This podcast from Adam Grant with Merve Emre offers a different take on emotional intelligence / emotional quotient than i have encountered before.
She outlines how EQ is a form of corporate control (since it’s approval or disapproval of certain emotional states… but listen to it and decide for yourself!).
the very close relationship between jobs that require communication, that require the demonstration of care, I would point out the close relationship between those jobs and gender…
For me, it feels really difficult to separate out some of the claims we want to make about individuals and their, say, natural aptitudes for things like flexibility or empathy, and larger theories or ideas about gender, and who it is that we expect to have those kinds of capacities.
[In Goleman’s book Emotional INtelligence, published in the 90’s] people living in abject poverty or the effects of people having really, really unequal access to resources like legal assistance, mental health care, education, et cetera, were being taken by Goleman in order to yield these parables of individuals who had simply failed to control themselves. Then how those examples were being countered with what I take to be essentially a kind of loosey goosey self help regime that Goleman is elaborating about how you need to control your temper and how you need to manage your own emotion.It seems to me that if you can convince your employees to control themselves, to control their emotions, then one thing it does is that it completely represses any sort of resentment they might have toward the conditions in which they have to work, including the conditions in which their psychological wellbeing or their self comportment is made available for profitability.
(Adam) Especially over the past year during the pandemic, I have been deeply disturbed by the fact that so many organizations said, “Okay, you know what? We’re obviously in a difficult situation right now. We’re going to train you in emotional intelligence. We’re going to teach you to manage all your stress,” as opposed to saying, “You know what? Maybe this is the right time to finally fire some abusive bosses and start eliminating oppressive rules and stop micromanaging people.” It seems like emotional intelligence training is often used as a band aid, and what we need to do actually is cure a sick culture.
Merve emre in conversation with Adam Grant on his podcast
Well worth a listen.
