Emotional Intelligence Is Overrated

[highlander]

I have thought some of these things for a while. Thoughts? Opinions?

From Adam Grant on LinkedIn

Not long ago, the CEO of a sales company mentioned that he was spending millions of dollars to train his employees in emotional intelligence. He asked if it was possible to assess emotional intelligence during the interview process, which would allow him to hire salespeople who already excelled in this area.

I said yes, it can be done—but I wouldn’t recommend doing it.

Warning: if you’re a devoted member of an emotional intelligence cult, you may have a strong negative reaction to the data in this post. In case that happens, I’ve offered some guidance at the bottom on how to respond.

To make sure we’re on the same page, let’s be clear about what emotional intelligence is. Experts agree that it has three major elements: perceiving, understanding, and regulating emotions. Perceiving emotions is your ability to recognize different feelings. When looking at someone’s face, do you know the difference between joy and contentment, anxiety and sadness, or surprise and contempt? Understanding emotions is how well you identify the causes and consequences of different feelings. For example, can you figure out what will make your colleagues frustrated versus angry? Frustration occurs when people are blocked from achieving a goal; anger is a response to being mistreated or wronged. Regulating emotions is your effectiveness in managing what you and others feel. If you have a bad day but need to give an inspiring speech, can you psych yourself up and motivate your audience anyway?

I told the CEO that although these skills could be useful in sales, he’d be better off assessing cognitive ability. That’s traditional intelligence: the capability to reason and solve verbal, logical, and mathematical problems. Salespeople with high cognitive ability would be able to analyze information about customer needs and think on their feet to keep customers coming back. The CEO was convinced that emotional intelligence would matter more.

To see who was right, we designed a study. Working with Dane Barnes of Optimize Hire, we gave hundreds of salespeople two validated tests of emotional intelligence that measured their abilities to perceive, understand, and regulate emotions. We also gave them a five-minute test of their cognitive ability, where they had to solve a few logic problems. Then, we tracked their sales revenue over several months.

Cognitive ability was more than five times more powerful than emotional intelligence. The average employee with high cognitive ability generated annual revenue of over $195,000, compared with $159,000 for those with moderate cognitive ability and $109,000 for those with low cognitive ability. Emotional intelligence added nothing after measuring cognitive ability.

More info here

 

[1487610420]

Title is misleading as OP is relative to direct financial gain, EQ is a necessary trait for navigating a social environment, thus the correlation is at best short-sighted.

 

[highlander]

Title is misleading as OP is relative to direct financial gain, EQ is a necessary trait for navigating a social environment, thus the correlation is at best short-sighted.

What's the financial gain aspect exactly and how is it related to the Title?

 

[Coriolis]

Title is misleading as OP is relative to direct financial gain, EQ is a necessary trait for navigating a social environment, thus the correlation is at best short-sighted.

Not at all. The point is to interact with other people in such a way as to achieve your goal. In sales, that goal is financial, but in social, academic, or other contexts, it will be something else. The same skill set can be used in any of these situations, because at root level, it is affecting how one interacts with other people.

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]: I am not surprised by the findings reported here, and have always considered "EQ" overrated myself.

 

[chubber]

Title is misleading as OP is relative to direct financial gain, EQ is a necessary trait for navigating a social environment, thus the correlation is at best short-sighted.

It makes sense what phobik is saying. It is based on the context of overrated.

 

[Qlip]

So... if your EQ is higher, you'll be worse at gaining at other's expense. Sounds possibly legit.

 

[prplchknz]

considering most products are crappier than the sales person/company claims, high eq would be bad at least with that aspect. Because the sales person wouldn't feel right telling how great the product was when it wasn't, and would be able to sense that the person probably doesn't need a gyrating hotdog maker that vaccuums and squirts mustard. and would not sale very well.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Emotional intelligence is not quantifiable like most other types because the whole point is that it processes subjective information about individual perception. What passes for emotional intelligence (from what I've seen) is simple skill at surface social gestures and manipulation using verbal and non-verbal cues. Even the emotional intelligence tests online get the highest scores from ENTJs and the lowest scores from INFP and ISFJ. This tells me absolutely that society does not possess a healthy or realistic concept of emotional intelligence in the first place. It is about dominance and manipulation which is a type of social intelligence, but it is not giftedness at actually understanding the internal perception and feelings of other in a meaningful way.

I suspect that the overlap between the most empathetic people in this world and the proverbial "doormat" is quite high because it has to do with being so invested in others that you forget yourself. No corporation wants someone like that. Business wants someone who can coerce someone into purchasing a car. It doesn't care if the transaction is in the well being of the buyer. True emotional intelligence applied in this world would undermine the entire corporate structure of society. It is so underrated by the world that an accurate notion has been completely trampled underfoot.

 

[Nicodemus]

What's the financial gain aspect exactly [...]?

Have you read the text you posted? Here:

I told the CEO that although these skills could be useful in sales, he’d be better off assessing cognitive ability. That’s traditional intelligence: the capability to reason and solve verbal, logical, and mathematical problems. Salespeople with high cognitive ability would be able to analyze information about customer needs and think on their feet to keep customers coming back. The CEO was convinced that emotional intelligence would matter more.

[...] how is it related to the Title?

Hardly. Hence [MENTION=6723]phobik[/MENTION]'s post.

 

[Qre:us]

"IQ" has been around for much longer than "EQ", as a concept, as a measure, to have gone through the rigors of psychometrics, to refine its reliability, validity, and standardization.

And I'm not convinced that there's no overlap in the measurement of the IQ and EQ tests, i.e., are you truly measuring what you're aiming to measure, and nothing else? Nothing more? No noise data? Which would then muddy the results, such that the conclusion you can really draw from this is, intelligent people perform better in a competitive environment than less intelligent people.
Shocking revelation!

It's the difference between measuring the effects of two different substances of comparable concentrations, versus, measuring one substance with a high concentration of its pure material and another substance that is diluted, and then concluding that, one substance had more of an effect than the other, not due to its concentration but because of the substance itself. You just can't draw such conclusions given such premise.

Even the emotional intelligence tests online get the highest scores from ENTJs and the lowest scores from INFP and ISFJ. This tells me absolutely that society does not possess a healthy or realistic concept of emotional intelligence in the first place. It is about dominance and manipulation which is a type of social intelligence, but it is not giftedness at actually understanding the internal perception and feelings of other in a meaningful way.

Very well could be. I just can't conclude this, as it would mean that dominance and manipulation are the domains of ENTJs and not of INFPs and ISFJs. Which are very strong, subjective, and negative words towards ENTJs.

 

[boomslang]

So... if your EQ is higher, you'll be worse at gaining at other's expense. Sounds possibly legit.

More or less. And businesses typically run on a profit maximisation scheme, even if that involves hesitatingly adhering to things like "corporate social responsibility" because it manipulates the public to have a positive disposition towards the business. If you're in big business, you're not going to want people with consciences, especially in sales. Logic, strategic planning and a touch of the Machiavellian are what put businesses ahead, not high EQ scores.

 

[rav3n]

Another vote for EQ being overrated, at least in the business world. It's pretty easy to manipulate people and far more difficult to walk the talk.

 

[digesthisickness]

If the CEO was operating under the assumption that EQ would help to "keep customers coming back" then doesn't that mean he wasn't looking to scam people with products they didn't need, but to build more of a relationship of trust in the company?

That's how I read it.

 

[highlander]

Thinking about this a bit more, it might be a matter of some of the emotional intelligence aspects canceling each other out. This link here mentions a number of things as comprising emotional intellgence:

Self Awareness - emotional self awareness, accurate self assessment, self confidence

Social Awareness - empathy, organizational awareness, service orientation

Self Management - self control, adaptability, transparency, achievement drive, initiative

Relationship Management - inspirational leadership, developing others, influence, change catalyst, conflict management, building bonds, teamwork and collaboration

As it relates to material success, I can think of a number of those things making a difference: self confidence, organizational awareness, achievement drive, initiative, inspirational leadership, influence, building bonds. I can think of several that are probably counterproductive like emotional self awareness or empathy. Looking at the executive suite which is predominantly TJ, I can't imagine they would score the highest on adaptability. People can be surprisingly successful in leadership roles without having an ability to develop others.

We can be better people perhaps if we have these attributes but many of them are not required for success. What's actually required is to be really good at a small number of things and for those things to be highly valued or for those things to be used to achieve profitable outcomes. Intelligence is a narrower thing perhaps and people who are smarter on average may make smarter decisions (stressing the words "on average"), which is why that could make a difference.

 

[á´…eparted]

I'd be curious to see if there is a link between the average EQ of a work environment and workplace happiness.

 

[skylights]

I completely agree that emotional intelligence is not the be-all-end-all, though I don't really know who ever thought that it was. I feel like most people who have a strong emotional awareness are eminently aware of its disadvantages. In business, maybe highlighting emotional intelligence is trendy, but I think it's a much better approach to say that it's a tool that's useful at certain times and less at others. You probably want your HR director to have a decent emotional intelligence but it really doesn't matter so much with your COO.

But as for success at large... I think emotional intelligence can play into success, but it sort of depends on what success means to you. In a related vein, I think people with a high intrapersonal intelligence tend to have a good grasp of what makes them happy and fulfilled, and probably highly intrapersonally or interpersonally aware people tend to have different ideas of "success"... I feel like this is sort of getting along the lines of what @fia was saying... that emotional intelligence probably affects your goals. The more emotionally aware you are both intra- and interpersonally, the more likely you are to focus your purpose and work around human development. Which is not at all to devalue anyone who does not focus on that - they certainly have other types of intelligences and goals related to those intelligences.

Regarding the article... it strikes me that the author takes a surprisingly haughty tone given that he is making the vague and completely unfounded statement that emotional intelligence is overrated. I don't necessarily take issue with that argument - may well be true - but I do take issue with the fact that the author is being condescending to his readers when he has completely failed to provide any information upon which we can draw the conclusion that emotional intelligence has been overrated. Overrated by whom? And on what scale? What was the sample size? What were the limitations? Not to mention, he has conflated IQ/EQ results with the variables they are supposed to test for. They're not the same. For a social scientist, I find the author's article quality disappointing, more geared towards entertainment than validity.

 

[Tellenbach]

EQ is just as important as IQ but the value of each depends a lot on the context. If you were a contestant on Survivor, your EQ would probably be more important since the game hinges on recognizing social dynamics. If you were a civil engineer designing a bridge, your IQ would be more important. It's the Counselor Troi vs Data question. Both are valued members in different situations.

 

[chubber]

If the CEO was operating under the assumption that EQ would help to "keep customers coming back" then doesn't that mean he wasn't looking to scam people with products they didn't need, but to build more of a relationship of trust in the company?

That's how I read it.

I guess they showed him the money, instead.

 

[Totenkindly]

Regarding the article... it strikes me that the author takes a surprisingly haughty tone given that he is making the vague and completely unfounded statement that emotional intelligence is overrated. I don't necessarily take issue with that argument - may well be true - but I do take issue with the fact that the author is being condescending to his readers when he has completely failed to provide any information upon which we can draw the conclusion that emotional intelligence has been overrated. Overrated by whom? And on what scale? What was the sample size? What were the limitations? Not to mention, he has conflated IQ/EQ results with the variables they are supposed to test for. They're not the same. For a social scientist, I find the author's article quality disappointing, more geared towards entertainment than validity.

I still scan the Yahoo News feed, and I've been severely disappointed at the quality of what kinds of articles show up there. What articles are shown I think is dynamic based on the reader's past reading history, but basically the headlines have become more sensationalist and actually misleading at times, and the articles themselves are not really news -- a lot are basically opinion pieces masquerading as news. Journalism itself has been going more in that direcion, as we build followings around individuals and I think it makes more money / attracts more readers.

Anyway, the "balanced detached" view where you just report data seems to be disappearing / has disappeared.

 

[Bush]

The title is hyperbole, just as most titles of everything are. The article itself is more nuanced.

The article does deal with the caveats that came to all of our brains.

On skill testing:

As better tests of emotional intelligence are designed, our knowledge may change. But for now, the best available evidence suggests that emotional intelligence is not a panacea. Let’s recognize it for what it is: a set of skills that can be beneficial in situations where emotional information is rich or vital.

On analyzing emotions, rather than being oblivious to them:

If you felt intense negative emotions while reading this post, it’s an excellent opportunity to put emotional intelligence into action.

On the roles of cognitive ability and EQ:

This isn’t to say that emotional intelligence is useless. It's relevant to performance in jobs where you have to deal with emotions every day, like sales, real estate, and counseling. If you’re selling a house or helping people cope with tragedies, it’s very useful to know what they’re feeling and respond appropriately. But in jobs that lack these emotional demands—like engineering, accounting, or science—emotional intelligence predicted lower performance. If your work is primarily about dealing with data, things, and ideas rather than people and feelings, it’s not necessarily advantageous to be skilled in reading and regulating emotions. If your job is to fix a car or balance numbers in a spreadsheet, paying attention to emotions might distract you from working efficiently and effectively.

__

Most interesting is the following:

Even in emotionally demanding work, when it comes to job performance, cognitive ability still proves more consequential than emotional intelligence. Cognitive ability is the capacity to learn. The higher your cognitive ability, the easier it is for you to develop emotional intelligence when you need it.

Yeah. If cognitive ability can be said to lead to emotional intelligence where it's needed, then it follows pretty easily that cognitive ability (which is treated here as more general) is more important than emotional intelligence itself in this context.

A naturally talent virtuoso knows pretty dang well how to play the piano. A person with high cognitive ability can learn to play the piano, because he's smart like that. But that person can also learn other stuff. It's almost that cognitive ability encompasses emotional intelligence and piano-playing; and so of course it's going to be useful.

And also:

(This is one of the reasons that emotional intelligence and cognitive ability turn out to correlate positively, not negatively.)

There's something.