Emotional Intelligence 2.0 [Hardcover]

Travis Bradberry (Author), Jean Greaves (Author), Patrick M. Lencioni (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 2009

In today's fast-paced world of competitive workplaces and turbulent economic conditions, each of us is searching for effective tools that can help us to manage, adapt, and strike out ahead of the pack.

By now, emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction—it’s no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers a step-by-step program for increasing your EQ via four, core EQ skills that enable you to achieve your fullest potential:

1) Self-Awareness
2) Self-Management
3) Social Awareness
4) Relationship Management

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a book with a single purpose—increasing your EQ. Here’s what people are saying about it:

“Emotional Intelligence 2.0 succinctly explains how to deal with emotions creatively and employ our intelligence in a beneficial way.”
—The Dalai Lama

“A fast read with compelling anecdotes and good context in which to understand and improve.”
—Newsweek

"Gives abundant, practical findings and insights with emphasis on how to develop EQ. Research shows convincingly that EQ is more important than IQ."
--Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"This book can drastically change the way you think about success...read it twice."
--Patrick Lencioni, author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Emotional Intelligence 2.0 succinctly explains how to deal with emotions creatively and employ our intelligence in a beneficial way."
--THE DALAI LAMA

"Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a fast read with compelling anecdotes and good context in which to understand and improve your score."
--NEWSWEEK

For the first time ever in a book, TalentSmart's revolutionary program helps people identify their EQ skills, build these skills into strengths, and enjoy consistent performance in the pursuit of important life objectives. The book contains proven strategies from a decade-long effort to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence. Trusted by upper-echelon leaders inside companies worldwide, these strategies will enable you to capitalize on the skills responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs.

Includes a passcode for online access to the world's bestselling emotional intelligence test, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, which will show you where your EQ stands today and what you can do to begin maximizing it immediately.

Rooted in sound research involving more than 500,000 responses, this new edition of the test will:

--Pinpoint which of the book's 66 emotional intelligence strategies will increase your EQ the most.

--Reveal the specific behaviors responsible for your EQ scores.

--Allow you to test yourself a second time to measure how much your EQ has increased from your efforts.

The book's smooth narrative style turns rigorous research into memorable stories and practical strategies that anyone can use to his or her advantage.

With 90% of top performers high in EQ, and EQ twice as important as IQ in getting where you want to go in life, who can afford to ignore it?

From the Back Cover

"Surveys of 500,000 people on the role of emotions in daily life have enabled the authors to hone EQ assessment to a 28-question online survey that can be completed in seven minutes."
--The Washington Post

"Read worthy strategies for improving emotional intelligence skills make this our how-to book of the week. It's nice to know that average IQ doesn't limit a person to average performance. And who can resist an online quiz with instant feedback?"
--Newsday

"Gives abundant, practical findings and insights with emphasis on how to develop EQ. Research shows convincingly that EQ is more important than IQ."
--Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"This book can drastically change the way you think about success...read it twice."
--Patrick Lencioni, author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

"At last a book that gives how to's rather than just what to's. We need no more convincing that emotional intelligence is at the core of life success. What we need are practical ways of improving it. Bradberry and Greaves brilliant new book is a godsend. It will change your life."
--Joseph Grenny, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Crucial Conversations

"Emotional intelligence is an extremely important skill for personal and professional success. This book is excellent and the learning included in the free online test is cutting-edge. I strongly recommend it."
--Ken Blanchard, bestselling business book author of all time; coauthor The One Minute Manager®

"I distributed the book to my entire team. We found it very helpful in our dealings with each other and our internal customers. With all the new buzzwords over the past few years, the heart and soul of a company's culture is how they support and promote emotional intelligence. Those with foresight see that emotional intelligence will separate the good companies from the great ones. This book is a wonderful tool for a grass roots approach. If your desire is to be a truly resonate leader that people will trust and follow, this is an opportunity that cannot only change your professional career, but also your personal relationships."
--Regina Sacha, vice president, human resources, FedEx Custom Critical

"In the fast lane of business life today, people spend more time on computer keyboards, blackberries and conference calls than they do in face-to-face communication. We're expected to piece together broken conversations, cryptic voicemails, and abbreviated text messages to figure out how to proceed. In this increasingly complex web, emotional intelligence is more important than ever before. This book is filled with invaluable insights and information that no one can afford to ignore."
--Rajeev Peshawaria, executive director, Goldman Sachs International

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves are award-winning authors and the cofounders of TalentSmart®, a consultancy that serves more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies and is the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training.

Their bestselling books have been translated into 28 languages, and are sold in more than 150 countries. Drs. Bradberry and Greaves have written for, or been covered by: Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., US News & World Report, Newsday, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 255 pages
• Publisher: TalentSmart; Har/Dol En edition (June 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974320625
• ISBN-13: 978-0974320625
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (180 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Business & Investing > Skills
  • #16 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Motivational
  • #17 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations

More About the Author

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning coauthor of the #1 best selling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart®--a consultancy that serves more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies and is the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training. His new book is Leadership 2.0.

His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

Dr. Bradberry is a world-renowned expert in emotional intelligence who speaks regularly in corporate and public settings. Example engagements include Intel, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Fortune Brands, Boston Scientific, the Fortune Growth Summit, The Conference Board: Learning from Legends, the American Society for Training and Development, the Society for Human Resource Management, and Excellence in Government.

Dr. Bradberry holds a Dual Ph.D. in Clinical and Industrial-Organizational psychology. He received his bachelor of science in Clinical Psychology from the University of California - San Diego.

His company website is TalentSmart.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

375 of 396 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal Book! January 19, 2011

By David Anderson

Format:Hardcover

I read the authors' first emotional intelligence book, and I think that 2.0 is a huge improvement. Here's a chapter by chapter look at why:

FOREWORD BY PATRICK LENCIONI
Lencioni is one of those gurus that has sold millions of books, none about emotional intelligence (EQ). As Lencioni proclaims in the foreword, he's no EQ expert, but he sees everyday how critical a skill it is to have and he's so enthusiastic about this book because it's the first he's read that actually shows you how to increase your EQ and apply it in your life.

THE JOURNEY
This chapter opens with a riveting story of a surfer who is attacked by a great white shark in California. I won't spoil it by telling you how, but the story is a great illustration of the power of emotion and how important it is to understand and manage our emotions. This chapter also illustrates how our brains are wired to react to events emotionally before our reason kicks in, and it lays the groundwork for the process by which the rest of the book will teach you to increase your EQ.

THE BIG PICTURE
This chapter teaches what EQ is and what it isn't. For example, a lot of people mistakenly think that EQ is a part of your personality. To the contrary EQ is separate from your personality, just as it is separate from your intellect, or IQ. It begins to build your understanding of emotions by showing what the five core emotions look like in varying degrees of intensity. Next the authors fun and engaging approach explains studies that illustrate how important EQ is in daily living. They show how your EQ impacts things like your tolerance for change, how you manage stress, even how much money you make!

-DIGGING IN: MY EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ACTION PLAN-
If you haven't already, by this point in the book you need to open the orange envelope inside the back cover and retrieve the unique passcode that lets you go online to take the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal test. I'd actually heard of this test (it's the most widely used EQ test out there), so I thought it was pretty cool that they let you take it for free with the book. In addition to revealing your EQ scores, your test results guide you through the areas you need to work on improving the most. This chapter helps you to develop your plan of attack, including the action plan where you actually record what it is your going to do and by when.

-SELF-MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES-
(ACTUALLY THERE IS A CHAPTER OF STRATEGIES FOR EACH SKILL, BUT I'LL JUST DESCRIBE THIS ONE)
This section of the book has 66 strategies to increase your EQ. Each strategy is well-detailed (most 2-3 pages) and something that you can begin doing immediately. Your test results tell you which EQ skill you need to work on the most (for me it was Self-management), as well as which of the chapter's strategies will increase your ability in that skill the most. I thought this part was pretty cool. Basically, the test analyzed my score profile and picked the three strategies that would improve my biggest weaknesses in self-management. One of the strategies it suggested, Breathe Right, hit the nail on the head. I'm not one of these people that needs to take a deep breath to calm down and stop being angry, which is good because that's NOT what the strategy is teaching. Actually, it illustrates how some of us, when left to our own devices, breathe too shallow, which deprives some of the higher (rational) areas of the brain of the oxygen needed to keep us completely calm and focused. So now, whenever I need to clear my head, think on my feet at work, make a tough decision, figure out what I should get my wife for her birthday, etc. I use this breathing strategy, and I'm continually amazed by how quickly it makes me calm and focused. Anyway, that's just one self-management strategy, but I thought it'd be useful for you to see what one is like in detail.

-EPILOGUE--JUST THE FACTS: A LOOK AT THE LATEST DISCOVERIES IN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE-
This epilogue is quite interesting. The authors' company is a think tank that has tested more than half a million people worldwide, and they share some of the more interesting conclusions from their data that didn't show up earlier in the book. For example, women outscore men in overall EQ, but the sexes have an equal ability in self-awareness (men fall short because they do less with the emotional information they take in). Anyhow, there are studies of EQ differences across various generations (Boomers vs. Millenials is really interesting), in different job titles (CEO's have the lowest EQ in the workforce!), and even US vs. China (our new, big economic competitor).

-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR READING GROUPS-
This last appendix has some great questions for discussion. I'm not in a book club, but my wife read the book and we talked about some of these questions and it led to some really interesting discussions.

131 of 150 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding March 6, 2010

By Matthew J. Baier

Format:Hardcover

I was very impressed with this book. It's the first I've seen that actually shows you how to increase your emotional intelligence, rather than just explaining what emotional intelligence is. It's filled with strategies to increase each of the four emotional intelligence skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. I found the strategies very helpful, particularly because the books gives access to an online test that (based upon your results) tells you which strategies will increase your EQ the most.

The authors use excellent anecdotes to illustrate various concepts, and their research is compelling and original. Some of the information on emotional intelligence and job title (e.g. CEOs have the lowest EQs in the workforce, on average), is very revealing. My favorite anecdote in the book is the riveting story of a surfer who survives a run in with a 5,000 pound great white, by using his emotional intelligence.

All in all, an outstanding read that's a great value at $13!

80 of 94 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good reinforcement, but seems Shallow March 1, 2010

By V. DAVE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read their Quick handbook on EQ and loved that book, it was an eye opener. When i picked this book i was looking for a step forward and concrete action items to improved EQ. While i like the book and there is an online password that lets you get your EQ score, i think the tips on improving EQ are a little shallow.

The author talks about 4 parameters that influence EQ: Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. This is all good but then the tips on its improvements are really a list of action items but only a page or 2 on each action item, which to me is shallow. There should be more detailed plan on improving EQ with stories etc to support it.

The foreward calls for reading this book twice, lets see if my opinion defers 2nd time around.

Thanks.