to that. Many people does not know how to manage their emotions, conflicts or difficult situations and this book can really help you with that.How much of an impact does EQ have on your professional success? The short answer is a lot! EQ is so critical to success that it accounts first 58% of performance in all types of jobs. It’s the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the stronger driver of leadership and personal excellence.”Naturally , people with high EQs make more money- an average of $29,000 more per year than people with low EQs”. In order to be successful and fulfilled nowadays, you must learn to maximized your EQs skills and this book will show you how to make this happen.There are four skills that together make up emotional intelligence. Self awareness and self management which are more about you and social awareness and relationship management which are more about how you are with other people.My emotional self awareness score was 80%. That means there is 20% room for improvement. My social Awareness was 80%. Again there is room for improvement. When I took the Test my overall EQ was 99%. The book gives you an action plan for you to work on and I have decided to work on self management.These are the three strategies for the EQ I will work on:

1. Stay Flexible and direct behavior positively.
2. Be able to tolerate uncertainty as I explore my emotions and options
3. Put my needs on hold and continually manage my tendencies.

In my opinion I can’t finish this blog without letting you know about these two sentences, because I find them very important to me. I have heard about them and I have find it to be true and hard to manage. Training and being aware is absolutely necessary. “One of the most effective ways to understand your emotions as they are happening is to learn how to spot the physical changes that accompany your emotions”. I have gone through this in my life, especially when I was going through a very stressful situation so when I say you have to learn this. Im telling you because I have gone through it and spotting this is absolutely helpful. I would recommend for you to know this and if you don’t I urge you to learn it. “Knowing who pushes your buttons and how they do it is critical to developing the ability to take control of these situations, maintain your poise and calm yourself down”. I had a very intense training on this when I was going through the Executive Power Program at MGE- Management Experts in Clearwater Florida. I think knowing this and knowing how to handle yourself is very detrimental. At work, at home, on the streets people are going to push your buttons you might as well learn how to be in control of your emotions.I hope you get inspired enough to want to read this book and improve your emotional skills. I hope you do learn something from the test and make sure few months down the road you retake the test to see where you are.Other Books by the Author:The Five Dysfunctions of a TeamGod Bless You,Jani

I read somewhere that this book was supposed to be read in one setting and I was not sure if that was going to be true at least for me. Well I guess I was wrong. I read the book in just one setting. Very good read. Very simple, straightforward and the examples that this book uses are right on.

Being the Chief Executive of an organization is one of the most difficult challenges a person can face in a career. But is not a complicated one.

I’m sure that lots of people go through this, may be is a human nature or how society makes us behave but here is a quote about the story the author is narrating about the first temptation. ” Well I can be certain, but it seems to me that you may be more interested in protecting your career status than you are in making sure your company achieve results “. Here is a pretty good question that caught my attention, What was the biggest day of your career? I want you to answer that question but with the book in hand so you can get the full effect of the way you answered that question.

Second temptation:Wanting to be popular with your direct reports instead of holding them accountable.

“Because he told them what he expected and reminded them of those expectations constantly. When they failed, he made the consequences clear, whether it was financial or otherwise. Eventually, if a person could not find a way to improve, they would just leave”.

Third Temptation: Its the temptation to ensure that your decisions are correct.” “It’s the temptation to choose certainty over clarity. Some executives fear being wrong so much that they wait until they are absolutely certain about something before they make a decision. That makes it impossible to hold people accountable. “

“You can’t hold people accountable for things they are not clear. If you are unwilling to make decisions with limited information, you can’t achieve clarity. “

In the military they teach you that any decision is better than no decision.

I think that having a great vision and mission is only important if you know how to execute.

The Fourth Temptation is the desire for harmony. What’s the opposite of harmony? Discord, disagreement, conflict. But harmony is cancer to good decision making.

“I don’t have a problem holding people accountable for things, as long as we all agree what those things are.” “And so your decisions aren’t based on all information that your people have to offer.”

The Fifth Temptation, do you know why people don’t trust other people? Because they are afraid of getting burned, that’s what I mean by vulnerability. “

The most important principle that an executive must embrace is a desire to produce results.

Wanting to be liked by peers is an understandable but dangerous, problems for CEOs. Being at a top of an organization is lonely. CEOs have not made it clear what those direct reports are accountable for doing. A simple advice is to make clarity more important than accuracy. Most CEOs believe that is better for people to agree and get along than disagree and conflict with one another. That’s how they are raised. The best decisions are made only after all knowledge and perspectives are out on the table. The best advice is to tolerate discord. CEOs are powerful people. Being vulnerable with their peers and reports is not a comfortable prospect. The simple advice is to actively encourage their people to challenge their ideas. Trust them with your reputation and your ego.

I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend for you to do self assessment. And when you have an opportunity read it again in few weeks and let it sink in.

Other books also by Patrick

The four obsessions of an extraordinary executive

Death by meeting

The three signs of a miserable job

God bless,

Jani